I think that's a lame argument that men use to try and control women. Feminism is NOT anti-Male. It's anti-Patriarchy. Men have learned that women who love men will have a knee-jerk reaction if they claim to feel denigrated by Feminism. I adore men, but I am a Matriarchist. Our society is suffering becasue we are waking up from 5,000 years of an unnatural social order and it's only natural we have some growing pains. No one wants to give up special privilege, but if we are going to have a truly plural society, the Boys are going to have to learn to share without resenting us.

What a great way to distract a woman with a valid point - accuse her of male bashing so she has to go on the defensive. Wouldn't want our boys to think we don't love them now, would we? So what if we only get 76 cents on the dollar for equal work? So what if we are beaten and raped and murdered by people who are supposed to be our partners? So what if we and our children live in poverty in greater numbers than men?

I can't think of one way in which White men are oppressed as a group. You will occasionally find white men who get passed over for a minority candidate at work or school, but I've seen too many cases where employers will bend over backwards to try and promote a straight white man when their are obviously more qualified women and people of color available.

This is not a "feminized society". There is plenty of mysogyny happening right now. We still spend more on war than on our children. Women still have to apologize for being human. The glass ceiling is thicker than ever. Men still control the money and the courts and our ability to survive.

They get no sympathy from me until my gender is not liability.

Honestly I'm a little disappointed with this topic (no offence meant of course, I love it here generally) but that being said for a feminist collective posing a question about society and/or feminism being anti-man is absurd. Society is PRO man, and while "man" is rigidly defined most men don't have to be "men" to get by in society. I would say society (at least in America) is pro-gender, as in "live up to our rigid gender standards or get out." Anyone who doesn't play that game is on the outside. Seriously though, anti-male? That's just a silly question, the answer is NO and anyone who knows anything about feminism will say the same.

A quick note of support to the fact that feminism is not anti-male. But I do see examples of anti-male-ness in certain legal practices (divorce:child custody) and cultural practices (body image hurts boys too). As I concluded: "...ultimately, society is still run by wealthy white males. It is a partiarchy, just one that is losing its scruples about exploiting its 'own kind.' " Read the rest here.

Brigitte - is it not absurd for a feminist collective to NOT consider the opinions of our detractors? I think an examination of and understanding of counter-arguments is key to any good movement, any good opinion.

Dismissing criticism out of hand is counterproductive if your goal is to change others' opinions. I'm tempted to say - in fact I will say, with a grain of salt - that "anyone who knows anything" about social change and activism knows that. Consider that a reminder that attacks on the poster (vs. the posted opinion) are not what this group is about.

Also - I've posted what was originally intended as a short semi-academic response & is now more of a raving diatribe about societal ills and their relationship to men on my blog: here.

April, I appreciate your constructive criticism but I was in no way attacking the poster of the topic, I was just hoping for a more challenging topic this week and in not way meant to offend anyone. I don't dismiss the criticism of anti-feminist but "anti-male" is the #1 response to "I'm a feminist!" so it's not exactly NEW or uncommon. That was all I was saying.

April raises a very interesting question, and I like how she worded it. Feminists (hell, activists of any persuasion) do tend to be very defensive of our cause…and while it is a worthy cause, I think that this rush to defense creates selective hearing. Additionally, I like that April posted links to anti-feminist and pro-male sites, and I do hope that everyone participating in this collab has taken the time to check these sites out.

My full response is here.

My response is on my site.

I've talked about this before, when it wasn't even a topic... so I won't go over it again. Instead, I'll go and laugh my head off at that promising site entitled "Anti-feminism.com"

Hey, a question that can be answered by a male. Mines up ... here

Coming at it from my usual 'gender stereotypes are BAD and oppress EVERYONE' angle, my response is here.

Finally got my response up here.

Oh, boy. (So to speak. Here goes.)

I think society is very much pro-male, provided male-in-question is a cruel, shallow, mean-spirited, straight, white, rich SOB.

If, however, male person is question is not-so-rich, not-so-white, not-so-straight, or sincerely on the quest trying to be a decent human being, he's pretty well screwed. Just try and be a nice guy...

