Masculism

[Tobias Reiper]

For 40 years, maybe more, we've been hearing about feminism. It came from a respectable background, namely women's suffrage, then evolved into equal pay for equal work. I don't know of any reasonable man who would have a gripe with either issue.

Eventually it mutated into something of a monstrosity, at its most benign turning trivialities into human rights issues (such as demanding women be allowed to go in public shirtless, which laws preventing it are hardly as oppressive as not being allowed to vote) and at its worse doing their best to turn men into second class citizens.

However, this thread isn't about bashing feminism. The current breed of feminist does such a good job of making themselves look bad that we don't have to lift a finger. This is about the fact that while everyone's focused on such idiotic matters as changing the ladies room signs to something other than woman in a skirt or as dangerous as making all restrooms unisex¹ the real inequalities not only aren't on the back burner, they're not even in the kitchen.

Most, though not all of these, pertain to parental rights. There are also a few issues regarding unequal protection under the law.

For example, a woman could break into my house tonight with a 9mm, hold it to my head, and demand that I perform various sexual acts on her or she'll kill me. If I call the police I may be able to have her charged with criminal trespassing, but legally there is no way I could have her charged with rape. It's physically possible for a woman to rape a man, but in the eyes of the law rape is a 100% male crime.

And to add insult to injury, if that same woman were to go to the police with my DNA on her and give them a convincing story I would be in custody waiting to be tried for rape, or she could use that same story to get a lighter sentence if I complied and she shot me anyway.

Granted it's very rare that a woman rapes a man, and those who say that there are no women who are psychologically capable of doing such a thing probably live with the belief that women can do no wrong, men can do no right, but it does happen and in those rare cases there's nothing the man can do.

Moving into civil law and inching toward parental rights, by law the burden of proof is on the person bringing forth the accusation. If a man is accused of murder he does not have to prove to the court that he is innocent. The prosecution must prove that he is guilty. Now the defendant may have to refute things that could convince a jury that he's guilty, but in the end the conviction depends on the ability of the prosecution to prove their case.

Similarly in civil court the plaintiff has to convince the court that the defendant did in fact do something that would merit compensation. Not so in paternity cases. I don't know if this holds true everywhere, but in my jurisdiction the cost of a court ordered paternity test falls on the man. He receives no compensation if the test shows he's not the father.

I'm familiar with the case of a man who, at the age of 19, had never so much as kissed a woman, let alone engage in activities that could result in pregnancy. A former classmate found herself in a family way and the man responsible disappeared when he found out. She thought he'd be an easy mark, so he found himself in court.

Legally the woman was the accuser so it was her responsibility to prove him to be the father, but he ended up paying for the $400 court ordered paternity test to prove his innocence.

An equitable solution would be to have the woman, the accuser, pay for the test and if shows that the defendant is the father add the cost of the test to his first child support payment, if not order compensation on the spot.

I guarantee if something like that were to go into effect there would be an outcry from various groups. "Those poor women are just trying to get child support from deadbeat dads. Why make them pay?" If they take the correct man to court they won't pay. Well, they will initially, but they'll get it back. The question "why make a man pay to prove he didn't get a woman pregnant" is just as valid.

Beside that, if a woman is with a man and gets pregnant if that's the only man she was with at the time and he's just accusing her of cheating on him odds are that test is going to show him to be the father. Under this model she would pay the initial cost, but he would be required to compensate her.

If she's been with so many men in that time frame that she's just going down the line hoping one of them will be ordered to pay child support or if she was having an affair then, at the risk of sounding calloused, she brought it upon herself.

Now obviously a man who would knowingly (i.e. he wasn't in what he thought was a monogamous relationship with her cheating on him) be with a woman of such loose moral fiber isn't a very sympathetic character, but it basically amounts to a fine for being with a woman who would later become pregnant, or was already pregnant, by another man. In the case I cited above it even turned out to be a fine for being accused of being with a woman.

