IN THIS discussion about man-bashing, I wrote:

Women have this natural tendency to blame men that stems from relying on men, and they also resort to this habit even when they are themselves at fault.

The analogy of employer and employee has serious limitations here because a husband-and-wife relationship is different and is based on mutual love. Still it works because the employee assumes the employer is in charge, as a wife often does with regard to a husband. Feminists wouldn’t admit this of course, but I believe this is one reason why anger at men only rises under feminism. Male authority is destroyed and yet women still presume it. The angry and embittered single mother is a perfect example of this. She has all the freedom from men she could possibly want and yet she is still enraged at them.

 

                                         — Comments —

James P. writes:

“The analogy of employer and employee has serious limitations here because a husband-and-wife relationship is different and is based on mutual love. Still it works because the employee assumes the employer is in charge, as a wife often does with regard to a husband. Feminists wouldn’t admit this of course, but I believe this is one reason why anger at men only rises under feminism. Male authority is destroyed and yet women still presume it. The angry and embittered single mother is a perfect example of this. She has all the freedom from men she could possibly want and yet she is still enraged at them.”

Under feminism, women want the advantages of “equality” and chivalry at the same time – i.e., they want men to defer to women and protect them as they do under the chivalrous paradigm, and they want the legal and social protections that prevailed under the chivalrous paradigm (most notably, alimony and automatic child custody in the event of a divorce), but at the same time, they also want to compete with men for jobs and to be able to pull the plug on a marriage whenever they feel like it. Female anger results from the obvious tensions this contradictory posture creates in the social fabric; from the increasing refusal of men to accept such a lousy deal; and in the case of the bitter single mother, from the natural tendency to hate those we have wronged.

Maggie Fox writes:

I actually agree that much man-bashing is a product of a common assumption that men are supposed to be in charge. Most man-bashers I have met have been older women, housewives, or others brought up with patriarchal mores. By the same token, men in patriarchal communities and families often resent women. 

Hierarchy poisons relationships. People find it difficult to empathize with those who have different roles and different problems. The woman is aggravated by the difficulties she faces as a result of the man’s decisions. She cannot look at his weaknesses with compassion because his weaknesses might well ruin her life due to her dependence on him. Meanwhile, the man is alienated from his wife and children because they do not understand the pressure he is under as the sole provider for them all. 

As a cradle feminist, an heiress to the last thirty-five years of feminist progress, I have been free to form highly satisfying relationships with men because I am not in a hierarchical relationship with them. In my marriage, I can’t blame my husband for his bad decisions (not that he makes very many) for a couple of reasons: (1) I am equally responsible for any decisions he makes because, as an equal partner in the relationship, I could have nixed whatever bad idea he may have had; and (2) As someone who also makes decisions that affect us both, I also hope for tolerance from my husband when I screw up. My husband and I additionally have the luxury of looking at each other’s career decisions without feeling threatened. If one of us stops performing well at work, or makes some risky career decision, it’s okay because we each have our own income to keep us afloat. In other words, there is no resentment because there is no hierarchy. 

I also have other fulfilling relationships with men, relationships that would have been unthinkable when my mother and grandmother were growing up — relationships with male friends and professional peers, and male mentors who have groomed me to replace them on the climb up the professional ladder. My mother and grandmother are more likely to bash men than I am because they have known men primarily as distant acquaintances, or as authority figures. I am less inclined to bash men because, all my life, men have been my allies in school, in sports, in my hobbies, in my professional life, and in my marriage. I can accept men as allies rather than adversaries because I take for granted my position of equality with them.

Laura writes:

In all due respect, Maggie’s comments are typical of the feminist, especially the childless feminist, who lives in her private utopia.

Maggie is oblivious to the changes all around her: the staggering increase in out-of-wedlock childbirth; the high rates of divorce, which show that women are not getting along better with men than in the past, as she claims; and the withering contempt a significant minority of married women, raised under feminism like her, routinely express for men, including their own husbands. The woman whose story initiated this conversation was raised with all the equality Maggie praises and yet she openly disdains men.

Maggie exaggerates the degree to which women participate in decision-making today as opposed to the past. When we speak of male authority, we are not talking about a world in which women are treated as children and do not have any role in family decisions. That was very rarely the case in the marriages of our ancestors. Very few husbands want to be tyrants, though certainly, under less egalitarian norms, a small minority of men are tyrannical, thus violating their marital vows to love their spouses. Most men in traditional society cede some control in domestic matters to women. There have always been domestic female tyrants as well, even in the most patriarchal of societies. So strong is the innate power of motherhood and of womanhood in general, women rule in some ways over men even when men are explicitly recognized to have more authority.

My mother and grandmother are more likely to bash men than I am because they have known men primarily as distant acquaintances, or as authority figures.

