Please Stop the Gender-Baiting

Has anyone else noticed that whenever certain people – and by “certain people” I mean certain feminist internet “journalists”, bloggers, and YouTube celebrities – speak, they speak as if every single issue contains a component of male vs. female and then proceed to tell you how its all part of the “war on women?”

Am I the only person who has noticed this?

Its almost as if they are in a contest with each other to see who can generate the most inter-gender division. The goal seems to find the most outrageous way you can frame a narrative in order to make it absolutely about how the world is out to get women always, every time, regardless of what the specific issue actually happens to be. This seems to be a very popular method of talking to people, and I am constantly seeing more and more supposedly “mainstream” journalists, commenters, and talking heads beginning to follow this same route. Up to – and including – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton engaging in this same tactic at one point.

Honestly, what does it take to honestly see every single issue, every single event, every single thing in the world as being a part of the so-called “war on women?” What kind of special type of stupid does it take to hold this attitude? But the attitude is held nevertheless. I've actually had one of these people tell me, with a straight face, that “everything is misogyny.”

In a world where – supposedly – everything is misogyny, is anything really misogyny? Do they really believe this horse shit? Even more important, are the various non-involved masses who hear them talking buying into it?

If a man disagrees with this sort of absolute stance on misogyny – if he believes that catcalling, just to pick one issue out of the air, is subjective and that what one person might consider offensive and/or threatening might not be seen as offensive or threatening to another person, for example – he will inevitably be met with comments like, “You're such a misogynyst! You're talking about something you know nothing about! How dare you think you should have an opinion! Stop mansplaining!” Even if he has real world examples with which to support and validate his perspective, the people pushing the “everything is misogyny” party line will paint the man's viewpoint and statements as just another part of the “war on women”. No matter how right he is, he is wrong because he's male. And how dare he disagree in the first place, because only misogynists would dare disagree.

I am proud to say that I have female friends who think objectively as opposed to blindly falling in line with “the Sisterhood” that demands all women adhere to the “everything is misogyny” party line just because they are female. They are willing to logically analyze the arguments as presented and quite honestly have often disagreed with this attitude on the basis of fact rather than adherence to dogma.

The fact that not all people – men or women – use this same logical, reasonable process in thinking when it comes to gender issues is a damned crying shame. Instead, every single day there seems to be a widening division occurring between men and women, as if we were each other's enemies.

Women are not the enemy of men. The very idea is stupid.

So why do we allow these people to continue perpetuating the constant division between the genders?

Why?

By allowing these people to get away with perpetuating such a lie, their message spreads. It begins to seep into the consciousness of our children, which is why you have so many young girls today believing that rape is an act that all men everywhere are rapists just waiting for the chance to attack and violate a woman. That women must be on guard against men 24 hours a day, seven days a week lest they become victims of violence.

There is an interesting fact that these gender-baiters fail to mention, because they know this will undermine the paranoid bullshit they are promoting, and ought to nullify their agenda of dividing men and women into armed camps opposed to one another.

Simply put, men are four to five times as likely to be victims of violence than women are.

This nonsense has to stop. It has to stop. We as a society cannot afford to allow it to continue. I genuinely believe this this sort of thing is a form of brainwashing. It does nothing to help when it comes to solving the honest problems facing men and women. All it does is get us at each other's throats, and that helps no one.

If you want to have a conversation about gender and gender-based discrimination – whether the victim of the discrimination is male or female – then by all means go for it. Such conversations need to happen. But gender-baiting puts a stop to the discussion before it begins, and does more harm than good.

Idiot Men and Wise Women

Consider your average commercial.

As the scene opens, some moronic clown of a man, usually a husband, is struggling to figure out how to do some basic task correctly and is failing miserably. It doesn't really matter what he's doing (laundry, sweeping, doing the dishes, even something as simple as eating lunch...), he's doing it wrong.

But don't worry about him, he's covered! For sure enough, an all-knowing woman (usually his wife but sometimes his co-worker) is there to pull his bacon from the fire. Rolling her eyes and shaking her head in pity, she saves the idiot of a man before he utterly ruins everything. And of course the product being peddled is usually part of the solution. And afterward, the all-wise woman gathers with some of her fellow women (all of whom are wise) and has a nice laugh about the guy, who can be seen in the background messing something else up.

And, by the way, did I mention that the man is stupid?

And of course we’re all supposed to laugh: “Ha, Ha, Ha look at that stupid guy. What an idiot! Good thing all that women were around, right? Because men can't be trusted to breathe and chew gum at the same time without messing it up!"

Now, sometimes there is a variant of this commercial in which it is a pack of children, almost always led and spoken for by a girl, who are the all-wise rescuers of the helpless idiotic father figure. They (the children) step in with the product and save the day.

You know, I have no idea who these people are trying to sell things to, but I know its not me, because commercials like this tend to make me boycott those products. I refuse to give my money to any company that, in their commercials, says to me "Buy our product, you stupid schmuck!"