For instance:
--a lot of the battles that go on regarding child custody, etc., are intrinsic to the screwy legal situation (where divorcing spouses have to ask for 200% of what they want, and trash each other, instead of, horrors, negotiating a settlement.) Hint: mediation can help people avoid this.
--male youth is BRUTAL. Bullying is not an adequate word for the physical and sexual abuse men go through (at the hands of other men, or varying ages) while they're growing up.
--media portrayals. The "good" guys are portrayed as over/strangely sexed womanizers, or unrelistically violent, or two-dimensional chunks of woods. A sit-com Dad might come a little closer to a sane, reasonable, believable guy, except that, of course, he's shown as being the most lame-brained member of the household (and that's including the dog.)
--The Man Show, which passes as Guy Culture, and which, in fact, is the most sexist, anti-male b.s. going. But, of course, if anybody were to say so, he's a (heavy stinger chord) FAG!!!
--Just a hunch, here, but most of the boys I've known are absolutely bursting at the seams to perform, to succeed, to be good at something and useful. And, yes, some of that's ego, but it also -- service, achievement -- seems to me to be an important part of how maleness becomes part of humanity. It's how a man/boy avoids being one of the rogue dolphins swimming on the fringes of the pod. And, now that the Boy Scouts o' Amuricuh have gone way over the line into creepy, inappropriate, exploitative, fundamentalist, anti-gay, oppressive strangenss, where an eager young space cadet to go to get his hero badges?

I don't trust the jerks who use these problems as an excuse to resurrent the oppression of women as far as I can rip holes in their logic. But, methinks most of the guys who are feeling...not quite part of the human community...aren't saying much. Some may wind up with the "Angry Harry" crowd even if it doesn't quite fit, because that seems like the closest thing to an ally. And, some might wind up at Men Web, but class & education-level issues could deter some guys. Just a hunch -- I think there's lots of silent suffering going on out there.

I was raised by a single woman during the 70's-80's who fought for her rights, is now the president of the company she runs, taught me her view of right/wrong/sexism, and is my role model in many things. Many men I know are not rich, may be white ( or not ), and just trying to live life. What men are upset about in relation to "feminism" include:
-Being stereo-typed and made to explain things we didn't do, had no part in, and were not alive to have any influence on.
-Having family courts treat us a human check books while not enforcing our visitation rights
-If a man calls the police when his spouse/girlfriend hits us we are often the ones who go to jail. THEN reading on how a woman can run over her husband with a car, be portrayed as a victim, and given joint custody of her children (one of which was there while she crushed her husband to death)
-Being laughed at when we want to bring up how our rights are being stripped away due to stereotypes that are backed up by junk science
-Having (SOME!!!) women tell us about this Patriarchy we don't benefit from but must pay for.
-Being told about this $.75 per dollar loss we are to blame for when no one has READ the study (I have - its in one age group and is a years old study) Guys in my generation were raised differently and we haven't reached the top yet to affect change, but we are still lumped with the LOSERS who do this.
-Support women who have been raped or molested (our friends, girlfriends, wives, mothers matter to us) but when we hear about a woman who was caught making a false-allegation nothing is done and no punishment is conferred. Also (and I KNOW I will get angry responses for this) many of the "statistics" given out on college campus' are bogus. I am not blaming real victims here, please hear that, but honest numbers and problems need to be discussed. In New Hamshire one group of male students who tried to dispute the "statistics" on rape/false-allegations of rape they were charged with a "hate crime". Look it up on the 'net.
-Having PEOPLE who demand equality want me to be "sensetive" to the phrase of "that's different" which I can't use.
Now I KNOW I am going to catch flak on what I have said. That's all good. Send me an E-mail:
Steven.Beene@us.army.mil I will receive it with an open mind and will honestly try to understand your point of view.
Men and women have more in common than we have differences. Both "sides" need to understand that gender supremacists want this constant gender-guerilla-warfare to continue. It lines the haters pocket, gets them attention, and gives them political power at the detriment of anyone who is not "like them". Men and women need to be honest about what we do. Many men do terrible things. Point blank. I am a man and should be the first one to say it. We, men, need women to be upfront about what women do that is unfair too. Then we can ignore or marginalize the hate-mongers among us. Thank you for taking the time to read my post and feel free to E-mail me. I welcome the discussion. Best wishes
Steven Beene

I do not think that men are at all "oppressed" because of gender. Sure, certain men in Western so-called "civilization are oppressed because of their race (non-white), class (poor, working-class), age (under 25 or over 75) or sexual orientation (gay/transgender), and for many men belonging to the groups I've outlined above, male privilege is frequently no adequate consolation prize. But to say that men in a patriarchal culture are oppressed for BEING MEN is pure crap, IMHO.