This may very well be the case with her relatives (though how one knows a husband or a son as a “distant acquaintance” is beyond me), and it is very sad, but I suggest Maggie consider the many women who were happily – and securely – attached to their husbands before feminism imposed an entirely different conception of marriage. The statistics bear this out of course, but individual history does too. She might look, for instance, at the marriage of Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine, which I wrote about here, especially the letters of love and sympathy he penned to her, or the marriage of Abigail and John Adams or the marriage of Alexander Graham Bell and his wife, Mabel Hubbard. Mabel Hubbard never worked a day in her life at a paying job, never slept with a man before she married, and recognized her role as entirely different from that of her husband. But they were devoted partners. Marriage – and children – thrive on sexual differentiation. If women are going to fulfill their natural roles as mothers and wives, they must be provided for by men and in order for men to provide for and protect women and children, they must dominate them in some ways. Domination is always tempered in a good marriage by love and mutual respect. These realities stem from the nature of child-rearing and are indelibly inscribed in the psychology of men and women. Maggie’s egalitarian paradise is not without any benefits or pleasures for some women, especially the few who are relatively unwomanly, but generally it ignores real life and represents a rebellion against nature itself, which is why our birth rate is so low and children are so slovenly and stupid today. 

It is important to add that there is no such thing as a world in which all marriages are happy.

Reader N. writes:

There are two obvious reasons why women bash men, but first it is important to separate grouching, complaining and whining from actual hatred. Sinful human beings would rather grouch, complain and whine about other sinful human beings than actually do something to correct whatever situation is bothering them. That should not be a subject for debate, not for traditionalists. Actually hating men is not as common, but it is infinitely more common than it was 50 years ago or even 40 years ago, thanks to Feminism.

Actual hatred of men, scorn for men, despising of men is much more common and even popular in the US for an obvious reason: 30+ years of varying forms of propaganda have taught an entire generation of women that at best men are contemptible, bumbling, foolish, stupid creatures who don’t really deserve any respect at all. At worst, the sirens sing, men are inherently evil, brutish, violent,child molesting creatures who must be kept away from women and children at all costs. If it were only popular attitudes, that would be bad enough, but the notion that every father is champing at the bit to abandon his wife and children for a cheap floozy & refuse to pay child support has been encoded into law. The falsehood that every husband is a wife-beater just waiting for a chance to break bones is encoded into law. These ideas all come from Feminism.

Popular culture changed dramatically in the 1970’s. Go and look at the popular television shows of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as “Desi and Lucy”, “Burns and Allen”, “Jack Benny”, “Honeymooners”, “Dick Van Dyke”, “CarolBurnett”, and so forth. Not to beat the obvious, but a popular show in that era was entitled “Father Knows Best”. Compare those shows with “One Day at a Time”, “Maude”,”All in the Family”, etc. and so forth from the 1970’sand 1980’s, you all should know what the 1990’s looked like.

 From mainstream TV shows, especially situation “comedies”to movies such as “Thelma and Louise”, “The Burning Bed”,etc. these lessons have been taught  for a generation. Hatred of men is an inherent part of Feminism, and Feminism has been rained down on our heads since the1970’s. And while it is popular in some quarters to assume that somehow every man who was alive in the 1970’s somehow agreed with these caricatures, nay, even encouraged them, the fact of the matter is a tiny handful of liberal,or left wing, executives in Hollywood made the decisions that led to this barrage of bilge.

None of this should be news to anyone who has been paying the least amount of attention to popular culture. Current movies offer a stark example: the glamorization of a woman who abandons her husband and gets a nice book deal in the bargain can be seen in “Eat, Pray, Love”, now showing at theaters around the country. Men as props, rather than as human beings, are prominently on display I’m sure, although I confess I have not seen the film nor do I intend to do so.

All of this is a symptom of something else, however.There is a deeper issue that needs to be addressed here by everyone, the issue of authority and responsibility. The single mother who bitterly complains without end of the evils of men is refusing to accept responsibilityfor her own situation. She has the authority, without a doubt, regardless of whether she or her vilified ex husband initiated the divorce. Forty years of law guarantees she has full, complete, total authority over her life and that of her children (and under the law they are her children without question). By ranting about the evils of men, however,she’s pretending that somehow authority is in the hands of some ill-defined entity called “men” and therefore her unhappy life is her fault.