Then there's the matter of "reproductive rights." The woman gets 100% of the power there. If I were to get married today and the consummation of the marriage were to result in pregnancy my wife could get an abortion before I even found out she was pregnant. If I already knew she was pregnant and I wanted to raise the child it wouldn't matter one bit. A wife doesn't need permission from her husband to get an abortion, no matter how he feels on the issue.

To top it off, if a man were to file for divorce because his wife aborted their child everyone would come down on him as if he were a tyrant disposing of a disobedient slave, not a father who was sending away the woman who put a hit out on his child. Apparently women have the right to terminate a pregnancy, but men don't have a right to leave a woman because she terminated a pregnancy.

Let's jump the fence for a moment and pretend that I support fetal murder. Let's say I didn't want that child born for financial reasons. That's not my call. I could shirk my responsibility, pack my bags, and hit the road but then there would be the issue of child support.

If I want to take responsibility for that child I have no say in the matter if the woman doesn't want to take responsibility. If the woman wants to take responsibility and I don't want to again I have no choice in the matter. She's not exactly a victim here because she knows the link between copulation and pregnancy yet she chose to engage in the former anyway, but my entire future is tied to a decision that I legally have no input on.

Now honestly there is no fair way for this to be resolved. As a proponent of the recriminalization of abortion on demand I don't think a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy to avoid responsibility, because birth control failed, or any reason short of the most dire circumstances (read 90% or greater chance of death as the result of the pregnancy) my opposition to the woman being able to terminate the pregnancy regardless of her husband's wishes has nothing to do with male rights, paternal rights, or anything related to that. It's based more on the child's right to life.

And I don't think a man should be able to get out of taking responsibility for a child he fathers. In fact, I feel the courts are too lenient on deadbeat dads as it is. I presented this point for two reasons:
A) Regardless of anyone's thoughts or feelings on the matter this is a masculist concern.
B) It illustrates a situation where two people are equally culpable, but the entire future of the man rests solely on the decision of the woman without any input required, and often not accepted, from the man.

Moving on to a situation where the life of the child was never at risk, men get the shaft when it comes to custody. Often they're granted visitation rights, but in a situation where the mother is abusive and the father wants custody out of concern for the child's welfare he's not going to get custody unless he can present a video tape of the woman beating the child or she hits the child right there in court.

And even then there's a possibility he won't get custody. The child may end up in foster care with the courts labeling them both unfit parents. The woman for the abuse, the man for allowing it to happen long enough to video tape it.

Unless the mother is known to the court as a meth addict it is virtually impossible to prove her to be an unfit mother.

Now in cases where the mother runs out on the children the man is considered an unfit parent by default. Many jurisdictions, upon learning a woman ran out on her husband and children, will send a social worker. They will generally inspect the home, but not until after the children are shuffled off to spend time as wards of the state. Now admittedly I may be generalizing here, as this may not hold true in all areas, but in this area once a woman's gone so are the children, whether she took them or not.

Usually the man spends so much fighting the state that by the time he convinces them that he's a fit parent he's so broke that they won't return the children because of financial reasons.

Contrast that with a man running out on his wife and kids. A social worker may get involved, but unless they're in a run down trailer with a bed sheet as a front door, meth cooking in the bathtub, and the children locked in closets the children typically stay in the home.

And let's not forget adoption. This isn't really a legal issue, as regulations vary by agency, but men don't stand a chance. A conversation I had with my lady led me to research adoption costs, and that led me to research requirements. That was a real eye opener.

It's common knowledge that single men can not adopt. That hasn't been an issue for years, mostly because it was assumed that singles couldn't adopt regardless of gender. That assumption was killed during my research.

One agency's site I came across (I don't recall the name, as I found it when googling adoption requirements and it will be a while before I reach the point where an agency will be required) said they will work with single parents. It's important to note they phrased it as "single parents.

