When overt misogyny doesn't happen to the average woman....

A discussion on SRSDiscussion (SRSD from now on) on the topic why some women chose to be "FeMRAs".

What would cause a woman to

1) say feminism is completely unnecessary

2) Say that women as a whole have already achieved enough and are viewed as equals to men.

3) Say that Mens Rights is both pressing and necessary?

Interestingly as someone who is quite "Men's right-y" I would wonder about 1. and 2. as well. Feminism is always a useful tool to view society in and see how it impacts women. Also complete 100% equality will never be achieved as there will always be issues we need to work on. I am certain women are not viewed as equals in some regards in the same way that men are not viewed as equals in some regards. This is the point where my egalitarianism comes in, figuring the stuff out for men and women. Point 3. is the view of a certain kind of feminists, which I would term gynocentric feminists, who could not comprehend how there is a merit to the concept of men's right at all.

So this is mostly about that topic. One comment I found telling really showed me with what I griped with. As usual in SRSD there is the notion that "misandry don't real" as misandry as compared to misogyny is not institutionalized (perhaps the underlying reason for point 3.), yet one reads such a comment:

People tend take their own, personal experience and apply it to everyone around them. If you're average enough and live in a safe place/bubble, you could have never experienced the kind of overt misogyny that many women face. You might adhere to traditional gender roles and ideals of femininity just because that's who you are. You might not be the type of person who seeks out information on the rest of the world and it might be difficult for you to empathize with people who are very different from you.

So, essentially, if you're a white, middle class woman in an average town who isn't ugly or insanely beautiful and who fits in well to your traditional place in society, you're going to think this is the case for everyone else. You're going to see feminist claims as overblown. And it's going to be easy for you to unknowingly buy in to patriarchal propaganda (after all, most societies are designed to spread such propaganda… I mean, the male gaze is everywhere in America).

So the average woman does not face misogyny, yet many women do face overt misogyny. How can it be overt if the average woman does not face it? This points me to another gynocentric talking point, "men can not be oppressed as men". The idea behind that is that when men are oppressed, it is because that the man in question is from a minority or poor or from the GSM spectrum, that he just couldn't be oppressed because he is male because patriarchy or misandry don't real. However looking at the above one could argue that women are not oppressed because they are women. "if you're a white, middle class woman in an average town who isn't ugly or insanely beautiful and who fits in well to your traditional place in society [... y]ou're going to see feminist claims as overblown", If you are average (not poor not from a racial minority etc) you do not face oppression.

Personally, would I say that men/women are oppressed, in the western world? Well you could probably draw a line somewhere and argue that neither or both are. I am sure though that there are gendered expectations that do hurt women as well as men and we should work to eliminate both. Do women have it worse than men? Well, maybe. Or maybe not. How do you quantify having it worse? From my point of view arguing this is a pointless exercise that leads nowhere. The issues also influence each other. If you get more father's involved with their kids you also influence the wage gap issue. It is not a zero sum game. Which leads us to this question someone asked in regards to Point 3:

Do you think men face no gender issues whatsoever in society, or do you feel that the social issues faced by women should be solved first before addressing men's issues.

Good question, and a typical answer follows:

Many of the gender issues faced by men stem from patriarchy, in that its restrictive gender roles harm both men and women by forcing them to conform to a set of very narrow rules. However, the important thing about patriarchy is that it is set up to benefit men (who follow it unquestioningly), but even then, only some men.

Because the voices and the views of women have been suppressed, currently it is important to focus on women's rights because they are the oppressed group. But feminism is not the elevation of women's rights over and above those of men's; it is the eradication of sexism. Seen in this light, it should go without saying that feminism will improve the lives of both men and women by dismantling gender roles. Even things that MRAs complain about - child custody, the overlooking of male rape - can be traced back to patriarchal origins (the belief that women must care for children, the false assumption that men are sexually aggressive and thus cannot be raped), so feminism is a way of fixing these things. [I omitted the critics of MRAs here because it is not relevant to that topic and I really do not care]

The social issues faced by men and women, though different, do not exist independently of each other. However, in our present society, women suffer more than men. The eradication of the power structure that enables this inequality is ultimately a benefit to all genders, not just women.

Again this is a very word-y cop out. Interestingly there is a rebuttal to this on a very gynocentric feminist blog (FF101):

Why are you concentrating on X when Y is so much more important?

