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It's not OK to bash men
The Sydney Morning Herald printed an opinion piece today by Adele Horin about a group of vengeful women in the US who glued an unfaithful husband's genitals to his stomach, then left him trussed up in a motel room. This piece unfortunately promoted a number of common gender myths.
Ms Horin firstly claimed that "middle-class feminists" aren't
man-haters - that "women who flew the flag for women's causes have been
at pains to show they like men". Let's have a look at some quotes from
middle-class feminists and I'll let you decide for yourself whether Ms
Horin's argument holds water. And remember as you read them that a
number of these are contemporary writers and academics being taught in
women's studies and gender studies courses across Australia.
"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act,
that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that
is oppressing them." Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor.
"I feel what they feel: man-hating, that volatile admixture of pity,
contempt, disgust, envy, alienation, fear, and rage at men." Judith
Levine, author and journalist.
"All men are rapists and that's all they are." Marilyn French, author "The Women's Room"
“I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion
which a man structurally does not have. He does not have it because he
cannot have it. He's just incapable of it." Former US Congresswoman
Barbara Jordan
"I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in
his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig." Andrea Dworkin, author
and activist
"MAN: an obsolete life form... an ordinary creature who needs to be
watched...a contradictory baby-man..." From "A feminist Dictionary" ed.
Kramarae and Triechler, Pandora Press, 1985
Sure, these women could be excused as being on the radical fringe of
feminism. But if the majority of feminists love the male of the
species, why have we not heard a peep from them about these sorry
statistics (and more):
• 50% more Australian women than men now graduate from our universities
• twice as many men as women are victims of violence every year and
one-in-three victims of sexual assault are male but there are no "stop
violence against men" campaigns or councils
• men die more often than women from all major causes of death but there is as-yet no men's health policy
• four men commit suicide for every woman that kills herself.
And why, if Ms Horin truly loves men, does she paint loving fathers who
have had their children forcefully removed from their lives as "all
those angry men".
And, while we're at it, why is a middle-class feminist like Ms Horin
supporting women who choose to use violence against their unfaithful
partners - suggesting that violence is necessary to teach 'deadbeat
males' to 'mend their ways'? There is no evidence that men are more
likely to be unfaithful than women, but if an adulterous woman was
'taught a lesson' by a group of men in the same manner as 'the Don Juan
of Wisconsin' was, it would be quite indefensible.
Without a shred of evidence, Ms Horin went on in her article to infer
that "ordinary women" in "tough neigbourhoods" are regularly abused by
male partners who won't do the dishes, who are "unreformed chauvinists
who use their penises as a battering ram". She is right about one
thing: there is ample evidence that interpersonal violence and abuse
are more common in areas of lower socio-economic status. However all
the international research shows that women in these neighbourhoods are
as likely to be at fault as are their menfolk. Approximately
one-quarter of violence between intimate partners is perpetrated by
males, one-quarter by females, and one-half is mutual violence, with
both partners giving as good as they get.
Could it not be that the women who cheer at other women's violence
("you go girl!"), that are "giving the V sign, and bringing their
fingers together in a happy snipping motion" are in fact abusive and
violent partners themselves? Could it not be that these women
desperately need access to the services that are currently only
available to males: classes in anger-management, respectful
relationships and anti-violence? They certainly don't need to be
defended by middle-class feminists like Ms Horin.
And about that "men don't do the dishes" myth propagated by feminists:
all the evidence shows that men and women work an almost identical
total amount of hours per week inside and outside the home. Surveys
show that most Australian men would love to spend more time at home
with their families and children (and, yes, wash the dishes too!) but
the pressures of being the primary breadwinner generally don't allow it.
It's about time we ended this myth-making about men that does nothing
but fuel the ridiculous battle of the sexes that was started by
second-wave feminists almost forty years ago. Most men and women don't
cheat on their partners, but unfortunately a few of them do. Most men
and women carry a fair share of the workload in their relationships,
but sadly a few of them don't (for every man who won't wash the dishes
there is a woman who won't do more work to help pay the rent). Most men
and women abhor violence, but a few of them support it, and fewer still
are actually violent and abusive (usually because of their own
dysfunctional upbringings).
We should not be celebrating violent women any more than we should be
celebrating violent men. And to infer that men deserve women's violence
as payback for their allegedly neanderthal ways is not only ignorant -
disregarding all the evidence - but is misandry (look it up - it's the
male equivalent of misogyny).
Greg Andresen
Research and Media Liaison
Men's Health Australia
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