I'm a guy. I have read this forum, and I think you all have many valid points. I must say that I don't think feminism is the source of male oppression, but I do think there is quite a bit out there in our society. I too am a gen x-er going to college. All the time, I hear about how old white men are screwing things up for everyone and taking all the money. At the same time, I am poor. I try, in my life, not to demean females or disrespect their accomplishments. However, popular music and movies in my age bracket tend to do so. At the same time, the sitcoms today's children watch tend to portray men as helpless, disorganized, and extremely unintelligent people. I too watch these sitcoms and wonder about the fate of these kids. In a socety where male self esteem is down, male drug use is rising, male education is faltering in comparisson to that of females, and males are dying of diseases such as cencer at higher rates than females while receiving far less research dollars for these threatening ailments I worry about the future of men. Every day, I hear jokes about how men are pigs and how we're good for nothing. I read articles about how we've been proven scientifically inferior and how we can't seem to raise children properly or keep ourselves from raping. The dorms that I live in are plastered with NO means NO signs. I feel like society has low expectations for all of male kind. I think that todays boys are going to live up to those nice low expectations. I admit that those white men are still there on the top somewhere. I don't know them, but I know they have their hands in corporate america. I just hope that when all those stogy old white men die and are finally replaced by more diverse groups that we don't suddenly realize we have a generation of uneducated, demoralized, and destitute males on our hands who won't make it anywhere in life.

BTW, everyone talks about male-bashing all the time. If you think you are too biased to tell if you are bashing a gender, then use the substitution test.

IE. Men are nothing but a bunch of pigs.
Replace men with Black, Jewish, Female and if it is something unacceptable in any of those cases then it is safe to say you shouldn't be uttering it.

If I've offended you, then I apologize. I just feel sad that when I was younger I could enjoy TV and Movies. I could watch the Cosby show or enjoy some happy go lucky 80's coming of age story. Now I feel attacked when I watch a movie. (IE Chicago) I can't find any shows with positive male role models that stack up to the female characters.

The funniest thing is that I never thought about all of this much until I read articles about our male-bashing society that were written by feminists. I think a major reason for this is the fact that guys feel silly playing the victim when everyone instinctively knows that we are all really "The Man." Besides, it may take a while, but women will become cognizant of all of these societal problems eventually and correct them for us because popular culture tells me that we are too dumb to do it on our own.

[Clayman, please keep future posts shorter than this or post on messageboard.
-Kerri]

How about this: My dad told me yesterday, "You know, no one has ever looked surprised when I told them I was a doctor." This was in response to me saying how when I talk to fellow students about Dr. Whomever they always say "he" when asking me about them. I correct them, when I need to, but there is still that assumption.

I understand your concerns, but you have to realize that women have been oppressed for a LONG TIME. Meaning if men are some how effected in a noticable way, it's just some much needed evening up of statistics. If those posters bother you I'm sorry, Law and Order SVU reminds us that we're all potential rape victims. It cuts both ways now.

IM sorry everyone but I felt I had to respond to Morgaine Swann statement: "I can't think of one way in which White men are oppressed as a group."
According to the United Stated Department of Justice Bureau of Statistics (http://www.usdoj.gov) in a divorce, women get sole custody of children over 90% of the time. So in a divorce, women automatically get the children, and with the children also comes the house, the car and child support and alimony. For every 360 dollars spent on child support payment recovery, 1 dollar is spent on visitation enforcement. The number one reason men give for not paying child support, NO access to their children. Still in this country ONLY men have to register for the draft. The Senate is talking about reinstating the draft because of the war in Iraq and if they do who will be going? ONLY men. This is not oppression? This is not sex discrimination? There is no area in our society where women are forced, as a group, to leave their homes and go fight and even die? Men are not eligible for federally aid for school tuition, can not bid on government contracts or even have a government job unless he has registers for the draft. Women as a group do no face anything comparable today.
96 % of people killed on on the job accidents are men, women are more heather then men and men die 7 years earlier then women, yet the Department of Health and Human Services has a office of women’s health (http://www.4woman.gov/owh/index.htm) who’s multimillion dollar budget covers everything from research to raising awareness of health issues such as breast cancer but of course not surprisingly there is no office of men’s health. I could go on, there are much, much more statistics like these but I think we all get the point. I find it dumb founding that there are people that honestly believe that men living in this country never face any unfair treatment. We all have it easy and we are never faced with any obstacles. If any fair open minded person would just look around they would see there are area’s in our country that are unfair for both men and women. No one sex has a monopoly on unfairness.

With respect
Michael B.

NO ONE IS FREE WHEN OTHERS ARE OPRESSED SO IN ANY CASE IF YOU ARE MALE OR FEMALE SHOULD YOU NEVER BE DISCRIMINATED BY THE OPPOSITE SEX.

STOP RASCISM!!!
STOP SEXISM!!!!!