Let me remind the reader of certain values every
democracy holds. That includes the belief that all
humans are created equal, that collective guilt or
punishment is unfair, and freedom of expression.
Unfortunately with the rise of misandry - viewing men
as villains, oppressors and potential rapists -- these
values are on the way of disappearing completely.
Misandry is so prevalent, that in our age of
diversity saying that all men bear collective guilt
for rape is considered progressive. Male bashing
cards are everywhere. TV commercials portray men as
fools. Our media censors male domestic violence
victims in order to portray us as batterers and
abusers. While violence against women on TV is
denounced, revenge fantasies in which hundreds of man
are cut up, castrated and tortured are blockbusters.
Sin City got $33M in sales the first weekend it was
released. Ireen von Wachenfeldt, chairman of ROKS,
The National Organization for Women's Shelters and
Young Women's Shelters in Sweden, denied us our
humanity by claiming on TV that men are animals.
Many of us consider misandry a harmless game. But
unfortunately hatred in words leads to discrimination
in action. About 100,000 men in US are in jail at any
given time for inability to pay child support. Any
man who slaps a woman would face a choice between a
year in jail or 72 hours of "reeducation", yet women
slapping men is considered harmless fun by most. Our
media encourages ladies to kick men in private parts,
yet a man who commits such act of sexual assault would
be given a life sentence divided between prison
"treatment" and other supervision. Male victims of
domestic violence get very little help and are
frequently treated as perpetrators. You should read
The Myth of Male Power and Women Can't Hear What Men
Don't Say to find out more about antimale
discrimination in modern world.
Many of us would ask what is the cause of the
prevalent misandry, and what we can do about it. Many
men and women believe that men at least partially
deserve the modern misandry - and that the best way
for us to deal with it is to ignore it. I believe
that approach is 100% wrong. I do not believe anyone
deserves to be blamed for belonging to a birth group
-- everyone is created equal.
The main reason for the rise of misandry is not the
fact that we commit some crimes more then women -
Americans commit much more crime than Japaneese,
people with depression commit more crimes then the
non-depressed, etc. Yet in the Twenty-First Century, "men" is
the only group singled out for demonisation and
scapegoating.
The perception of men is as the "fair game" or the
softest target - someone who can be ridiculed,
insulted or demonised for fun. In this day and age of
cruel and violent entertainment industry, even more
people consider it fun to be cruel to someone. Yet
anyone who tries attacking a race or attacking women
via public media would soon find themselves stopped by
virulent counterarguments, protests and possibly
lawsuits. The fact that there is no such resistance
from men makes all forms of male-bashing fun and
profitable.
We may think that the fad of male-bashing and
anti-male discrimination may pass by itself, but
unfortunately, that is not the case. Without a very
vocal protest, anti-male hate and discrimination can
only increase. Both male bashing and anti-male
discrimination grew a lot between 1985 and 1995, and
grew more between 1995 and 2005. There is no reason
to think that the growth of these factors will be any
less this or next decade. We may think that
misandrists will not try to be more cruel than they
are, but history will prove us wrong. If we look at
the history of American slavery we will see how cruel
people can be to those who can not speak up for
themselves. Given that that much cruelty was shown in
the generations much closer to our forefathers and US
Constitution and raised on religious values of
universal love, we can only imagine our generation's
capacity for cruelty.
Hence, our society has to address this problem as
soon as possible. I believe that men and women who
value our rights should be as vocal on the issue as
possible. We should write letters to newspaper
editors, call in to our local radio shows, and those
of us who are students speak up in classes and at
events, and post fliers on public bulletin boards
protesting vilification of men. Given that many men
resent being demonised and many women do not dislike
men, if we have courage to speak up, we will gather
lots of support.
Mike Shubov
Men4Liberty