A common argument that is used on people who are talking about special interests — such as feminism — is to say that, instead of talking about Special Interest X the person should instead talk about Important Issue™ Y. This proposed correlation between X and Y is problematic on a few levels:

- It assumes that X and Y are mutually exclusive
- It assumes that there is an objective determinant for what is “important” and what is not
- It creates a hierarchy of issues, which in turn creates a supposed “correct” order/path that must be followed

And all these points really apply. Asking "shouldn't you feminists focus on women's rights in Africa first?" or even "shouldn't we work on world peace first and solve the hunger problem?" is the same kind of derailing as saying that women have it worse and we should focus on them first and that feminism really also helps men. It is a stupid topic really. Feminism has mostly treated men's right as collateral benefits. And who can blame them as it was focus to emancipate women. I agree that it was the more pressing issue at the time. But really, it is about time now that men get some help, too. And really it is not mutually exclusive, quite the contrary.

Bonus points for my resource section, Dworkin's book "Right Wing Women" and the Dworkin Online Library. (The more you know)

Ozy on Objectification

I always struggled a bit with the feminist definition of objectification. Ozy had some thoughts on that term that cleared that up a bit (nice take I think):

1) Sexual desire =/= objectification.
2) Erotic or sexualized imagery =/= objectification.
3) Objectification =/= necessarily bad.
4) Objectification = treating people like objects instead of people.

More on that topic here.

Do you consider yourself to be a feminist, or not?

I continue with an article about feminism vs evolutionary science. And I will focus entirely on a survey from the beginning of the article:

Let’s start with two simple questions:

(1) Do you consider yourself to be a feminist, or not?

(2) A feminist is someone who believes in social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. Do you think of yourself as a feminist or not?

If you’re like many people from a study my RAs and I conducted recently and those polled by CBS News in 2005, then your answer to question one bore little resemblance to your answer to question two. In CBS’s nationwide random sample of 1,150 U.S. adults, 65% of women and 58% of men identified as feminist when an equal-rights definition was provided, but only 24% of women and 14% of men considered themselves feminist in the absence of a definition (Alfano, 2009, February 11).

Regrettably to feminists like myself, far too many other feminists believe that being one means believing in far more than equality for women.

This is pretty interesting and tells me there is a drift in feminism itself which I too regularly encounter. To cite from the feminist definitions I listed earlier:

Feminism as a concept only exists under the assumption that in the large arena of sexual equality, women are behind men. The colloquial definition of feminism is 'equality of the sexes'.

Feminism is about equality. For everyone.

It seems to me the drift is the difference between gynocentric feminism and egalitarian feminism. The good news, a majority of men and women would identify with egalitarian feminism. As a striving egalitarian, those are people I can work with. Maybe it is about time for the egalitarian revolution and to start to fight for equality. For everyone.

A nice breakdown of the wage gap by Forbes

Hat tip goes to Reddit for that one. I do not want to copy that much so to give you the data. It is a great article though, straight to the point so I suggest you read it:

81:100 Median Wage Gap - based on 2010 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics - compares median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers over 16

86.5:100 Weighted Median Wage Gap - based on BLS data - weighted according to the number of women in each occupation

84.8:100 Weighted Mean Wage Gap - see above

94.6:100 Weighted Median Wage Gap excluding non-discriminatory factors - based on 2010 U.S. Senate testimony from Heather Boushey, a senior economist with the Center for American Progress Action Fund, who cites an analysis by labor economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn - about 60 percent of the gender pay gap can be attributed to factors other than gender discrimination, such as choice of industry, choice of occupation, years of work experience, and union status - this does not mean that the remaining 40 percent are discrimination, just that the remaining 40 percent can not be explained by the data

92.4:100 Weighted Mean Wage Gap excluding non-discriminatory factors - see above

This reminds me of the CONSAD report that I did cite several times before:

An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women - CONSAD - 2009

There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively
account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent.

The difference we see with the above (4.8 vs 5.4 and 7.1 vs 7.6) might be the difference between 2010 and 2009 numbers. Anyhow, interesting analysis. It also included a critic of how this issue is handled in the msm:

The statistic you should not be using is the 81:100 claim, and if you do use that statistic (even though you should not be using it), you should not imply that the gap is entirely or even mostly attributable to gender discrimination. To do so is beyond purposefully misleading — it’s purposefully lying. [...] I say this as someone who shares the goal of eliminating unjust discrimination against women in the workplace … but who is concerned that the inaccuracies and unfounded inferences made by movements like Narrow the Gapp and the NWLC ultimately undermine the credibility of the cause.