Now, this is not to say I lack a sense of humor or I lack the ability to laugh at myself from time to time, but I have to tell you, after the thirtieth or fortieth time in a single day I see the "Idiot Man/Wise Woman" style of commercial, I'm tired of laughing and am getting irritated about what is clearly a problem.

You see, I think these commercials are actually hurting our society. They are helping to promote and continue the sexist (not to mention false) attitude that men are all incompetent doofuses who need someone smarter and wiser (not to mention female) to watch over/control/guide them before they hurt themselves or someone else.

Even worse, what are these commercials teaching to children? From what I can see, they're teaching children (especially male children) that adult men are idiotic, crude, foolish, lustful, and untrustworthy. A steady diet of disrespect for a single gender served up in commercials that adult men (especially their own fathers) are to be laughed at, abused, and generally disrespected.

What a healthy message to teach any child, much less a young boy. How does constantly being told that when he grows up, a boy will be a man who is lazy, unfaithful, inappropriate, rude, addicted to beer, unclean and unkept, inattentive, addicted to beer, and an utter moron help that boy become a decent human being?

The "men are idiots" message in these commercials might have a certain humor about it (it is fun to make light of the honest differences between men and women, after all) but in the end, its not the attitude we need to be cultivating. Women do owe men respect, if only as fellow human beings, in the same way that men owe women respect.

Constant ridicule of one segment of society is not helpful for anyone.

I've spoken on this subject before and people have responded with "Yeah, well, its just a joke." Yeah, well, its not funny anymore. One woman told me that "These commercials reflect our culture." Really? You mean to tell me that you think the men in your life (your fathers, your husbands, your sons, and your friends) are truly like this? That they are all idiots and morons who can't be trusted to tie their shoes correctly? What a wonderful opinion you have of them.

Try reversing the roles in these commercials and making the women the butt of the joke and see how funny you think they are after the twentieth time you see women depicted like that. See how soon you decide to boycott the product they are selling in the commercial.

Commercial advertisement, like all forms of public media, not only reflects our common culture but helps shape it. So I ask one more time, how does all this negativity toward men and boys affect the public perception of male human beings in general? I can't see it affecting them in any way but harmfully.

The truth is that its not just the commercials.  There are almost no healthy, balanced portrayals of men in our current popular culture. Its not just the morons displayed in the commercials, its the fact that men are generally portrayed as over-aggressive, overly violent, crude, dirty, and hyper-sexualized. In popular media, the "heroes" are often amoral, out of control, and bordering on criminal when they aren't seen as unintelligent, weak, and ineffectual.

None of which helps anyone become good, caring, attentive, and most importantly responsible husbands and fathers.

NAFALT!

You know what I hear when a feminist tells me that not all feminists are like that (NAFALT)? Here's what I hear:

"Hey, I know we feminists are all on the same team, and wear the same 'uniform', and I know how even moderate feminists give tacit approval via their silence (and strength in numbers) to the radicals, but that doesn't mean you can paint us all with the same brush.  I mean, I know some of us are actively throwing our fathers, sons, and brothers under the bus, and I know some of us are actively taking away the basic legal rights of men, dehumanizing men, and demolishing their futures.  I know some of us are manipulating the system so it benefits women and demolishes men.  And I know that in addition to the ones doing active harm to men, there are a whole other bunch of us cheering them on from the sidelines. But not all of us are like that. Some of us stand around and do nothing but telling men who complain about the treatment those other feminists are giving them that not all of us are like that."

Believe it or not, I realize that, technically at least, not all feminists are like that. Feminists, like all human beings with a dogma, exist on a spectrum of belief like anything else. A few feminists, I am sure, believe as I do. They are truly egalitarian and are interested in things like a level playing friend before the law for everyone regardless of gender. The majority are only mildly toxic and self-serving in their rhetoric, agenda, and notions of female superiority. But the level of toxicity landslides quickly until you get to some truly evil, deranged people who are authentically calling for the mass murder (or at least the mass castration) of men. Rather than telling me that "not all feminists are man-haters, you'd be more accurate to tell me that not all feminists are actually interested in anything remotely resembling gender equality. Most feminists (especially most vocal feminists) absolutely believe they are egalitarian, but when push comes to shove they really, really aren't. And that's the problem, because these people are capable of justifying and promoting almost any sort of anti-male prejudice under the banner of "equality" in the same way that conservatives twist the words "liberty" and "freedom" in their rhetoric. When you scratch the surface of even the most reasonable feminist, what you find is some combination of gynocentrism, essentialism, misandry, and in some cases even misogyny. You find beliefs of female superiority and unchecked female privilege, none of which are compatible with the idea of "equality". That's what mainstream feminism is. That is what it has become. Once upon a time, I considered myself a feminist. Unfortunately the contradictions, fabrications, the fact-spinning, the outright disregard for the lives of men (except as they exist as privileged oppressors), and to put it bluntly the outright hate finally convinced me to separate from that movement. It convinced me that Feminists are no different from fundamentalist Christians in their inherent persecution complex and self-righteousness. Feminism offends my sense of what is objectively true, and I value objective truth more than I do subjective truths any day. Women only determine half of all subjective truth, and for that half to be imposed on men is not "equality". I still believe in the ideas that led me to feminism in the first place, but the movement itself no longer does so. And yes, I have "educated" myself, thanks. A far higher proportion of feminsts are "like that" than men are rapists, but this doesn't stop feminists from tarring all men with a broad brush that asserts that all men are potential predators. Male rapists do not represent, act on behalf of, or even claim to act on behalf of all men any more than female rapists represent all women. These vocal, hate-filled feminists, on the other hand, do claim to represent Feminism as a whole (and by extension, claim to represent all women, everywhere, because they can't tell the difference between "Feminism", a political movement that includes both men and women, and "Women" a demographic containing, for the most part, the genetically female population) These are not just a few bad apples in the barrel who are useful for stereotyping and demonization, like the rapists you use to demonize all men. These are your spokespeople. These are your heroes. These are the people you rally around. So do not begin to talk to me about how "not all feminists are like that." Conceded. I'll admit that not all of you are, in fact, like that. My point is this: so the fuck what. When the radicals are the ones driving the bus, the radicals are the ones deciding which way you're going. And lady, they're taking you with them because you refuse to get off the damned bus.