Feminists encourage and foster these notions. Endless writings about “hidden patriarchy” mask the fact that women in the US have more authority over their life than any other women on the planet, or in history. The more authority they get, the more whining about men and hatred towards them we see, very likely because Feminism does not necessarily teach acceptance responsibility. In fact, Feminism tends to teach the “free lunch” theory of society; women should get what they want, when they want it, and men should give it to them. This has led to legions of spoiled brat, “Princesses”, women who regard themselves as entitled to the best in life because they deserve it. Why? Because they are women, that’s why! And when life doesn’t turn out the way it is supposed to in an Oxygen network movie, why, it’s “men” who are to blame.

Turning to traditionalist, “white knight” men, we find the _same_ attitude; somehow, when any bad thing happens to a woman, there’s got to be a man who could have prevented it. He’s got to be found, and made to do his duty, even though he never had the authority because it was taken away from him, maybe in the 1990’s, or the 1980’s, possibly in the 1970’s. I am thinking of a couple of concrete examples right now, but this is too long as it is. So we have traditionalist men assuming that other men have authority where it no longer exists, and hasn’t existed for over a generation, and thus assigning responsibility to “men” for bad things happening to “women”.

Authority and responsibility are intertwined: to assume a man has the responsibility for caring for a woman when he has absolutely no authority over her is madness, yet both Feminists and many traditionalists share that notion. To give women authority over their lives, yet never ask them to accept the responsibility for their actions is bound to encourage the childish behavior that we can see all around us, yet both Feminists and far too many traditionalists share this as well. Again I can think of concrete examples.

At least some of the MRM are demanding that authority and responsibility be put back in balance; they demand that women own up to the responsibility that comes with the authority the legal system awards them. Some traditionalists take the other approach, insisting that women who refuse to take responsibility for their lives should surrender their authority. Each approach has merit; the MRM’s at least are keenly aware of what the modern legal landscape looks like, the traditionalists are aware at some level that many (possibly most) women simply cannot handle too much
autonomy.

Either way, so long as women are not held responsible for the exercise of their authority, they will be frustrated and unhappy, always looking for someone to blame for bad outcomes in their lives, and thus prone to bitterly bash  men, because that’s what they have been taught by the pro-Feminist mass, popular culture. Traditionalists who do not recognize how far out of balance authority and
responsibility are in the modern world will find themselves writing foolish things that are simply not in touch with reality. Furthermore, their policy suggestions will be useless, because they ignore the mass of law that has grown up around women’s autonomy going back all the way to Roe v. Wade in 1973.

Laura writes:

I agree with N. about the fostering of contempt for men in popular culture. I’m not sure whom he is referring to with regard to the traditionalist position, but no one here has suggested that women are not responsible for their own failings or contempt for men and that harsh criticism of men will simply stop when men change. I disagree that men have no authority over women today and no power to change them.

Their policy suggestions will be useless? I don’t think traditionalists favor abortion, easy divorce, presumptive custody of children for women. I find men in the men’s movement saying this all the time, that somehow because a person believes that attitudes men and women bring to their daily lives are important that person supports feminist laws and radical autonomy.

Also, the men’s movement, for all its hypothetical focus on laws and actual policies, does not support customary economic discrimination in favor of men and examines the issue of divorce far more than it does the serious problem of affirmative action for women and the laws and regulations that diminish the male provider. So the idea that only the men’s movement is realistic about laws and policies is false.  The men’s movement does not really seek to overturn the economic autonomy of women, which is so basic to many of the attitudes and norms today. The men’s movement seeks egalitarianism that is more favorable to men.

John P. writes:

It goes without saying that I disagree with Maggie Fox pretty much across the board but she raises two questions that I believe are worth addressing from a traditionalist perspective; friendships between men and women and hierarchy and resentment.

I have been graced with several very good friendships with women but I have to say that in every case where the friendship was genuinely close I wanted to marry them, couldn’t and “settled” for friendship rather than sever the link entirely. I don’t think I am unusual in this regard. I have never become more than courteous and sympathetic with women in the absence of this special something.

As to hierarchy breeding resentment, I think this is untrue. Bad hierarchy breeds resentment. There are many men who are vastly better at squash than I am and I feel not the slightest resentment toward their position because it is self-evident that they have earned their superior position through a transparent and rule oriented process. Resentment of superiors emerges when the leadership is observably no better, or even worse, than the led, a condition I see as becoming worryingly ubiquitous in liberal society. In addition, it is possible to “artificially” breed resentment by inculcating people with the idea that no one could be better than oneself, that no such standard or rank exists. This lies at the core of modern feminism and liberalism in general. Patriarchal leadership rests on a complex of factors only a few of which can be reduced to quantifiable factors like educational attainment, as important as these may be in some contexts.

If a woman finds a man unworthy of leadership, fair enough, she should keep looking. If she will not accept his leadership, no matter his qualities, that’s on her. My advice to men is to avoid such women like the plague.