A list of definitions for feminism

Just for shits and giggles:

The advocacy of women`s rights on the grounds of sexual equality (OED) (seen via the finallyfeminism101 blog)

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. (Wiki)

Feminism: 1. the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes / 2. organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests. (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)

I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute. (Rebecca West)

Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. (bell hooks)

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people (Cheris Kamarae & Paula Treichler)

The reason racism is a feminist issue is easily explained by the inherent definition of feminism. Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women –as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less than this is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement. (Barbara Smith)

There are just two pieces of dogma in my feminist tent: Society deals with gender in a way that, on balance, harms women. This is a problem that must be corrected. You’ll notice that they have nothing to do with: men, race, class, liberty, religion, teleology, biology, consumerism, violence, sex, or shoes. This is deliberate. (yami, a feminist blogger)

Feminism is not a monolith, nor is it a dogma. The only thing you have to believe in order to call yourself a feminist is that ensuring women's freedom and equality of opportunity in all spheres of life is a crucial priority. That's it. (via The Happy Feminist (a blogger), interesting post btw)

If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist. (Sarah D. Bunting)

A feminist:
1. Advocates for the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
2. Believes that there is current, significant, society-wide inequality and sexism.
3. Doesn’t believe that men are the primary victims of inequality and sexism. (via Ampersand, aka Barry Deutsch)

And from what I have seen on reddit:

Feminism as a concept only exists under the assumption that in the large arena of sexual equality, women are behind men. The colloquial definition of feminism is 'equality of the sexes'.

Feminism is about equality. For everyone.

Feminism is a view that biology is not destiny and that stratification by gender is wrong and should be resisted.

Feminism is a movement encompassing a broad range of beliefs and ideas that all focus on one common goal: the end of women as second-class citizens.

Feminism is a collection of movements with varying methods for reaching the common goal of ending sexism.

I see feminism as an agent combating patriarchy and its resulting harms--not only pertaining to women, but to any gender. It's a pursuit of understanding how we're not so different across the gender, and self-actualizing in that regard.

Pick one...

EDIT 20-05-12: 2 more via reddit:

Maybe "The belief that there are injustices based in gender, and these injustices should be stopped"? Or, more specifically though more restrictively, "The belief that women face injustice on the basis of gender, and this should be stopped"?

"the desire to achieve equity between men and women"

EDIT 23-05-12: Well one that is slightly un-feminist

Feminism is the idea that we can make both sexes equal by focusing solely on the issues of one of them. (a youtube vlogger with the name of TJ Kincaid)

EDIT 29-06-12: More via reddit:

Feminism is recognizing society has treated men and women different, and women have been unable to participate fully because of this, and having a desire to change that fact.

Feminism is the recognition that patriarchal, gender-hierarchical structures exist in our society which serve to unfairly and unevenly oppress women as compared to men. It is also the recognition and acceptance of the responsibility to work against these social structures such that they no longer have the power to oppress women.

What is off-limits?

I have been looking for definitions of a safe space and found a gem via Shakesville's Melissa Mc Ewan:

It’s all about intrinsic nature and choice. One has no control over one’s gender, sexuality, or race. The mentally disabled, chronically ill, disfigured, disabled, and victimized have no control over their circumstances. Some overweight people may; many don’t. Some poor people may; many don’t. And we don’t know by looking at them whether fat people are gluttons, or healthy but naturally overweight, or bloated by medication or disease, whether poor people are unmotivated, or lacking opportunity, or consigned by misfortune, so we don’t turn them into punchlines.

On the other hand, Bush has a choice whether to be a shit. Christian Supremacists have a choice about whether to try to force their views down everyone else’s throats. Certain conservatives / Republicans / Democrats have a choice about the way they approach politics and culture. Hypocrites, the avaricious, the willfully ignorant, have all made choices to lack integrity, self-indulge, or wallow in ignorance. Joe Lieberman has made a choice to take the positions he has.

To mock them is to mock behavior, not attributes outwith their control.

Which is pretty spot on!