The Breaking of a Myth

Common wisdom says that men commit the overwhelming majority of rapes.

Common wisdom is wrong.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2013 (figures for 2014 have not been tabulated yet) there were 1,270,000 reported rapes in the United States.  I say "reported rapes" because only 22% of them were actually determined to really be rapes.  The rest were either proven to not have been rapes or else were not proven one way or the other.


But here is where it gets interesting:  In 2013, in addition to the 1,270,000 reported rapes, there were 1,268,000 reported cases of "made to penetrate."


Don't know what "made to penetrate" means?  That's okay, you're not alone.  Most people don't know what "made to penetrate means."


Here's the deal:  "made to penetrate" is what the people at the Centers for Disease Control and the US Department of Justice call it when a woman rapes a man.


The reason they call it "made to penetrate" instead of "rape" is because the National Organization for Women spent close to $15,000,000 putting political pressure on the government to change the official definition of "rape" so that instead of just meaning "forced sex that occurs against the consent of one of the parties", it means specifically "penetration of the vagina or anus by a body part or foreign object."


Highly convenient, isn't it, that this immediately removed most of the occurrences of rape that women were responsible for?  Oh sure, women do still commit rape, but now its only "rape" when they use a body part (like a finger, I suppose) or a foreign object (like a vegetable, or a bottle, or a dildo) to penetrate someone else's vagina or anus.  And the other kind of female-instigated rape, the kind where a woman forces a man to penetrate her, is no longer considered rape.


When the government reports rape statistics, they don't include "made to penetrate" cases.  "Made to penetrate" is included under the category "other types of sexual assault."  This lets feminists say, with a straight face, that men commit the overwhelming number of rapes.


But the numbers do not lie.  In 2013, there were 2,538,000 reports of rape (a number arrived at by adding together both the official number of rapes and the official number of "made to penetrate" cases), and women were responsible for almost half of these rapes, which they committed against men.


Don't believe me?  Here... have a graphic.  This was taken from the US Justice Department's own website.

The difference between the number of rapes and the number of "made to penetrate" cases was only 3000 reports.

Of course, the last thing any feminist wants to admit is that women commit rape at the same rate as men.  Because that destroys the myth of rape culture and the myth of patriarchy.

The Tipping Point

As time has gone on its become more and more obvious that the word is out about the Feminist Movement, and no matter how much they want to , they will not be able to shove the genie back in the bottle.

More and more people are coming to be aware that modern Feminism is not the solution, it is the problem, and these people are talking about it, loudly and publicly, in greater and greater numbers. And trust me, these people are not pleased and they aren't afraid to say so. Granted, this trend has gone unnoticed by mainstream media, but the blind dedication to the “Feminist narrative” from the mainstream media is beginning to look suspiciously like the old-boys neighborhood covering their asses. Of course, Feminism is still a sacred cow for many people. That said, it is only a matter of time before the critical number of anti-Feminist dissidents find the nerve to desecrate that sacred cow with gusto, in public, and in broad daylight.

The organized Feminist movement is well aware of this, and are well aware of how much of a threat to their political and financial power, their Party Line, and their ability to manipulate other people for their own advantage. So they have reason to be afraid of the dissident movement, and what they fear the most is the number of dissidents reaching the tipping point. This tipping point is the moment in time when non-feminists are so numerous and no vocal and so informed that they are capable of making political and economic changes to the current narrative. Its when the dissidents have the strength in numbers to openly voice, en-mass, their disgust with the modern Feminist movement.

When the non-feminist tipping point is reached, a counter-feminist culture that constantly questions and criticizes the modern, anti-male sexist narrative promoted by the modern Feminist movement will spread across public awareness to the point that it merges with the culture at large.

