Introduction
First of all, I would like to congratulate the organisers of this
Conference on their initiative and hard work.
The Men's Movement owes a huge debt to the Fathers' Movement, because
the Fathers' Movement provides the numbers of members that the Men's
Movement by itself could not hope to do. Unfortunately, the reason
that the Fathers' Movement has so many members is that so many fathers
have suffered from biased family courts in many countries.
Having suffered at the hands of the family court is, unfortunately,
not enough to make one an expert on the underlying issues. We need
a theoretical perspective on the issues, in order to know how to improve
the situation of men and fathers in the family court, as well as in
other areas of society where Feminism is dominant. What the Men's
Movement can contribute to the Fathers' Movement, I believe, is theory.
This paper is an attempt to provide a theoretical perspective on some
of the relevant issues.
Sometimes I hear members of the Men's/Fathers' Movement say that
Feminism has gone too far. However, the roots of this problem of extremism
were arguably inherent in Feminism from the very beginning. Feminism
has always been rooted in subjectivity. That subjectivity has produced
various effects on societies around the World, and has led to the
feeling that Feminism has "gone too far." That is the topic
I want to address in this paper: Has Feminism actually gone too far,
or was Feminism already a step too far when it first emerged?
Definitions
Objectivity: By this, I mean a reliance on transparent criteria
which the general population can use to assess the claims that are
made.
Subjectivity: By this, I mean a focus on personal factors,
such as who is making a claim and what their self-interest would induce
them to want to believe. In the context of this paper, I am referring
to the ingrained tendency of Western societies to decide issues using
the sole criterion of what it is that Feminists (or women in general)
want to happen.
Objectivity allows a society to use the legal system relatively
fairly to determine people's rights and obligations, on the basis
of alleged facts and transparent legal criteria. Subjectivity leads
to a more political process, whereby decisions are made on the basis
of who makes the decisions and who controls the information (e.g.
the media and the education sector) on the basis of which the decisions
are made.
Socrates
Since we are in Greece, which is generally regarded as the birthplace
of European civilisation, it is appropriate for me to imagine what
Socrates might have said about Feminism. Here is an
imaginary Socratic dialogue which I wrote in 2005.
Student: Socrates, is Feminism about equality ?
Socrates: Who says that ?
Student: Feminists do.
Socrates: Do they give any reasons or provide any evidence
of that ?
Student: Socrates, surely you know that women don't think logically
!
Socrates: Well, what is the closest they come to giving a reason
or evidence ?
Student: They say that men have been running the World.
Socrates: OK, so do they criticise men for not conscripting
women soldiers ?
Student: No.
Socrates: Well, do they criticise men for letting women live
longer than men ?
Student: No.
Socrates: Do they even criticise men for doing the dirty and
dangerous work ?
Student: No.
Socrates: Well, what have Feminists done to improve equality
?
Student: Women enter the police without meeting the same physical
standards as men.
Socrates: That is inequality. What else ?
Student: Women can kill unborn children without asking the
father (or the children).
Socrates: That is inequality. What else ?
Student: There is a higher penalty when a man hits a woman
than when a woman hits a man.
Socrates: That is inequality. Men must be as stupid as women,
to put up with this.
I should point out that it is true that in New Zealand, there is
a section of
the Crimes Act 1961 (section 194) which imposes a higher maximum
penalty on a man who hits a woman than any Act does on a man who hits
another man, or on a woman who hits a man or another woman.
History
the application of the victims of oppression model to the situation
of women in society.
Note that this definition covers all the various kinds of Feminism
that you can read about in Feminist publications. Since men traditionally
held (and mostly still hold) most of the powerful, decision-making
positions in society, this definition really implies that Feminists
believe that men oppress women.
As far as I am aware, Feminism, in the above sense of the word,
received its first substantial formulation in Mary
Wollstonecraft's book. So, when I mention Feminism, I am referring
to Feminist theoretical writing and political activities from 1796
to the present day -- including the call for the right to vote, equal
pay, and so on and so forth.
Two questions that arise from this approach (which, nowadays, is
practically in the air that we breathe and in the water that we drink)
are:
-
Is it actually true that men oppress women? and
-
What tactics does this belief lead Feminists to adopt?