Advertising, the web and feminism

As recently seen on feministing:

You may have recently noticed some changes to the advertising on Feministing, which is part of our work to more effectively monetize the site. We are still getting used to the new system and set up and as a result, some offensive ads have been getting through recently.[..]That said, since we are truly trying to become a sustainable entity, there is a certain extent to which we will take cash from companies we don’t love (and might even critique on the site). There’s a difference between the written content on Feministing and our advertising – something we are confident, you as readers, are fluent and savvy enough to recognize. [...] We draw the line at anti-choice ads and offensive weight loss ads (if an ad was actually health focused, we might look at it differently, but weight loss ads always seem to be as offensive and unhealthy as possible). These advertisers are tricky – they’re targeting our site because we do write about those issues. And they’re constantly generating new click thru urls, so when we get rid of an ad a new one pops up. Please note this is not intentional on our part and something we are working to fix. That’s where you come in. We need your help to keep the site free of anti-choice and body shaming messages.

Also as one commenter suggested using add block:

Sadly that can keep us from making ad revenue

This above is not a critique of feministing. I understand that having such a site and blogging costs money and that having ads on a site can be tricky / problematic. I have seen this with quite a few MRA boards that have horrible ads. This is merely just a reminder that advertisements is not necessarily a fair game (and also that this could lead to horrible own goals by feministing themselves). I am reminded of a post by the NOW blog (yeah I read a lot of blogs, it is also not a good blog) where one poster complains about the google generated adds on Wikihow:

Love yourself. Sounds simple and complex all at the same time but fear not WikiHow has 10 simple steps for you to love yourself better. While I don't have a problem with Wiki's tips, I do have a problem with the ads on the page. [...] Not only is it offensive that the male-dominated advertising world assumes only women need to love themselves better, but the ads themselves are just plain offensive. I would not be as put off if the ads were for shoes or clothes. Honestly, I probably would not have even noticed. It is, however, hard to ignore these ads. The fact that women need to change or to avoid certain behaviors to keep a man seems contradictory to a page dedicated to loving oneself better. While this may not be as glaring as a problem as other issues, the problem lies in its subtlety. It lies in the fact that no one in the male-dominated advertising world was trying to be offensive, but that they just didn't think about it. Before there can be a change in society there needs to be a change in thinking. That is what is so damaging from these ads.

The end must be near...

as these can only be signs of the apocalypse:

At first this happened at the NCFM:

[NCFM was invited, alongside with NOW, to Earth Day] This will be the first time NCFM and NOW have equal billing at an event and the opportunity to work together. [...] On a personal note, I never thought we’d see NCFM and NOW on the same platform. Our logos will even be side by side on promotional materials and so forth. I am hopeful that together we find other common ground.

Then came this post:

Here is some research that looks at stereotypes about feminists. I have been saying that men’s Rights advocates that display black-and-white thinking (among other things) harm the credibility of the movement.

[...]Contrary to popular opinion, feminism and romance are not incompatible and feminism may actually improve the quality of heterosexual relationships, according to Laurie Rudman and Julie Phelan, from Rutgers University in the US. Their study* also shows that unflattering feminist stereotypes, that tend to stigmatize feminists as unattractive and sexually unappealing, are unsupported.

[...]They found that having a feminist partner was linked to healthier heterosexual relationships for women. Men with feminist partners also reported both more stable relationships and greater sexual satisfaction. According to these results, feminism does not predict poor romantic relationships, in fact quite the opposite.

What is next? Cats and dogs living together? Anyhow, it seems something is going on here and I am curious where this will lead.

From the last post, this was an interesting approach:

Allow me to suggest this approach to feminists. If you encounter a feminist, ask what feminism is. If their definition sounds like humanism, ask them what the difference is. If they say something like, “The difference is that feminism is a special focus on the rights and well-being of women,” ask if there should be such a focus for men. If they say yes, then you could probably learn some things from each other. If not, then I guess what you do with them depends on whether they show any capacity to dialog with sincerity. But first, ask yourself if you have a sincere desire to dialog, or if you just like to preach to the choir.

Very, very reasonable.

Recently on feministing...

And this time not even critique by me....the times have changed people. Anyhow as Miriam is leaving feministing as an editor she talks about the future of feminism:

I think this movement is really amazing in many ways, but I also think that it’s time for feminism to adapt to the sexism of today. Because of feminism’s successes, sexism isn’t the same animal it used to be. That doesn’t mean that sexism is dead–it’s quite truly alive and well, but perhaps a bit more insidious than it once was.