On that day, Feminism loses the power of self-definition and it loses this power forever. The world will be telling Feminism what Feminism is all about. They will no longer be able to hide behind a bogus dictionary definition. They will no longer be able to make bullshit claims that they are all about “gender equality” and will be exposed as the misandrists that they really are.

Quite understandably, the Feminist movement want to keep this from happening.

They are, in fact, terrified of it happening to the point that they'd basically do anything to prevent it. And we can summarize their primary method of preventing it with one word.

Isolation.

By which I mean that Feminism is trying to cast itself in the role of “the only gender equality movement anyone ever needs”, and as such, it is somehow empowered by a “manifest destiny” to take the reins of any discussion on gender-based issues. To prevent the inevitable loss of political and economic power, organized Feminism will brook no resistance to its dogma or its actions, regardless of how repulsive those actions and dogma happen to be. Everything outside of feminism is thus treated as either a space to be filled up with Feminism, or else a resource to be exploited by Feminism in some way or another.

It is thus the opinion of Feminism that everything that is not Feminism must be redefined so that they are only thought of in Feminist terms.

The non-vocal anti-feminists, those who agree that there are huge problems with the movement but who do not take steps to share their disagreement with it, they pose no current danger and thus are ignored. It is those people like me, those know-it-all, uppity, vocal anti-feminists, the ones who are already speaking out and damn the consequences, armed with facts and figures and statements that show that the modern Feminist movement is nothing but an anti-male hate machine, this means containment.

The challenge for Feminism being just how to go about this.

For years now, its been pretty easy. All the Feminists needed to do was weld the idea of anti-feminism (an opposition to a political movement) to misogyny (an opposition to a human demographic). Now, anyone with half a brain knows that a political movement is not the same as a human demographic, but what the fuck does organized feminism care about the truth. Hence, the idea of resistance to feminism became equivalent to misogyny in the minds of the naive and uneducated.

For instance, note the constant use of the term MRA (for “Men's Rights Activist”, someone who is concerned with male-oriented gender issues) as a coded substitute for the word “misogynist”. The implication being that no one can really give a shit about men, the rights of men, or the issues men face that women just do not face without hating and despising women. Its a subtle sort of brain-washing. You repeat a huge lie often enough, and people start to believe it, after all. As the Nazi's proved, humanity as a whole is prone to such mental conditioning.

Let's talk about Feminism and misogyny, shall we?

The modern Feminism movement does not actually give a shit about ending misogyny, or really doing anything about it. It just doesn't. It is of interest to them only because they can use the term as a weapon against their political enemies, and the only reason they continually talk about misogyny is because they are desperately trying to convince everyone that misogyny is the equivalent of anti-feminism.

Misogyny, you see, is of no threat to Feminism. Anti-feminism, on the other hand, absolutely is a threat to them and thus must be dealt with and dealt with in as definitive and final a manner as possible. Feminist containment strategy is to label all active anti-feminists (along with everything they say and do) as misogynist. However, only the anti-feminists are treated this way. The actual misogyny poses no threat to Feminism, and thus is never addressed. Its included in the Feminist reaction only in order to taint the anti-feminists.


The reaction from the naive public is thus to regard anything critical of feminism as “misogyny”, no matter how well-established, how factually based, or how TRUE. This is the reaction that organized Feminism is banking on, and they work very hard to encourage it.

Feminists thus group their legitimate critics with such actual misogynists as Marc Lepine, Rush Limbaugh, Darren Mack, greasy pick-up artists, random commenters, “manly-men,” teenage boys angry at teenage girls for breaking up with them, and online “harassment” by trolls who are just looking to stir the shit and really don't have any interest in hating women.

The legitimate anti-feminists, people like Warren Farrell, Janice Fiamengo, Carnell Smith, Monica Ebeling, Glenn Sacks, Erin Pizzey, Nadine Cross, Samantha Weissner, Trudy Schuett, Karen Straughan, Nick Reading, Sage Gerard, Adam Kostakis, and of course myself are all painted as misogynists by association because we threaten the feminist power structure. At the same time, sources of information like A Voice for Men, Misandry Awareness, and Help Male Victims are listed as “hate-groups.”

As I said earlier, they use the term MRA as code, meaning “misogynist”. They bleat on about “Patriarchy” and the “manosphere” and “rape culture”, knowing full well that none of those things really exist in this country. In the mouths of Feminists, these words are all code. They are figures of speech used to push the Big Lie.


The reality is more complex.


To a Feminist, the world is colored either black or white. To a Feminist, there is absolutely no difference between simply lacking a Feminist outlook and actively opposing it because both get in Feminism's way. To declare that you are merely not a Feminist is, in the eyes of Feminism, the same as actively working against the Feminist movement.