Laura writes:

John P.’s comments remind me of C.S. Lewis’s remark that egalitarianism and the overthrow of hierarchy deny individuals what is necessary to live well: the experience of admiration. 

Maggie writes:

Thank you for your interesting response. I didn’t mean to imply that feminism is a guarantee of a happy marriage. The personal failings of the parties involved, or a lack of good faith on one side or another, can certainly ruin an egalitarian marriage. I also concede the existence of happy marriages within a patriarchal framework, though I would posit that such marriage succeeded despite their hierarchical structure. I think husbands like John Adams and Winston Churchill were rare because power corrupts and most men are going to succumb to the temptations of entitlement and domination and contempt that come with a position of power over the women in their lives. This is not because men are inherently worse than women, but rather because the ability to dominate others brings out the worst in all people. (That said, hierarchy can be a useful way of organizing people to accomplish certain discrete missions, but must be limited and should not intrude into the most intimate relationships.) 

I am not convinced that the greater divorce rate in recent years is evidence that men and women are not getting along as well as in the past. There was no divorce among my parents, or grand-parents, or great-grandparents but none of those marriages were happy. My mother and grandmothers and great-grandmothers were unable to leave due to a combination of social pressure, religious belief and financial dependence. 

It should also be noted that not all women are equally feminist in outlook or upbringing. I don’t assume that the male-bashing woman in the prior post is wholly feminist, or necessarily feminist at all. It would be foolish to assume that old attitudes that I can still remember from childhood have died out in just 40 years. There are plenty of communities and social classes in the United States alone where feminism has taken over far less than in my own demographic. As one of your commenters noted, plenty of younger women still expect men to take on the old “chivalrous” roles, an expectation that I believe is bound to stoke resentment on both sides and is in fact antithetical to feminism. 

Finally I am bemused by the suggestion that the “unwomanly” among us are most likely to take satisfaction in the benefits of feminism. Surely the desire for independence, respect, equal citizenship, accomplishment, participation in issues of public concern and intimacy with loved ones are universal regardless of sex.

Thank you for engaging my long comments.

Laura writes:

 My mother and grandmothers and great-grandmothers were unable to leave due to a combination of social pressure, religious belief and financial dependence.

Thank goodness for their children that they were unable to leave and for them too, as old age is miserable when lived alone and without the support of family. Let’s not mention that it may have been good for their husbands too as we all know they must have been louts. Divorce is damaging to children and the effects are lifelong. Personally, I find women who cannot find happiness even in the confines of an unhappy marriage to be lacking in the qualities of endurance, imagination, and self-sufficiency, the very qualities that feminism is supposed to inspire. You forget that these women chose their husbands. If they chose unwisely, that reflects upon them. Perhaps there was a streak of hereditary impulsiveness in these women that made them choose rotten men when they were young. My maternal grandmother, to mention only one of the many women married for most of their lives in my past, was very happy, bore seven children, and nursed her husband for years before he died of the effects of mustard gas poisoning. She could not have had a fuller life. My grandfather was not an autocrat. 

Finally I am bemused by the suggestion that the “unwomanly” among us are most likely to take satisfaction in the benefits of feminism. Surely the desire for independence, respect, equal citizenship, accomplishment, participation in issues of public concern and intimacy with loved ones are universal regardless of sex.

But, I was talking about womanly qualities, those things that specifically distinguish women from men. They include tenderness, intuition, motherliness, eagerness to serve, compassion, loveliness, admiration of men, charm, etc. A woman is incomplete and unwomanly when she has no opportunity to express these qualities. Surely, you don”t believe that feminism encourages these traits?

Slwerner writes:

“Also, the men’s movement, for all its hypothetical focus on laws and actual policies, does not support customary economic discrimination in favor of men and examines the issue of divorce far more than it does the serious problem of affirmative action for women and the laws and regulations that diminish the male provider. So the idea that only the men’s movement is realistic about laws and policies is false. The men’s movement does not really seek to overturn the economic autonomy of women, which is so basic to many of the attitudes and norms today. The men’s movement seeks egalitarianism that is more favorable to men.” 

The government has NO business discriminating against anyone (or group) for any reason – no matter how “just” some may believe the ends to be. [Laura writes: I do not favor government-imposed discrimination in favor of men and have never advocated it. The government must allow society to revert to customary discrimination in favor of men as existed in the past. That means the repeal of all laws and regulations that require businesses or government to hire women. Why doesn’t the men’s movement favor this?] Feminists have effectively argued that the laws needed to advantage women; homosexuals argue that they should be advantaged; various racial/ethnic groups do likewise – and, they are all dead wrong. And, by the very same logic, it is just as wrong to discriminate in favor of men selectively as it is to discriminate in favor of women selectively. 