Feminism has yet to adequately adapt to these changes, and in my humble opinion, the crux of this adaptation is going to be about gender. Feminism needs a more nuanced understanding of gender in order to adequately address the sexism of tomorrow. Our movement can’t be about women versus men anymore. We all serve to benefit from feminism, and we all need to know our place in the movement.

My vision? A feminist movement that works toward a world where no one is limited or defined by their gender identity. This movement takes on a wide range of social justice issues and brings a gender lens to all of them. I think we’re headed in the right direction, but we need to continue to interrogate how gender stereotyping and gender essentialism holds us back from this goal.

NOW is at it again...

Not trying to beat a dead horse here as I do not disagree that much with feminists (we are pretty much on line with our opinions on sex-positivity, contraception, abortion etc.) but damn it, NOW really irks me the wrong way. From Mensactivism.org:

Feminists at the National Organization of Women are now hypocritically spouting two opposite and irreconcilable lines of attack at the same time, depending what the issue is. Politicians on the national stage have opened more combat roles to women. NOW claims that everyone should support this move because women are every bit as: tough, independent, fearless, and self reliant as men, an assessment I wholeheartedly agree with. But when a few Florida politicians consider ending lifetime alimony, the same organization starts simultaneously claiming that women are defenseless little prairie flowers and must be protected from taking responsibility for their own existence. I wish the National Organization of Women would make up its mind.

[...]

It would end "permanent" lifetime alimony in favor of "long-term" support that has a foreseeable end.

[...]

Barbara Devane from The National Organization for Women is concerned. “They stay home, they raise the children, and then they get older and the man trades them in for a younger wife, and then they are left out in the cold, and they must be protected,” she says.

"Feminism is the idea that you can create equality by focusing on the issues of only one sex."

As seen on Reddit. This is certainly true of gynocentric feminism.

Thanks feminism!

I am a bit stressed by life, but will try to post regularly again. So why not comeback with something atypical? If you have clicked through that blog, you might have noticed that I tend to be critical of feminism. To say it that way, I would like to call myself egalitarian but I am biased toward a masculist opinion. And there are certain aspects of feminism that makes lives for men harder, which is where I am coming from. Anyhow recently read this on feministe:

In the years leading up to the birth of “Ms. Magazine”, women had trouble getting a credit card without a man’s signature, had few legal rights when it came to divorce or reproduction, and were expected to aspire solely to marriage and motherhood. Job listings were segregated (“Help wanted, male”). There was no Title IX (banning sex discrimination in federally funded athletic programs); no battered-women’s shelters, rape-crisis centers, and no terms such as sexual harassment and domestic violence.

Well done, no really! To add to the above, I read feministing regularly and can mostly agree with what they are saying (I don't read the community posts, that is probably a very different beast), especially their opposition to "pro-life laws" (I am pro-choice), most stuff on politics, the stuff on body acceptance, sex-positivity, pro-transgender, anti-racism etc. In that vein, I am sure I have been unfair to feminists / feminism in the past, so apologies for that. I wonder if I will get backlash for that post.....we will see.

Not listening to women is a misogynist act.

Via Shakesville:

this is a statement of fact: Not listening to women is a misogynist act. [...] This is not an argument that women are always right, or wise. It is an argument that, even if a woman is wrong, the wrongest that any wrong person could be, she still deserves to be heard, and her wrongness dismissed on its merits, which requires listening in the first place.

Not too sure what I should think about that post. Generalisations (almost) always have an exception (and apparently by even thinking about that I am a misogynist as well). For instance should one listen to the religious woman protesting in front of a Planned Parenthood, when wanting an abortion? Or to the girl bullying you in high school? Or not walking away and listen to your significant other scream obscenities at you during an argument instead of walking away so that the situation does not escalate? Especially when you live in an abusive relationship?

I may be nitpicking here, because certainly she has a point, especially with:

Actively tuning out women is a misogynist act. Passively failing to seek out women's perspectives is a misogynist act. Shouting down or talking over or reflexively contradicting women is a misogynist act. Treating women as though they are not experts on their own lives and experiences is a misogynist act. Appropriating women's ideas is a misogynist act. Tokenizing women in lieu of making room for meaningful participation is a misogynist act. Marginalizing women's voices, through systemic and deliberate exclusion or a careless failure to practice diversity, is a misogynist act.