Against such people, the Feminist movement uses both direct and indirect aggression. With the direct aggression, such people know that they are under fire. They are publicly insulted and attacked. Even worse, they are threatened indirectly. “Keep your mouth shut or we will target you the same as any rapist woman-hater.” Because, in accordance with Feminist dogma, if you're not a Feminist you're a bigot. This intimidates most passive anti-feminists into remaining silent because they fear being tarred with the misogynist brush.

According to Feminist propaganda, by simply saying “I am not a feminist” you are mystically lumped into the same immoral grouping as real misogynists like Lepine or Limbaugh. Such is the libel which Feminism propagates in its drive to contain the anti-feminist tipping point.

The fact that Feminism has to resort to such cheap and criminal methods ought to make people think twice about Feminism as a matter of course. I mean, do we really need such bullies?

Reaching the tipping point is inevitable, but its not going to be easy. Many people who, at this point, still identify themselves as Feminists, will have a hard time accepting that the Feminist movement is essentially rotten to the core and utterly irrecoverable. They still believe in the ideals of Feminism – Hell, I still believe in the ideals of Feminism – and thus will have a hard time accepting that the movement that supposedly supports those ideas has gone bad.

But it has.

The ideals are all very laudible and worthy of preservation, but the movement itself has gone off the rails. And its way past time that we all start talking about it.

Bad Comedy: Conservatives and Small Government, Part 2

In my earlier blog, "Bad Comedy:  Conservatives and Small Government", I restricted my thoughts on conservatives and big government to the corporate conservatives, the rich and powerful among us for whom greedily grabbing up as much cash as possible from as many sources of possible is a reason to exist.

But now let me turn to the other type of conservative who, even though they aren't overly-entitled and all about business, would like to severely limit the government's ability to protect the common people just as badly as the corporates.  I'm talking about the social conservatives.

It's weird, but the truth is that the social conservatives are mostly blind to the hijinks that their corporate colleagues are up to.  It's a case of the left hand having no idea what the right hand is up to.  The social conservatives assume, for some bizarre reason, that the billionaire wing of the conservative cause is filled with fellow social conservatives who just happen to be rich.  Not true, but there's no telling them that.  You see, the social conservatives are too busy concentrating on their own idea of government to worry about what the billionaire's are up to.

The social conservatives idea of government has a name.  That name is "theocracy."

What the social conservatives want is a government so "small" that it can sneak into your house through a keyhole, then float into your living room, your bedroom, your bathroom, your hospital room, your library, or wherever free thought and freedom of action might be hiding and kill it.  The social conservatives want the government to grab you by the scruff of your neck and lay down the law to you.  They want the government to tell each and every single one of you how to live your life.

And no, we're not talking about telling you to put on a seat belt while driving, or to not drink until you're 21 or how you have to install wheelchair ramps at your business.  This is nothing so harmless or benign as the so-called "nanny state."

No, this is closer to the "ayatollah state."

This is the big stuff.

These conservatives want to force you to follow their particular brand of religion, their particular brand of patriotism, their particular political ideals, and their particular concept of conformity.  They want to tell you which books you can and cannot read.  They want to tell you which movies and television shows you can watch.  They want to tell you which music you can listen to.  They want to tell you who you can and cannot have sex with (and in some cases, they want to tell you what actions and techniques you're allowed to use while having sex, not to mention whether or not you are allowed to use birth control).

Naturally, doing this sort of dogmatic control over society requires a very big government.

Theocratic America would, effectively, be a police state.  And this is fitting, seeing how much social conservatives absolutely love a huge military, plus lots of police officers, sheriff's deputies, marshals, border guards, FBI agents, and even Texas Rangers.  They think that its never a bad idea to have a posse waiting just off-stage, ready to chase down a n'er-do-well at a moment's notice.  After all, you never know when some of those godless non-conformists might get uppity.  Which is why most social conservatives support the Patriot Act, which allows spying on American citizens without a warrant, and holding suspects for months without charge (and if they are "terror suspects", holding suspects indefinitely not only without charge, but without aid of counsel, either).  These civil rights violations are all perfectly legitimate in the minds of social conservatives.

Similarly, social conservatives are really huge when it comes to the idea of punishment.  They are almost hoping you do something that breaks the code of conformity so they can call down the full force of law on you and force you back into the tiny little mold they have prepared for you.  These conservatives want the government to poke and pry and intervene in the most private aspects of your life, and then lower the boom if they find anything that even hints at you not following their rules.

They believe that their morality should be the state morality.  They believe that they -- and only they -- should have the power to determine whether it is legal or illegal for you to enter the country, stay in the country, get a job, vote, build a church (if you follow the same religion as they do, okay; if you don't, forget it), wear a head scarf, smoke pot, learn about science (especially evolution), make the art you're inspired to create, allow your brain-dead family member to die with peace and dignity, allow yourself to die with peace and dignity in the face of a painful and terminal illness, have an abortion, or get married.