Scrolling down the page they later said that they will not consider applications from single men. Deception aside, the implication is that a single woman adopting is ok, but there's not a man out there competent enough to raise a child without a woman.

Not that I think allowing singles to adopt is a good idea. There are circumstances that lead to a single parent household, such as divorce, military deployment (not really a single parent situation, but the deployed spouse can be gone for two years, sometimes longer), the death of a spouse, etc. but given the number of married couples applying for adoptions there's really no reason to consider placement in single parent homes. It's just another example of the mentality that women can do everything men can but men can't do anything a woman can.

It could be argued that children are better off raised by a woman, but the LGBT community says otherwise, given the fact that those same agencies are required to allow gay couples to adopt.

So let's see if we can untangle all of this. Single women are allowed to adopt. Single men are not, presumably because children need a woman in their life, yet sons of Sodom are allowed to adopt, and no matter how effeminate one or both of them are that's still not a female caretaker. Makes perfect sense.

I've been typing for a while, so while I'm in the mindset that will allow me to understand the logic of the agencies I'm going to take a break and go outside to see if I can catch the brightly colored cubes pouring out of the cosmic pie tin.

Okay, I'm back. Now that I've gotten out of the agencies' mindset and back into that of a normal person I shall continue.

The final issue, for the moment, is that everyone's of the mindset that if a child doesn't have a mother he might as well be an orphan. I know I said earlier that the concerns of the masculist are legal equality, but this is a social concern that must be addressed.

I suppose they're right to distrust men with children. After all, there was a guy in this area who got plowed and tried to sleep with his 13 year old daughter, the kid who almost literally beat his infant son to death, and the guy who threw his son in the creek and claimed he was kidnapped.

Oh, I almost forgot a woman in my region who set fire to her six month old son, resulting in his death after a week in critical condition, a woman who was accused of trying to drown her two year old step-son in a pond, Andrea Yates, a British woman who killed her son after her sex offender husband was arrested (I'm unable to provide links to the local stories because doing so would give more information about where I'm located than I'm willing to give online), the San Antonio woman who used her oven to gas her children, and the list goes on.

So yeah, that's about right. Women are infallible when it comes to child rearing and the mere existence of males makes the fact that our species has survived as long as it has all the more remarkable.

There are children out there who grow up without a father and they manage to make something of themselves. Not only that, but their mother is touted as a hero for raising a child with such ambition without the help of a father².

There are children who grow up without a father and their life goes down the tubes. They get into drugs or gangs or they simply don't have the drive to get out and make anything of themselves. Everyone pats the mother on her back and tells her she did the best she could.

There are children who grow up without a mother who manage to make something of themselves. No accolades for the father. Just a sarcastic "woo hoo. You did your job" at best and at worst a "this kid grew up with no female role model and still managed to make it. I don't know how he did it."

There are children who grow up without a mother and their life goes down the tubes. No consolation for the father. Just finger pointing and the insinuation that whatever vice was the child's downfall was learned from the father.

This is why we need the masculist movement. We need to be able to tell the police if a woman forces us to pleasure her at gunpoint and not have to settle for the lesser charge of trespassing.

We need to be able to defend ourselves (legally, not physically) from spousal abuse without being vilified by the assumption that a woman never lays a hand on a man unless it's in self defense³ or ridiculed for stepping forward.

We need to be able to keep our children away from their abuser if we are embroiled in a custody battle with their abusive mother.

We need the assurance that if our wives/fiances/girlfriends flake out and leave us with the children they will be able to remain with their fathers, not be whisked off to live with strangers.

We need to reclaim our position as 1/2 of the parental unit, not remain content to be a sperm donor and an ATM.

Most importantly, we need to destroy the notion that the evils committed by some men are never committed by women. Women abuse children. Women molest children. Women run out on their families. Women beat their husbands. Women lie, cheat, steal, and murder.