If we think about misandry for a moment and the often used "What about the menz" interjection, one can reach the conclusion that a whole lof of feminists are indeed manhaters.

Some Radical Feminist Quotes

“When a woman reaches orgasm with a man she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, eroticizing her own oppression.”
- Sheila Jeffreys: professor, political activist and author

“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: civil rights, antiwar and radical feminist activist, writer, poet, and editor of Ms. Magazine

“To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo.”
- Valerie Solanas (1936-1988): Author of the SCUM Manifesto, attempted murderer of Andy Warhol

“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 (1946-2005): writer, antipornography activist

“We are, as a sex, infinitely superior to men.”
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902): social activist, abolitionist, women’s suffrage movement leader

Misogyny - sexual preference edition

Two posts from feministe:

Do you have a right to refuse to have period sex because you think bleeding vaginas be nasty? Of course. And do I have a right to leave your ass and think less of you because of that? You betcha. Because it does come down to misogyny, basically [...] Lots of healthy vaginas expel blood. And if you think that’s gross, well, maybe spend your naked extracurricular time with someone who is vagina-free [...] Basically, dudes who have sex with women and think period sex is disgusting are the brothers-in-badnews-sexytime with people who think oral sex is gross. Don’t like normally-functioning vaginas? Then you should be disallowed from fucking them.

Toysoldier's take on another one.

So is a woman a misandrist if she doesn't like her boyfriend coming in her mouth?

Some NOMAS citations

As recently seen on reddit, some citations from their site:

NOMAS joined an amicus curiae brief prepared by the California Women’s Law Center, Queens’ Bench Bar Association of the San Francisco Bay Area, California Alliance Against Domestic Violence and several other California organizations in support of the shelters that addresses why it is important for women’s physical and psychological well-being that they have available domestic violence shelters that do not permit adult men.

-from here

There is a disturbing national trend toward laws mandating joint custody [...] Furthermore, court mandated joint custody is not in the best interests of mothers.

-from here

How can a dad – unemployed or working outside the home – be a good father? Not by fighting for custody or demanding “shared parenting” after divorce or breakup. The best way a dad can be a good father is by providing support to the mother of his children, including both financial and emotional support. [...] If dad wants to make sure his children thrive he must do whatever he can to ensure that their mother is thriving. Stop fighting for “shared parenting” or sole custody if you are in court. [...] So dads, the message is clear. If you want your children to grow up to be happy and healthy adults, the best thing you can do for them is to make sure that their mother is comfortable, healthy, and happy.

-from here

After years of exploring a wide range of batterer program models, the National Council of NOMAS has given its full support to the New York Model for Batterer Programs (www.nymbp.org). This model was determined to be most in keeping with NOMAS principles and beliefs about sexism, domestic violence and batterer programs.

[From the nymbp site which can also be linked to several NOMAS / Pro-feminists]

Women can be mean, abusive and violent toward their intimate partners. The perspective we share on this issue, however, is systemic and not individual. History and culture point to the pervasiveness of men’s entitlements, across the globe, to control women’s lives. This is the backdrop in which domestic violence became a social norm. This is fully borne out by statistics, no matter what reporting flaws are conceded. Another point is that typically, male domestic violence offenders control, dominate and terrorize their partners. Also typically, women who abuse are defending, fighting back, retaliating and rarely causing fear or disturbing the flow of their partner’s lives. It is noteworthy that the systemic supports of men’s domestic abuse are exposed by the harsh differential in punishment women get when tried for similar crimes.

-from here and here

Talk about disconnect from reality... Also recently from Reddit (hattip to Kill_the_rich), apparently Barry Goldstein who is co-chair of the NOMAS Task Group on Child Custody lost his law degree for lying on a child custody case. Oh my.

“A lack of conviction doesn’t make a person innocent.”

Says feminist Susan Brownmiller. Hattip to Toy Soldiers.

What about innocent until proven guilty?