Here are my answers to these two questions:
-
There has been no study that I am aware of -- certainly none
that has been carried out by Feminists -- which systematically compares
the disadvantages which men suffer in society with the disadvantages
which women suffer in society. All that the Feminists have ever
done is to look for issues which they can use to claim that women
are disadvantaged. However, it would not be relevant to state that
men (i.e. the men in the powerful, decision-making positions in
society) oppress women and also oppress men! When you hear someone
say that women are oppressed, they mean that women are oppressed
and that men are not -- or, at least, that women are oppressed more
than men are. But until there has been a study which systematically
compares the disadvantages which men suffer in society with the
disadvantages which women suffer in society, we will never know
for certain that women are oppressed. After all, men are often chivalrous
towards women, and it may well be that the men in the powerful,
decision-making positions in society make more decisions that are
chivalrous towards women than decisions that disadvantage women.
-
Since a) Feminists believe that men oppress women, b) the decision-makers
are mainly male, and c) Feminists want to persuade the decision-makers
to make decisions which favour women and Feminism, Feminists are
likely to believe that, if the decision-makers do not agree with
Feminist demands, that must be because the decision-makers are male
and are oppressing women by rejecting the Feminists' demands! This
kind of thinking does not leave room for the concept of objectivity.
The male decision-makers might think that they make decisions on
the basis of objective reasons, but Feminists who think that the
male decision-makers are biased will not believe that. If the Feminists
do not believe in male objectivity, what incentive is there for
the Feminists to be objective themselves? The situation which they
believe exists is a purely political one where women make demands
and men in powerful positions reject them because they are men.
So no Feminist would trust a man to hold Feminists to a standard
of objectivity, and there is no incentive for Feminists to impose
a standard of objectivity upon themselves. However, there is a logical
flaw in the Feminist position, because male decision-makers have
been making countless concessions to Feminist pressure for over
one hundred years!! This contradicts the Feminist assumptions that
I have just mentioned.
Subjectivity
As we have just seen, Feminists believe that men oppress women,
although this has not been proved. This belief leads Feminists to
reject the possibility of male objectivity and to neglect imposing
objectivity on themselves (even if they could). The belief that men
oppress women is also inconsistent with the fact that all sorts of
laws have been passed by males that resulted from Feminist pressure
-- including laws giving women the right to vote, for example. If
men oppress women, why did men give women the right to vote? Why did
men give women the vote without making sure that women would be drafted
into the frontline in wartime, as men continued to be?
This may be part of the reason for the fact that Feminists are generally
subjective in their theoretical writings and political activities.
A well-known Feminist political slogan is:
The personal is political.
Imagine that a man and his wife or female partner are having a discussion
or an argument. Will that discussion or argument be decided purely
on the basis of objective considerations? That is extremely unlikely!
There is too much emotion involved in the relationship, there are
too many "games" that can be played, and there is too much
emotional blackmail that may be used. Sometimes the discussion or
argument is merely a cover for some other, deeper issue in the relationship,
so that the discussion or argument will not really be resolved until
the deeper issue is resolved by some action such as love-making or
the purchase of flowers, etc.. In some cultures -- maybe in all cultures
-- there are tactics that women can use in these situations which
men can never use in the same way. In some relationships, it always
has to be the man who apologises, because the woman never will.
In some ways -- maybe in all ways -- the Sex War is like these relationships.
Most male decision-makers have a female partner or wife who wants
to make sure that he makes decisions that she approves of. Even if
she does not want to interfere in his work, the more powerful his
position is, the more likely it is that Feminists have befriended
his wife or female partner and persuaded her that she had a duty to
use her position to influence him, to make him more Feminist.
Let us take French President Sarkozy as an example. He has an ex-model
as a wife, he decided that half (7 out of 15) of his cabinet would
be female, and his wife's sister persuaded him not to extradite a
female murderer, a former Red Brigades member, to Italy. Obviously,
he does not care whether his ministers are competent or not, because
there is no way of being certain that there is exactly the same number
of competent females as competent males available for such positions.
The decision on extradition is even more irrational, since Sarkozy
had promised to end the policy of not extraditing such people.