And if you do anything they deem illegal, you're dragged to the courthouse where a judge sits in front of a huge representation of the Ten Commandments will oversee your case.  If you're a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh, a Shinto, an aboriginal or tribal, an agnostic, or worst of all an atheist, you shouldn't hold your breath when it comes to getting a fair and impartial trial in this theocratic police state.

That is the wet dream of the social conservatives.  And it would be impossible without big government.  The wars waged by social conservatives on immigration, women' rights in general and specific, abortion, science, civil rights for minorities, the LGBT community, the atheist community, artists, actors, writers, musicians, video game manufacturers, and anyone else they don't like are the most visible symptoms of what kind of big government the social conservatives want to impose.

They want big government to put big restrictions on all of these, and they want those restrictions written into law.  Preferably, they want them written into the US Constitution and forever after enforced by the great big theocratic police state.

Let me tell you a story that reveals, in my opinion, a perfect insight into the true agenda of the social conservatives.  It is a stunning portrayal of the social conservative's notions of "small government" in action.  This is the story of Michael Schiavo and his wife, Terri.

Terri Schiavo collapsed with a heart attack on February 25th, 1990, while she was in her Saint Petersberg, Florida, home.  She was not discovered immediately, and unfortunately suffered massive brain damage due to lack of oxygen to her brain.  She spent two and a half months in a coma, and was then diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state.  The doctors did everything they could to rehabilitate Mrs. Schiavo, but were unable to change her condition.

In 1998, Michael Schiavo, her husband, petitioned the Sixth Circuit Court of Florida to remove Terri's feeding tube persuant to Florida law, allowing the body of his wife to pass away rather than linger as it was.  He was opposed by Terri Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, who argued that Mrs. Schiavo was actually conscious and responsive (despite doctors' statements to the contrary).  The court determined that Terri Schiavo had left instructions saying that she would not want to continue living under such circumstances, and her feeding tube was removed on April 24, 2001.

But then in swooped the conservatives, led by professional shit-stirrer Randal Terry.

Terry's hand-picked "experts" argued that Mrs. Schiavo's case might not be so helpless.  They insisted that they had a right to butt into this most painful and intimate family decision on behalf of Mrs. Schiavo's parents.  They talked about how Michael Schiavo had "betrayed" Terri by moving on with his life, and thus had no right to make such decisions (despite the fact that, under the law, he was the only person empowered to make such decisions).

The conservative-controlled Florida legislature quickly passed the so-called "Terri's Law," that allowed then-Governor Jeb Bush (younger brother of then-President George W. Bush) to intervene directly in the case.  He ordered Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted and sent state troopers to remove Terri Schiavo from her husband's guardianship.

A judge quickly struck down "Terri's Law" as unconstitutional.  The conservatives appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, where once again it was struck down.  Conservatives around the United States were absolutely outraged.  Not at this blatant case of big government interfering in the private life of a family, but by "activist judges" who wouldn't let the conservatives butt in.

(These activist judges were, by the way, just following the law.)

The affair went up the conservative chain of command, all the way to the Republican-controlled Congress and then-President George W. Bush.  Both Michael Schiavo and his wife, the persistently vegetative Terri Schiavo, were subpoenaed to testify before Congress!  Republican congressmen and senators had a grandstand-a-palooza, demanding the ability -- no, not the ability, the right -- to take control of the case out of the hands of the State of Florida and into their own.

So much for states rights, which is usually a standard fallback position for social conservatives when they can't get their way nationally, all the way back to when they refused to give up their ownership of slaves.  Congress passed a bill usurping Florida's jurisdiction, and George W. Bush flew back from vacation just to sign it.  So this was twice in this single case that social conservatives changed or created brand new laws giving them unprecedented power in order to pursue their need to impose their own sense of morality and justice on other people.

It was at this juncture that a private yet amazingly explosive memo was leaked to the press in which the leadership of the Republican party suggested that the Schiavo case offered "a great political issue" and that the Republican party could use it to "stick it to" the Florida Democrats.  Suddenly sympathy for those on the side of keeping the brain-dead Mrs. Schiavo alive seemed to fall off.  After "Terri's Law" was struck down and the US Supreme Court quite intelligently refused to get involved in the whole mess (unlike when they decided unilaterally who won the 2000 presidential election), again Jeb Bush ordered Florida state troopers to take Mrs. Schiavo from her husband's custody with the intention of spiriting her out of state.

No one has ever actually revealed where they were planning on kidnapping her to, but personally I suspect that she would have surfaced somewhere in Texas, a state where the Bush family has a metric fuck-ton of political power.

The Florida Supreme Court instructed the state police to stand down and ordered Governor Bush to shut up or be held in contempt.  Bush reluctantly, and with much gnashing of teeth, complied, though there was enormous pressure from conservatives in the state and elsewhere on him to just defy the law already and damn the consequences.

Shortly thereafter, Terri Schiavo was mercifully allowed to die, and the whole sordid affair came to a conclusion.