Women do as little as they can for their children. They'll send them outside to play unsupervised or confine them to their room so they can watch TV. They act as if it's a huge imposition if they have to get up to make them lunch. When men do this they earn the derogatory title of "sperm donor." Could we start calling these women "incubators," having served their purpose once the child left her body?

Not all women do these things, just like not all men do them, but the minority of men are magnified to appear as though they're the majority and the minority of women are obscured from sight, the mere mention of them being taboo.

The fight of the masculist is not about equality of the sexes. The sexes will always be unequal. Paradoxically it's our inequality that balances us. The shortcomings of the masculine are balanced by the strengths of the feminine as the shortcomings of the feminine are balanced by the strengths of the masculine.

The laws that protect us, however, were written with neither male nor female in mind. Murder, theft, assault, etc. are all equally illegal for men and women. Equal protection under the law is the goal.

Laws pertaining to parental rights initially were gender neutral. They didn't care about male or female. They were written to ensure the well being of children. Those laws are undermined by the belief that a child would be better off raised by an abusive mother than by a single caring father. The ability to protect our children under the law is our goal.

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1. Scenario 1. All restrooms, including multiple occupancy, are made unisex. A predator who would have drawn attention from security just by setting foot in the ladies room now has one less obstacle to contend with. Scenario 2. Woman runs into her ex. Follows him into unisex multiple occupancy restroom and takes advantage of lack of cameras to allege that he assaulted her. Dangerous for both genders.

2. This is not in opposition to single mothers, particularly when uncontrollable circumstances lead to the creation of a single mother household.

3. I do not say this to diminish the plight of abused women, which is an issue that's too frequently ignored. I say this because there are women who abuse their husbands, often under the same circumstances in which husbands abuse their wives.

[Jaltus]

Well thought out. Wish I had time to respond.

[Just Some Dude]

This stuff scares me to the point that I either:
A) Don't want to consider marriage, or
B) Consider moving out of country before I marry (and I've lived in one region of the world all my life).

This stuff is really creepy.

[Jin-Roh]

Yeah, so many well put points.

The sex offender stuff, I think, is frequently used for grotesque violations of justice. Some years ago, I read about a guy who went into an 18-and-over club, and went home with a girl. If I remember correctly, they did not even have intercourse.

He is now permanently on the sex-offender list despite the fact that he was intentionally deceived and had obvious reason to believe she was of legal age.

However, taking such a case is not likely to advance the career of any lawyer, and certainly not any politician at this time.

[T-Shirt Ninja]

I've heard that women DO rape men more often than most people think. It mostly happens as a "date rape" at parties where the woman will get the man very intoxicated, lure him into a room, and then force him to have sex with her. In that case it's very hard for others (especially a jury) to believe that it's her fault in that instance.

[Sparko]

Women have been convicted of raping men.

http://www.fathermag.com/news/rape/spokane.shtml
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/lo...cle1027927.ece

[rogue06]

In the old days (when I was young) the only way a woman could rape a man was if she assisted a man by holding the other woman down or threatening with a weapon while the man committed the actual act.

When I was a junior in High School there was a guy who just graduated that planned on going to seminary school who a few girls I knew decided they were going to bag a virgin. They knew he rode his bike home from work in the evening so they confronted him along the road and took him to an abandoned barn.

Sure I thought it was funny then. Not so much now.

[Zeratul]

You'd think any reasonable person would see that society is horribly sexist against men - so how come nobody does anything about it? There seem to be several groups and organisations to support "womens rights" and very few to support men's rights, even though there is no real discrimination against women.

Honestly, I think it's because men don't do enough to care about their rights. And for politicians, supporting equality would probably be a voteloser. We really need to stand up to end sexism, but in practice how do we do it? Maybe try to find some Men's Rights or Father's rights groups in our area to volunteer with or support, but there don't seem to be that many.

And I think that at least legal marriage in sexist countries (like Australia) should be abandoned until there is equality.