Men have generally been unable or unwillling to impose objectivity
on Feminists. There are various reasons for this, including the personal
issues I have mentioned above. Another issue is that Feminists are
much more organised than men are. For two centuries now, women have
been joining Feminist organisations in large numbers -- whereas I
once had the experience of being told by a man (who was basically
on my side) telling me that "Men don't join Men's Rights organisations,"
as if that was some sort of universal wisdom that I should understand!
In fact, people join political organisations if they have been led
to believe that that is an appropriate thing to do. Women did not
join women's organisations in large numbers until they were persuaded
by propaganda that that was an appropriate thing to do, and men will
not join men's organisations in large numbers, until they have been
persuaded that that is an appropriate thing to do.
Another reason why men have been unable to impose objecticity on
Feminists is that Feminists have played the guilt card. Issues such
as Domestic Violence, Child Abuse and Rape have been emphasised --
especially by Lesbians -- in order to keep men guilt-ridden, and therefore
politically passive -- or even anti-male. Another reason why men have
been unable to impose objecticity on Feminists is that Feminists have
intimidated men in many ways, such as by shouting them down, threatening
their careers, and even assaulting them, as I have myself experienced.
Here is an example of how Feminists behave in universities:
A year or so later I was in the audience when my colleague
Murray Straus presented the results of a study on which we had collaborated
with Suzanne Steimetz …. The study included data on violence
by women towards their husbands or male partners. Straus was unable
to complete his presentation because the yells and shouts from members
of the audience drove him from the stage.
To even discuss female offenders, I was told later, could only undermine
the case for battered women. Straus, who also considers
himself a Feminist, was, in his own words … “excommunicated”
from the mainstream Feminist community. He was rarely invited to
speak at conferences on wife abuse, many of the speeches he gave
were boycotted, and he has received threats, including death threats,
over the past 15 years! (Gelles, Richard J., Research and Advocacy:
Can One Wear Two Hats ? Family Process 33, March 1994.)
There are various things we could say about this passage.
-
It demonstrates the domineering way in which women can and do
behave, which is relevant from a Domestic Violence point of view.
-
It demonstrates the corrupt and perverted atmosphere that pervades
modern Western academia, which atmosphere necessarily must pollute
the teaching and research going on in such institutions.
-
The sheer political pressure of organised Feminist lies and half-truths
must necessarily affect Straus' own work, as he struggles to survive
professionally in this surreal atmosphere. What compromises is he
forced to make?
I am a great admirer of the recent research carried out by Murray
Straus on Domestic Violence. However, he is an admitted Feminist,
and this leads him into error. In an otherwise excellent paper,
Straus states:
At the same time, service providers need to remain alert
to cases that do not fit the typical pattern, including cases
which fit the classical image of an oppressed and battered spouse.
Although there are men who fall in this category, it is more often
women. In addition, the harmful effects of all levels of violence
are greater for women, physically, psychologically, and economically.
(Straus, Murray: Dominance and Symmetry in Partner Violence
by Male and Female University Students in 32 Nations, paper
presented at a conference on Trends in Intimate Violence Intervention
at New York University on May 23, 2006.)
I have no hesitation in saying that this passage, which is unsupported
by evidence, constitutes utter rubbish. What you find with academics
(and I could give examples from Linguistics), is that even very
good ones sometimes assume things without having evidence for them,
and this is a case in point.
The first issue is the phrase "the classical image of an
oppressed and battered spouse". The word "image"
has no place in serious discussion of domestic violence. What scholar
with self-respect would stoop to referring to a (media-imposed)
image of a social phenomenon ? The word "battered",
similarly, has no objective denotation, but was created for the
image that it connotes. And the knock-out blow is the word "oppressed".
There is absolutely no chance that Murray Straus is employing
a scientific definition of this term, or that he is referring to
studies where both parties to such relationships have been impartially
interviewed and an objective diagnosis of oppression arrived at.
The people who use such terms in a domestic violence context avoid
interviewing both parties on the same basis like the plague. It
follows, if I am correct, that Murray Straus has no objective reason
for asserting that this image fits women more frequently than it
fits men.
He also has no objective basis for saying that the effects of
violence are worse for women than for men. I am certain that no
objective study has been done into this, because it would involve
assessing the psychological impact on men of being automatically
treated as the sole perpetrator by the authorities -- irrespective
of whether they are in fact the sole victim or both victim and perpetrator.