On decriminalisation of sex work

Well, I support it, and have written about the Swedish case before, not sure where though, anyhow, good post:

Amongst anti sex work feminists, the model of sex industry law reform preferred to decriminalisation is known as the Swedish Model. Based on legislation introduced in Sweden in 1999, the Swedish model criminalises the buying of sexual services. Selling of sexual services is technically not a crime, but buying them is punishable by a fine or gaol time. This legislation is based on a redefinition of sex work as ‘male violence against women’. Proponents of the Swedish model claim that it has reduced the amount of sex work occurring in Sweden, although this claim is disputed by Swedish sex workers and some researchers.

Recently, Swedish researchers Susanne Dodillet and Petra Östergren published a paper on the Swedish model, The Swedish Sex Purchase Act: Claimed Success and Documented Effects (be warned about the language: it’s generally supportive, but it uses the p-word). The paper is a must read for anyone with an interest in this topic. Briefly put, it’s conclusions can be summarised as follows: contrary to claims otherwise, the Swedish legislation does not appear to have reduced the size of the Swedish sex industry, has not deterred clients, is unsupported by Swedish sex workers and may make sex work more dangerous and increase risk of STIs. As noted in a survey quoted in the report, support for criminalisation in Sweden is strong, however, the majority of people surveyed support the criminalisation of sex workers as well as clients.

[...W]hile the legislation does not specifically criminalise the sex worker, it criminalises everyone around the sex worker. It becomes illegal to rent a room, house, hotel room or apartment for anyone to do sex work out of, or the land lord risks being charged with pimping. The real world implication of this, of course, is that if a sex worker’s sex work status is revealed, they are most likely going to be evicted even if they are not working from that property, as the land lord will fear being charged under Sweden’s strict pimping laws. ‘Pimping’ is also a charge applied to anyone who assists in finding clients, provides security services, or allows advertising for sex workers. Sex workers cannot work together or they risk being charged with pimping each other, which dramatically decreases our opportunity to look out for each other’s safety, reduce overhead costs, and establish peer support networks, which are known to be our most effective method of reducing the STI rate. Services which provide support to sex workers risk running foul of legislators who oppose anything that looks like ‘promoting’ sex work, which may even include distribution of condoms to sex workers. Sex worker organisations do not receive condoms from the government and are not able to buy them in bulk, so have found themselves forced to obtain them from organisations that provide them to men who have sex with men.

[...]I should note: the legislation, of course, is not inclusive of all women. When it is stated that sex work is ‘male violence against women’, what is meant is ‘cis male violence against cis women’. Women working explicitly as trans women (and cis and trans male sex workers) are completely erased in both legislation and discussion. They don’t fit neatly into the analysis, so they’re just ignored. As I’ve stated before, if your analysis doesn’t fit the affected community, it’s not the community that needs to change.

It’s a pretty simple decision to me: when the choice is between a legislative model that has been demonstrated to have some of the best health and safety outcomes for sex workers, and a legislative model that has the negative impacts on us listed above, I’m going to support the model that promotes our health, safety and well-being, and that sex workers actually want to work under. It’s not only the humane choice, it’s the feminist choice.

There was far more in the original. Good article.

The one in power...

Another feminist citation.

But as we’ve quickly learned with the ascent of women in politics and government, a woman in power does not guarantee a leader who prioritizes the needs of women.

Sure, it is also true that "a man in power does not guarantee a leader who prioritizes the needs of men" and that having mostly men at the very top of the ladder does not mean that men as a class have power at all. Just sayin...

The MRM is frighteningly effective and does nothing at all....at the same time.

Feminists, make up your mind, we can't be both:

movements are supposed to move. Hey, wait a second, let me yell again. MOVEMENTS ARE SUPPOSED TO MOVE. I look around the men’s rights movement and you know what I see? Some two-person protests where someone pretends to be Batman, some petitions that can’t gather a thousand signatures, a few activist groups with almost no political power, some pick-up artists, some socially awkward people not dating anyone anymore and a whole lot of bitching in comments sections.

- from here

"Men's Rights" Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective They’re changing custody rights and domestic violence laws.

- from here and a similar article here (an answer to that article can be found here)

So it might be time to list some accomplishments:

We start with F&F and NCFM. Mediaradar also has some campaigns running. This victory by them about gender neutral language in VAWA might be interesting. Or the success in making DV service more including for male victims, see here and here. SAVE has something to offer as well.

Also there is the new academic discipline of male studies forming

Not to forget about International Men's Day.

I kept that list Us-centric and will add more when I find more. 20.10.11: NCFM at San Diego “Hope in the Park” Domestic Violence Prevention Month Event