Reader N. “gets it”. Many of your other posters seem not to. A man (as husband) has authority over his family only to the extent that his wife will allow it. This may not be Biblical, but IT IS THE LAW (twisted though it may be). 

And, again, this is where you and I disagree about the so-called MRM. Although it has attracted it’s share of men who truly dislike women (generally based on their personal experiences) the one thing that the MRM does do is seek to gain changes in the laws that DO affect families (and, by default, also serve to retard family formation in the first place).

 In that you seem to demand that any effort to change laws focus first, and foremost, on issues that would advantage traditional families, you will have little luck in ever seeing meaningful changes. Marriage has been in decline not because men fear they will not be able to earn enough to support a family, but because men fear the ruination they face should the women they marry ever have her own “Elizabeth Gilbert” moment. 

If ever any women decides she’s no longer happy with whatever family arrangement she has (including a highly traditional Christian one), she has the complete backing of the state along with it’s power to advantage her in “cashing out.” 

This is the real problem. Yes, many men may not be taking charge as they should. But, then again, they’ve probably witnessed the devastating outcomes of other men who’ve tried to do so, only to find themselves at odds with their (ex-)wives. I know many men who struggle with this very concern. I, myself did so as well. We (as I am one who did) fear divorce, and what will befall our children and our finances. It’s not as easy as Jesse Powell imagines it to be for a man to simply assert his (Godly ordained) authority (based on his comments in the previous thread). Again, in today’s legal climate, he can only have what authority his wife will allow him to have – and most women are no longer so “traditionally” minded. 

I don’t specifically fault you (and your readers) for wishing to bring about a bottom-up change in social attitudes. It’s just that I believe that with out legal changes that target the actual problems, as a top-down reform, the bottom-up ones will remain very limited in effectiveness. 

The mainstream churches fail to address this, as does the whole of the conservative political movement. And, as you yourself have demonstrated, even very traditional Christians have little or no interest in addressing those very serious issues facing men (at least as far as actually seeking to make legal changes). The MRM may be badly flawed, but as far as seeking meaningful legal reforms, as of now, it is the only game in town.

Laura writes:

If the men’s movement succeeds in ending no-fault divorce laws it will have accomplished something significant. I entirely agree that easy divorce is unjust to many thousands of men, and less so to women too.

I don’t believe this will happen while both men and women are inculcated in the values of radical autonomy and I don’t see the men’s movement challenging these values or replacing the adversarial climate of feminism. Women will not give up the freedom to divorce easily, as they should, until they see their lives as ones of interdependence with men. Feminism defeats this concept of interdependence from early in life. The men’s movement promotes legal reforms within a culture that endorses divorce and that does not support traditional sex roles. It does not get to the root of divorce. I know women whose feminism is so deep that they have gladly chosen personal financial ruin over staying with their husbands. And they have a society that embraces them for what they do, that employs them and rewards their independence and assertiveness at every turn, even offers them continued sex and romance, a society that is eager to exploit their independence and turn them into cogs in the machine.

Again, in today’s legal climate, he can only have what authority his wife will allow him to have – and most women are no longer so “traditionally” minded.

I disagree that men can have no influence over women, but surely they can have no authority over women at the last minute and in a crisis if throughout the span of their relationships they have never asserted themselves before.  Fathers can influence their daughters, refusing to financially support them if they have sex before they are married, and refusing to comfort them or accept them when they leave their husbands. You say men can have no influence and yet I have often seen fathers stand by while their daughters divorce their husbands or while daughters become involved with men before marriage and risk pregnancy and single motherhood or abortion. I disagree that this passivity is imposed on men. And, you think if divorce laws are simply changed, this climate will be altered? Why doesn’t the men’s movement recognize the scourge of paternal passivity? Women rely on this moral support from others and would not do what they do if they were ostracized by family and friends and condemned by their fathers. Men would not have sex with unmarried women if they knew these fathers would show up and demand they pay.  And you say men have no authority. No law has stripped men of their ability to express anger and to show it to those who depend on them. No law has stripped men of the ability to fight a man who has impregnated his daughter. No law has stripped men of the ability to refuse to marry a woman if she wants to be a careerist and to develop her own independence from him.

Yes, there are many evil and pernicious laws and regulations. But changing divorce laws alone will not reverse the trend toward illegitimacy and reverse the slide into a matriarchal family structure which makes both men and women unfit for motherhood and fatherhood.

N. writes:

I agree with N. about the fostering of contempt for men in popular culture.

It is important not to underestimate this effect. I recall the sitcom “One Day At A Time”, a mid-70’s to mid-80’s show that consciously glorified Feminist themes, including never ending
bashing of men as untrustworthy, unreliable, etc. Of course, it was yet another of Norman Lear’s productions.

