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Jan 19
2009
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Is The Men's Rights Movement Really About Family Rights?Posted by: Rick Ortiz on Jan 19, 2009   |
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A movement toward something is just as much a movement away from something. And the reverse would also apply. The topic of Men's Rights is one that most of our readers have probably bumped into while browsing related topics or discovered in an abrupt and painful way, feeling as many of you do, that not only men's human rights, but by extension the human rights of coming generations are being violated.
I checked out IthacaMensRights.blogspot.com and landed on this post offering an interesting take on the problems with a Feminism that has lost its way.
It's an interesting question. Surely we can look at some pretty glaring numbers and see that overwhelmingly high rates of divorce initiated by women, overwhelmingly high numbers of women receiving primary custody of their children along with monetary support calculated and determined by questionable methods, high rates of failure of children in the academic system, child abuse, medication of children, and many other social ills seem to coincide with the systematic criminalization and taxation upon men.
Many of the Men's Rights blogs on the internet seem to point to evidence that not only are men doing badly these days in our culture, but that children are doing badly... families are doing badly.
And this seems to be mirrored in America's culture of divorce. To be blunt, the women are looking out for themselves and jumping ship, and the men are saying, but in order for this to float we all have to be on board with all of our resources going toward the success of our family. The men seem to understand that it takes an entire family and all its resources to move the family forward. If one member leaves, even if she takes the children, the unit is fractured.
This is of course not to suggest that men don't themselves break up marriages. But people recognized as Men's Rights writers and thinkers such as Warren Farrell seem to be trying to call attention that not only are women initiating the legal dissolution of a vast majority of marriages in America, they seem to be doing so with the unassuming blessings of our legal system, our political system, and even our populace. It seems as though most people in America who are not presently fighting to remain a part of their child's life don't realize that the deck is stacked. Most don't realize in fact that, all around them are factors that are destroying families by devaluing men and fathers.
Dr. Farrell, one of the great contemporary writers on the subject of Gender Relations, offers compelling reading not only because he is so grounded in research and documentation, not only because he makes his own discoveries and observations so plain for us to see, but perhaps because of his past. Dr. Farrell took an active role in supporting the Women's Movement, and his later realization that in an effort to support Women, Men and families suffered.
The blogs mentioned and linked to on this page are strong examples among many who seem to be pointing out that a kind of "mistaken feminism" often misplaces it's target (men in general) and is misjudging women to be its only victims. Yes, the Men's Movement seems to be concerned with the family than simply the rights of Men. The men's rights blogs I have found seem much less interested in blaming someone and more interested in pointing out that the whole ship is sinking and that if it does, we're all going to go down with it.
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and that sex, after all, was really the path of least resistance, because men literally would do ANYTHING to get it. And, so sprung the birth of 'modern' feminism. At the same time, feminism was teaching American society that ways had to found to not discriminate against women and blacks, etc. What this turned into, in fact, was a lowering of standards, and from that came legions of students, for instance, that weren't really qualified, but also couldn't be failed in our colleges and universities. Look at undergraduate tests written in the 1970s in say, chemistry, and compare them to those written today. Any professor who is old enough will tell you that almost none of his/her present students could pass, let alone, excel on the older tests. Yes, everyone should have a chance to EARN his or her way into the best possible programs (& be given every possible tool), but we skipped over that to just plain handouts. Now, 20 years later, few young people have the least inkling of the rigor that used to be involved in almost every aspect of life. As a college professor in the US, I couldn't mention right or wrong, moral or immoral, good attitude or bad attitude, or anything that might 'upset' anyone. I couldn't expect (let alone demand) hard work. If a student really, really did a bad job, then I could award a B+ (after having consulted with a supervisor). In short, we have more than a full generation of people who are very poorly equipped to actually DO anything, and basically NOT equipped to think critically at all--as a result wine and piss and moan their way through life. In the midst of this, both males and females are taught nothing about mature relationships, in large part, because their families are frequently fragmented. Due to this widespread ignorance, we have retrograded back to an arrested adolescence in which the foundation of our very culture, the family, is formed by using the 'she is pretty, and he has money' formula. Women, use their emotions and their vaginas like battle axes, so decisions in marriages get made on manipulation and threats, but rarely on reason. Few realize that decisions that get made based on sex will ultimately carry the resentment and rage that comes from being denied sex--whereas decisions made as mature people will not result in such resentment, but may result in a respectful disagreement. The former method (used in 99%$ of marriages now) will always result in divorce. The latter method will actually increase mutual respect and the very useful knowledge that we can't always have what we want, but sometimes that this self discipline is what we actually need. But, feminism marches on! Nothing will stop the sisterhood--not its INequality, not its unfainess, not the ruined lives of fathers or children, not fragmentation of families, not even the fall of the culture. NO, nothing will keep feminists from WINNING. I am ashamed of my own culture and fear, as others do, that the US will not remain as an intact culture. It has already started to happen. Mexico basically wants the Western region of the US to be 'returned' to them--has nothing to do with history, only to do with money. It may have been Milton who said, 'only a fool fights in a burning house', and our house is most definitely burning.