An autopsy later revealed that Terri Schiavo's brain was way too damaged and atrophied for any possible consciousness to have ever existed.  She really had been in a vegetative state all along.  The whole hullaballoo had been unnecessary and cruel.  And not only had the conservatives been shown to be wrong -- again -- they revealed precisely the lengths they would go to in order to stick their faces into other people's very personal, very private affairs.  They pulled every nasty trick in the book, hurriedly writing and passing new law and plucking the highest strings of government, from the president to the Supreme Court, in order to impose their very small version of morality upon a single innocent family.

This example should flash a warning to anyone who believes that social conservatives really want a "small government."  Because it is clear that their compulsion to govern the most private and personal aspects of our lives shows up in their beliefs concerning abortion, gay and lesbian rights, religious freedoms, science and art, and many other facets of our lives.  And the irony is that apparently social conservatives can't see how contradictory their own belief system is.

Recall that these same people are the ones who chirp the loudest about freedom and the rights of the individual and self-determination when it comes to their own affairs.  When its them, they want Big Government to keep its damned hands off.  But that goes out the window when they find out someone else isn't conforming to their narrow-minded views regarding proper behavior.  When that happens, they want Big Government to step in and shut that shit down.

Hypocrisy writ large.  Its sort of crazy, when you think of it.

So Sorry, But No.

"fem-i-nism"  the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.  Which means, ever so politely, you are incorrect.  Your strong belief in the right to political, social, and economic equality between men and women makes you a feminist.  Deal with it.
~ Mark Curlee

Mark Curlee, who is a friend of mine, hit me with this today over on Facebook.

No.  Sorry, still not a feminist.

Just because I believe in gender equality does not mean I have some sort of automatic membership in a divisive and harmful political doctrine whose actions do not live up to its own dogma.

I find too much about modern organized feminism -- the so-called "third wave" feminism -- offensive to want to associate myself with them.  I dislike how they cherry-pick the obvious outrages, like workplace harassment and rape, and then imply that we, men that is, are in favor of such things if we do not immediately fall into complete lockstep with them in every single particular.  Or if we don't start waving the feminist flag and cheering on the women who are loudly denigrating all men, everywhere, every chance they get.  Or, in this case, refuse to have a label imposed on us by others.

I have been wary of both the word feminism and the movement it is attached to.  Not because I am anti-woman, but because I am anti-hysteria.  I am opposed to overbearing, extremist fanatics.

The loudest, most visible, and most influential feminists today are the ones who make public statements that all men are predators.  That we, as a gender, are dangerous animals that need to be leashed and controlled because otherwise, no one would be safe from us.  I'm sorry, but why would I ever want to wear a label that said those sorts of things about me?

And its not just how they treat men.  I object to how feminism treats women who choose to take on the "traditional" woman's role of raising a family full time, or who take secretarial jobs.  Or any of a hundred other "traditional roles" that can be just as fulfilling as other jobs.  These women are called traitors and sell-outs and closeted self-haters.

I thought part of the point of feminism was to allow women more choices.  Apparently its only to allow them choices the third-wave feminists approve of.  Who'd have guessed.

And this is not just me talking.  This is why you seldom see accomplished women rushing to declare themselves feminist anymore.  Several high profile women who are at the top of their profession have refused the label because they don't want to be associated with the fanatics either.

For a long time, feminism has been one-sided.  Despite the dictionary definition Mark is so proud of, feminism ignores -- BLATANTLY IGNORES -- the way gender bias harms men, too.

You never hear feminists talk about the fact that our schools are punishing our male children for the crime of acting like boys.  Or how college enrollment among men is only 30% what it is for women.  Or how men commit suicide more often, or suffer more workplace deaths, or are homeless to the tune of 485% of the female homeless population.

Worst of all, feminism is hypocritically guilty of prejudice itself.  Men are stereotyped as the problem.  We are violent sex-crazed predators who are a potential harm to society as a whole.  Do you really want your sons growing up being told that all the time?  That just because of their gender, they are a menace to society?

I sure don't.

Most men oppose gender bias and the abuse of women.  I certainly do.  But to say I have to go about calling myself a "feminist" because of it strikes me as horribly self-righteous and judgmental.

Sort of like feminism itself.  Self-righteous and judgmental, I mean.

So sorry, but no.  I am not a feminist.  And I won't ever be one.

ADDENDUM

And less than 24 hours afterward, and in response to my explaining why I refuse to wear the feminist label, I get this sort of response:

Thank you for making it abundantly clear to anyone reading that you're just an woman-hating MRA who has absolutely no qualms about propagating the Big Lie technique.

So once again, you cannot criticize feminism without being declared a huge misogynist.  Quelle surprise.

Yes (but No) on Men's Issues

I've been pretty obvious in my campaign to raise awareness of men's issues, and I have to admit that I am pretty happy with what I've seen in reaction.  A lot of my friends tell me that they've never considered the points I bring up, and agree with me that something needs done.  And its not just with me and my friends.