As an aside, listen to children talking to their parents in a shopping mall. All too often, it is a version of the smart-mouth children that infest every popular sitcom that is on the air. I recall once sitting through part of an episode of “Home Improvement”, only to hear the same backtalk phrase used in a store from a child to her father a few days later. Naturally, he did not chide or correct her, either.

Anyone who wishes to overcome the popular culture will have to start within their own house, at the point where Hollywood’s sewer pipe empties out: the television set.

 I’m not sure whom he is referring to with regard to the traditionalist position, but no one here has suggested that women are  not responsible for their own failings or contempt for men and that
harsh criticism of men will simply stop when men change.On the contrary, Jesse Powell and others have made it rather clear that merely by exerting their will, men can cause women to change their hearts, cease hating men, and become traditionalists.
I see this idea over and over again in traditionalist writing; if men will just “man up and stand up”, all this Feminist foolishness will go away. [Laura writes: You seeme to have missed Jesse’s comments on the narcissism, selfishness, and pathology of feminists.] Of course, this totally ignores history, and I find increasingly that when I encounter this notion, it becomes a task
to finish reading from that point on, because the writer has a clearly false premise underlying their thinking. 

 I disagree that men have no authority over women today and no power
to change them.

Let us explore this, first by defining the term being used. When I write of “authority”, I am primarily referring to authority conferred in our society by the law. Using that definition, consider Andrew S. and his sister. Does the law confer to him any authority over his sister at all?

No, it does not. Indeed, his writing makes it clear that he unhappily defers to her anger in order to avoid a total schism, making her sad son completely unavailable to the rest of the family. Surely it
is obvious from his notes that he has no power at all to change her, as well? I can cite an entire book of examples, from college girls gone wild to Andrea Yates demonstrating that no man, at this time,
in this society, has any legal authority whatsoever over any woman, with such obvious exceptions as prison guards, military officers, and so forth. [Laura writes: I agree, but that does not mean men have no moral authority over women at all.]

Perhaps when you write “authority,” you are instead referring to God-given authority? I will agree with you that men have such authority, however they must be extremely circumspect and prudent in how they choose to exercise it, fully aware of the massive legal hammers that can drop on to the head of any man, at any time a woman happens to say certain words.

Of course, you may have another definition of “authority” in mind, it would be of benefit to both of us as well as others to explore what you mean by that word.

Laura writes:

That is a topic for further exploration. Suffice it to say that I am referring to moral authority and the refusal to accept feminism in its everyday expresssions. I don’t see many men declining the fruits of female promiscuity. Barring a widespread refusal of easy sex by men, which is highly unlikely to happen, men can resist the feminist nonsense they daily encounter. They can resist the degradation of their daughters. I suppose you live in a different world from me. Everywhere I go in real life, I see men spouting feminist nonsense too. Men hailed Sarah Palin as their saviour.

I realize that feminism is encoded in law. Both laws and attitudes are important.

Slwerner writes:

“You say men can have no influence…”

I never said that. I said that a husband’s authority is limited to what his wife will allow him to have. [Laura writes: That’s the same as saying he has no authority at all.]

Yes, if he’s exercised such authority regularly through the relationship, his wife is more likely to be accepting of it than if he simply suddenly springs it on her. But, just because a wife has been
previously accepting does not necessarily mean that she will continue to be so. Even very traditional Christian women are not exempt from changing over time. [Laura writes: Yes, in which case, they cease to be very traditional, Christian women and renounce salvation.] The influences of feminism and pop-culture are very prominent and very pernicious.

Laura writes, “And, you think if divorce laws are simply changed, this climate will be altered?”

Substantially more so than if, for instance, the government suddenly allowed for male-positive employment discrimination. [Laura writes: You are grossly simplfying my position. I brought up the problem of economic discrimination against men as an example of how the men’s movement is not focused on all positive legal changes. I never said this would be a panacea .] Women can now end their marriages on a whim. Some may even chose to do so in the knowledge that they will suffer financially. Yet, the reality is that most believe that they will benefit financially; and a substantial majority do just that. The most meaningful way of combating no-fault divorce is to remove the financial incentives, and place penalties on those electing to divorce without cause (infidelity, substance abuse, violence). [Laura writes: I believe the most meaningful way to combat no-fault divorce is to end no-fault divorce. In fact, I do not believe it is in the government’s interest to recognize more than one marriage per person.] Young men typically have numerous personal examples of men being taken to the cleaners in Anti-family Court. It is such examples which are increasingly causing them to avoid marriage. [Laura writes: But men always have positive examples too. Why is the negative more persuasive? I don’t deny the horror of being abused by a wife, but I don’t see this as a worthy argument for not marrying except for men who are looking for reasons anyway. By the way, most divorced men end up remarrying. The rate of remarriage is far lower for women. There are tremendous disincentives for women to get divorced even today. Why do they do it?  The feminist dream is deep in their bones. You have no dream to offer them instead other than a balancing of rights. Most human beings are not moved or sustained or motivated by rights. They are motivated by love and ideals. I entirely agree with you that there should not be any financial rewards for a spouse who initiates unilateral divorce. None.] The very best way to reinvigorate the institution of marriage is to reduce such negative examples for young men.

