4.Masculinism
By Wendy McElroy
Special to TLE

Gender issues are being rocked by masculinism -- sometimes called men's
rights or the Men's Movement. Advocates claim it is a last chance to
restore sanity between the sexes and justice for families. Feminist foes
accuse masculinists of wrongdoing that verges on criminal acts. High
profile clashes will almost certainly erupt between the two and public
policy will change. But what is
masculinism?

To understand a position, you need to explore the explanations offered by
its mainstream supporters. Only afterward is it helpful to listen to its
critiques and extreme exponents in order to gain perspective.

Father's rights activist Mark Toogood offers
http://homepage.mac.com/cxs/fatherhood/masculinist.html> a prevalent
definition: "1. a male-friendly framework for understanding social
problems. 2. the belief that equality between the sexes requires the
recognition and redress of prejudice and discrimination against men as well
as women. 3. a complementary, not oppositional perspective to
feminism."

The dominant theme of
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Castro/3242/dudepower.html>
mainstream masculinism is the demand for a gender-neutral approach to
social problems such as broken families, domestic violence, and
reproduction. For example, in approaching domestic violence it demands that
the police, court system, and social networks cease to pre-define victims
as female and to recognize that men are often victims of domestic violence
as well.

By contrast, feminist critics claim that
http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:3h411NJxTLUJ:www.uleth.ca/ant/courses/
spring%25202003_outlines/2600A_anthro%2520and%2520gender_CK.doc+m
asculinism&hl=en&ie=UTF-8> masculinism promotes an exclusively
male point of view at the expense of women. They point to extreme and angry
expressions of masculinism as being representative of the entire movement.
Then, based on material from this radical fringe, masculinism is called
anti-woman.

In recent years, masculinists have focused on father's rights in custody,
visitation, and reasonable child support. They believe children need both
parents and that divorced fathers should have rights as well as
responsibilities. Given the high level of divorce in North America, these
are non-trivial issues that deserve honest and vigorous dialogue.

The prospect of that dialogue occurring has been dealt a stunning blow by
http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/pubs/0662882857/200303_0662882857_3_e.html>
"School
Success by Gender: A Catalyst for the Masculinist Discourse" -- a
$75,000 tax-paid report requested by Status of Women Canada, a department
of the Canadian federal government. The report has been called a
declaration of war against men's rights activists both in Canada and the
United States.

"Success by Gender" looks at a wide range of masculinist websites
in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere -- from father's rights to
anti-circumcision sites, from Promise Keepers to Men's Health Network. It
finds, "these groups are largely composed of white, heterosexual,
middle-class men who have not been successful in coping with the challenge
to masculinity posed by feminism." Hundreds of sites and individuals
are named and accused of creating hatred
against women.

Among the report's recommendations: the establishment (at taxpayer expense)
of an Internet monitoring organization to focus on men's hate speech
against women; the publication, and dissemination of a list that warns of
"misogynist groups" -- that is, men's rights groups; and, an
investigation into prosecuting such sites under
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/legislation/canadian_law/
federal/criminal_code/criminal_code_hate.cfm> section 319 of the
Canadian Criminal Code which addresses hate speech.

Ken Wiebe of BC (British Columbia) Fathers, one of the named sites,
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/site/story.asp?id=C78F1D80-FDE6-47
15-8113-3EB1589B30B2> comments, "I have very little patience for
feminists....But I have a wife, I have daughters. This notion that because
we are opposed to the feminists' political agenda, that that somehow
equates to a
dislike of women, is just propaganda. That's some kind of smear
campaign." The front page of http://www.fathers.bc.ca/> BC
Fathers proclaims, "Individuals have been named who may soon be
targeted for legal, financial and legislative harassment intended to
silence any dissent to the radical man-hating variety of feminism."

The attack upon masculinists is not unique to Canada. California NOW's
http://www.canow.org/fam.html> much-touted Family Court Report 2002
aimed at making the California family court system even more
mother-centered. Section 4 of CANOW's report was entitled "A Brief
History of the Father's Rights Movement."
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2002/0702.html> It
attacked men's groups for competing with feminists for federal funds and
engaged in wholesale ad hominem attacks on prominent men's rights figures.
It concluded that the "agenda" of father's rights groups was
"to avoid child support, impoverish women, perpetuate a patriarchal
suprastructure by which women and children are subjugated to property
status."

Judging by the backlash, masculinists are having an impact. I know this
personally because my web site Ifeminists.com, which advances equal rights
for men, has experienced a dramatic increase in harassment and hate mail
from gender feminists in recent months. Every blast centers on men's
rights.

The tension will only heighten. Men who claim the right to be an active
part of their children's lives will not back down. Women who recognize the
justice of those claims are not intimidated.

On May 24, the Independent Women's Forum (IWF)
http://www.iwf.org/news/030515a.shtml> published an open "Memo
to NOW" which spoke of "countless bright young women frustrated
by rigid feminist propaganda of male hatred..."  With their funding
doubled, IWF announced, "We're issuing fair warning: extreme
feminists, get to your foxholes because IWF is on the attack."

The gender war has shifted toward direct confrontation. Men should take
heart from that fact. As Gandhi once explained, "First they ignore
you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."

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