In general, an awareness of men's issues is rising.  The unique problems faced by men and boys are being, at the very least, talked about more and more often in the public square without having someone start shouting about how men don't have issues and the only real issues are with women.  In addition, more and more people are realizing that there is something seriously wrong with modern feminism and that its time to try a different direction than what has been tried (and what has been failing) for the past 30 years or so.  This growth in awareness of men's issues isn't really surprising when you realize that there is a clear and logical basis for complaint about most of these issues, that "men's rights" isn't just code-word slang for "misogyny" no matter what the Tumblr feminists want you to believe, and that something really, really should be done about these problems.

Of course divorced fathers should get as much time with their children as the mothers get.  Of course men's health issues are just as important as women's health issues.  Of course male rape victims and male domestic violence victims should be treated with the same awareness and compassion as female victims.  Of course boys should be encouraged to pursue an education at least as much and as often as girls are.  Of course men should have equal access to birth control options as women.

But... unfortunately...  that's just about as far as it goes when it comes to actually doing anything about these issues.  Acknowledging that they exist.

When you stop talking about how these issues are problems, and start asking people what they are willing to do to correct these issues, a silence arises that is almost chilling.  Such discussions are invariably met with disappointing evasiveness from the rank and file.

You see, after that initial, vocal show of support, things get a little... problematic.

Nobody can argue with the logic that shows, clearly, that a particular men's issue is a problem.  Even those people who don't normally even consider that a campaign for men's rights is needed will agree, once the problem is explained, that yes, something definitely needs to be done about it.  People agree with this even if only so they don't look as foolish as someone who denies evolution or climate change.

So instead of openly disagreeing, these problem-deniers begin tacking on clauses and conditions to their agreement.  These pseudo-supporters will begin to add buts and ifs to their agreement.  Sure, they'll say, something needs to be done, but only in very specific ways.  In very specific, pro-feminist ways.

Take is idea of a paper abortion, for example.

A paper abortion would give a man the same right to knowingly terminate parental rights and responsibilities as women currently enjoy.  It would allow a man to disavow anything to do with an undesired child, just like the right to abortion does for a woman.  That's all.  It gives men the same freedom of choice in regards to becoming a parent that is currently enjoyed by all women in America.

When this issue is raised, most fair-minded people will agree that men shouldn't be forced into parenthood against their will.  What inevitably follows, though, is usually some variation of "... as long as it wouldn't allow men to duck out on their responsibilities."

And at that point, all meaningful conversation about the issue ends.  Reasonable discussion stops on a dime.

Most people, especially self-identified feminists, will politely agree that, yes, something needs to be done, and then will shut down the conversation with a tagged on condition that serves only to throw the issue into confusion and require finer and finer parsing of the legal details of just how such reform will be implemented.  Its a stalling tactic used solely to derail anything actually being done about an issue into an endless side argument on how something should be done.

This bureaucratic nonsense has left Family Law Reform languishing in stasis for years.  Most fair-minded people will agree that in today's court system, fathers get a raw deal in divorce and custody proceedings, and they will vocally agree that Family Law must be reformed, but they always agree with the addendum that the changes "shouldn't give custody to abusive fathers," even though its been pretty conclusively proven that less than 3% of all divorces involve domestic abuse, and that when it comes to child abuse, it is mothers who commit the majority of all child abuse in the United States (almost four times as many child abuse cases involve the mother as perpetrator as the fathers).

Whenever a reform of Family Law is broached in the public square, activists are cautioned to slow down and move carefully lest they overstep and put children at risk.  Again, this is a bureaucratic tactic meant to divert attention from a real problem and onto phantom problems like the dangers of giving children to illusory "abusive" fathers who do not truly exist.

For the record, the "real problem" is the fact that men are being treated unfairly by family courts, remember?

Its fear-mongering, and that's all.  But then, fear-mongering is the traditional defense feminism uses against men's rights.  They don't provide actual counter-arguments.  Just boogeymen hiding under the bed.  As in, "If you change this law, which everyone knows is unfair and discriminatory, the boogeyman will get you!"

If this is the best counter-argument to reform that organized feminism can come up with, then organized feminism's position is obviously paper thin.  There is no viable counter-argument, and so organized feminism has to resort to stalling tactics, and shaming tactics, and to slowing down progress with needless objections.  Its little more than the social reform version of filibustering.

Would a poorly written Paper Abortion law occasionally allow deadbeats to abuse the system?  It is possible.

Would a badly implemented Family Law system occasionally reward abusive fathers?  That is also possible.

My question in response is this:  So what?

The existence of the occasional asshole is no reason to refuse to install a Paper Abortion law that would assist those millions of men who aren't deadbeats, or to reform Family Law in such a way that it makes things fair for all those fathers who aren't abusive jackasses.  Repeatedly raising these false concerns does nothing but harm men who have done nothing to earn being harmed other than being born male.

Blocking social reform with cries of concern over the fallout of that reform is the traditional weapon of those too entrenched in their own privilege.  People who raise such quibbles may not openly oppose men’s rights, but they are not true supporters and will continue to drag their feet every step of the way.