As to saving extant marriages, ending no-fault divorce holds less promise. But, that is not to say that removing the perceived financial incentives might well cause some to reconsider just how unhappy they really are. Not that it would work in all cases, but it would seem likely you play into the decision-making process for many.

Laura, writes, “Why doesn’t the men’s movement recognize the scourge of paternal passivity?”

How much of this paternal passivity is due to fathers being removed or marginalized in their childrens lives (via the power of the Anti-family courts)? [Laura writes: But I know many married men who allow their daughters complete sexual freedom. Besides, this sexual freedom came about before divorce increased, though I don’t doubt it has been exacerbated by divorce. Most women are promiscuous today and many have married fathers.] In my previous e-mail, I noted the MRM organization Fathers and Families, which fights for the rights of fathers to have a role in their childrens lives. [Of course, I support the rights of fathers to have a role in their children’s lives and believe state control of the family is deeply evil.] Even within marriages, woman can wield enormous power to prevent fathers from taking charge with regard to children.  

David Collard writes:

I am an Australian, and this country is less fiercely feminist than America. But I would like to say that being a man has always been hard. And there have always been risks, sometimes physical and sometimes emotional. The risk of marrying and living with a woman in a feminist Western country is indeed great, but men are supposed to be able to rise to a challenge. My wife has given me many difficult and even dangerous moments in a fairly long marriage, but I have survived and even thrived. Yes, there is no legal support for male authority, but that does not mean a man cannot influence his wife powerfully to accept his authority. I suspect my wife is naturally a bit submissive. She has always done things like instinctively ask my permission, even for small things. But I think I have also set the tone. Marriage is hard work. Maintaining masculine authority is a challenge all through a marriage. Over twenty-five years, there have been times when I have let things slide, but I have always managed to “man up” sufficiently to keep the family afloat and moving ahead.

My advice to men is to pray, to listen to good advice from men who really know how women think and feel (noting that the huge majority of advice is simply wrong on this score), and to keep their wits about them. Men are supposed to be clever and resourceful. Men of earlier generations would have laughed at many of the complaints of modern men. They would wonder why we would need laws to support us.

Another point I would make is that it is unreasonable to expect a woman to enjoy it every time you exercise authority. My wife frequently complains vociferously. The real point though is that she does, mostly, comply. If a wife looks up to you, fundamentally respects your judgement, and has some spiritual basis for accepting husbandly authority, that will all help.

The flaw in equalism, and the reason why I believe God favours patriarchy, is that if two people cannot agree, permanent conflict arises. Every community needs a leader.

Jesse Powell writes:

Many “men’s rights” positions have been put forward in this thread, a lot of talk about the “Anti-family courts” and about men’s powerlessness to do anything to protect or uphold their families because the law is supposedly against them. 

I will admit, my positions and views in regards to what family law should look like and what divorce law should be are not well worked out. Frankly, the issue of the family courts is not high on my list of concerns; I do not generally view the family court system as being the source of family breakdown. The family courts accommodate changes happening in the wider culture and the family courts try to damage control the family breakdown that is presented to them to arbitrate. However, the men’s rights position that the family courts actively promote family breakdown by offering rich bribes and rewards to women who initiate divorce I think is untrue. 

One thing the men’s rights advocates conveniently ignore is that family court law is more favorable to men, in terms of custody of children and the financial transfers that women receive, than it was in the 1950s, before the feminist revolution. The cold truth is, feminism has led to the family courts being less biased in favor of women in terms of child custody and less inclined to provide for women financially, at the man’s expense, over a long period of time. There is a greater assumption that women can support themselves after a divorce, due to women’s financial independence and increasing labor force participation, leading to alimony usually only being awarded during a “rehabilitation period” of a couple of years rather than the rest of the woman’s life, which was more common prior to the modern feminist revolution. Similarly in regards to child custody, the presumption that it is the mother of the child who should have custody is weaker due to the diminishment of clearly defined sex roles. 

So, feminists have already moved family law in the direction that MRAs want to push family law even further. This does not reassure me that family law reform, MRA style, will make things any better. 

One thing that should be kept in mind, the biases in favor of women after a divorce are there for a reason, they are there to uphold the ideal of protecting women and maintaining the mother-child bond. One not only has to look to the needs of men to be protected in order to reassure men that it is in their interests to marry, one also has to look to the needs of women, that they will be OK and able to continue their family role in regards to the children they bear at least to some extent, without extreme hardship, even if the worst happens, even in the event of divorce. 

I must say, I find the MRAs’ supposed concern for the sanctity of marriage and supposed opposition to no-fault divorce a bit hard to swallow considering that divorce initiated by men seems to be widely approved of and even advocated in MRA circles, a good example of this being the Dump Your Wife Now website. 

It must be remembered, it’s not all about men, it’s about women and children too.

Laura writes;

Now, some men will say that not all men’s advocates are part of the “Dump Your Wife Now” contingent, but if that is true why don’t they publicly disavow this kind of extremism? Why don’t they complain about the misogyny in their ranks and actively expell it? Instead they only complain about the evils of feminism. I consistently get the impression that the men’s movement is a Mutual Admiration Society in the same way that feminism is.  

Josh F. writes:

The purpose of the men’s movement is to demonize Woman and to assert that hers is a devout dyke nature, i.e., an anti-Man nature. Many of the MRA advocates are “true believers” in the idea of Woman being fundamentally anti-Man via evolution.

Slwerner writes:

 Clearly, Jesse seems to have missed the rather obvious point that (overly generous, in many cases) child-support is really nothing more that a de facto replacement for alimony. He also seems to be unaware of the fact that custody is overwhelmingly awarded to women over men, along with the accompanying child-support (often more correctly referred to as child-alimony – which is simply given to the mother, with no prohibitions nor oversight regarding it’s usage). He might want to Google terms like “Tender years doctrine” to see the reasoning courts continue to use to effectively shut men out of their young childrens lives. I personally know over a dozen guys – decent hard-working guys – who’ve been reduced to the role of “ATM/week-end dad”. These are guy’s who caused no “fault” to justify the end of their marriages, yet, lost more than half of their worldly assets, and now live rather Spartan lives due to the ongoing liabilities they’ve been saddled with. In many cases, they watch helplessly as their ex-wives new boyfriends are inserted into their rightful roles as fathers. Jesse seem oblivious to what is actually going on in the real world.

No doubt he has read those puff-pieces that state that men are better-off financially than are women after divorce. But what he, and many others fail to note is that child-support and/or alimony comes from HIS taxable income, but is considered part of HER non-taxable income. So, when comparing only taxable incomes (as those stories always do), yes, men tend to <i>appear</i> better off. But, if the man’s income were to be corrected for his post-marital liabilities, and hers corrected for the reciept of that money, then one would find a more accurate picture of men typically being harder-hit.

Laura writes:

The current child-support guidelines and presumptive custody for mothers made sense in an era before no-fault divorce. They do not make sense now. And, Stephen is correct that a man can be easily stripped of half of his assets and of his children for no reason at all other than his wife’s desire to move on from her marital vows. Women can be ruined by divorce as well but they rarely lose their children. I know men who have essentially ended up supporting their ex-wives’ boyfriends through generous child support.

Slwerner mentioned, if I am correct, that he does not favor a repeal of no-fault divorce. Perhaps he can briefly explain why.

Slwerner writes:

While I believe it would be difficult to return to a “Divorce for Cause” – with the attendant requirement for proof of said “cause”, I still believe that it would be preferable. Perhaps the best approach, however (as I keeping hammering on) would be to simply remove the incentives/advantages afforded to the lower income-earner and to women (in child custody/support matters), thereby making it more likely that  some would reconsider whether to file, or to try to work things out.

Laura writes:

The mission statement for the American Coalition of Fathers and Children, which aims at making the divorce industry less unjust to men, can be found here.

I don’t want to fully explore this issue here in this thread, as it deserves its own separate entry, but it seems to me to that the assigning of fault is necessary to prevent abuses. With no-fault divorce men are often left without reason and financially exploited. They are by far the greater number of victims today. These injustices are outrageous. But women are abandoned too. If fault is not assigned, what’s to prevent a man from leaving a wife who has been non-working for many years while he has earned money from being left by him with absolutely nothing and even, as you seem to propose, have her children taken away too?

Truthfully, who can trust our family courts to operate ethically in the current climate? As Roger Devlin wrote,“A vast literature exists castigating the judicial branch for usurping legislative power, ignoring original intent, misapplying the Fourteenth Amendment, and various other sins; but the family court system, which has a greater influence on more people’s lives, has almost entirely escaped scrutiny.”  A  revolution against state control of marriage and divorce is necessary.” There may come a day when large numbers of couples opt out of the current system, refusing to obtain state marriage licenses and relying on alternate authorities in community or church in the event of marital disputes.