It would also have to take into account the impact on men of being
denied custody of or proper access to their children after separation
or divorce, as a result of being unjustly branded the sole perpetrator
of domestic violence. It would further have to take into account
the impact on men of the need to refrain from retaliating to violence,
in the fear that any retalition would get them arrested -- whereas
the authorities would probably not take his complaint of his spouse's
violence seriously if he complained about her. It would also have
to take into account the impact of the child support payments that
the man would have to make as a result of the separation or divorce
that followed the violence. These and similar
factors are sure never to have been investigated properly, because
of the nature of our Feminist-dominated universities.
I am certain that Murray Straus committed these serious errors
because of the totalitarian Feminist (Feminazi) nature of the modern
Western university, where female academics assert and exercise power
and control over male academics. Since modern Western universities
have been so dumbed-down and politicised by the influx of women,
only the exertion of organised political force from men can restore
balance and rationality there.
The Biological Roots of Female Subjectivity
It may well be that women are more inclined to be subjective than
objective, because of the way that their brains function. The Neuroscience
article Sex differences in functional activation patterns revealed
by increased emotion processing demands starts with the following
comments:
Previous research has revealed that women have greater skill
in identifying facial expressions of emotion, show stronger evoked
potential responses to emotionally charged faces and tend to rate
their emotional reactions as more intense than men. Moreover, research
has suggested that sex differences in the reaction to face stimuli
may be greatest when the intensity of the emotions portrayed is
maximal. (Hall, Geoffrey B.C., Wittelson, Sandra F., Szechtman,
Henry and Nahmias, Claude, Sex differences in functional activation
patterns revealed by increased emotion processing demands, Neuroreport
15 2004, 219-223, at p. 219.)
The authors used paired visual and auditory stimuli to heighten
the saliency of the stimuli, and stated their conclusion as follows:
Recognition of emotion in cross-modal stimuli produced sex
differences with men showing greater unilateral left frontal activation
and women showing greater limbic activity.... These findings suggest
that men tend to modulate their reaction to stimuli, and engage
in analysis and association, whereas women tend to draw more on
primary emotional reference.
Biological Psychology ( Kalat, James W., Biological Psychology,
9th ed., Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007, p. 574.) characterises
the Limbic System as a:
set of forebrain areas traditionally regarded as critical for
emotion....
The Brain: A Neuroscience Primer (Thompson, Richard F., The Brain:
A Neuroscience Primer, 3d ed, 2000, New York: Worth, p. 17.) states:
During evolution the limbic system was the earliest form of
forebrain to develop; for example, essentially the entire forebrain
of the crocodile is limbic brain. No negative inferences about the
function of the limbic forebrain or of crocodiles are meant, for
in addition to being vicious, the crocodile is an intact, functioning
organism responsive to sensory stimulation and engaging in a variety
of behaviors: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproduction.
So, when we learn that women have greater limbic activity in their
brains during some kinds of emotion-recognition, we do not mean to
imply that women are not intact, functioning organisms, responsive
to sensory stimulation and engaging in a variety of behaviors, such
as feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproduction. What we mean
is that women have evolved to get primitive and emotional about some
things that men have evolved to be rational about.
Subjectivity in the Legislature
Emotion is useful as a way of motivating people to carry out political
change, and the Woman's Movement has certainly not been short of emotional
issues. It is hard to tell to what extent the emotion in deliberately
drummed up as a conscious tactic, and to what extent women (and some
men, as well) just naturally feel emotional about them. One of the
most emotional issues is Domestic Violence.
It is clear to me, at least, that Feminists in powerful positions
in OECD countries are constantly looking at developments in each other's
countries that they can use as precedents, in order to argue for the
introduction of similar changes (often called "reforms")
in their countries. In this way, it appears that New Zealand domestic
violence legislation has been, or is being copied by other countries.
In New Zealand,
the Domestic Violence Act 1995 provides that a person may apply
for a protection order, in order to prevent some other person (now
or formerly living with them) from coming near them or communicating
with them. Protection orders can be imposed without the other person
knowing that a court was even considering the matter. This type of
application for a protection order is called an ex parte application.
Not only can a person have this penalty imposed on them without
having a chance to defend themselves, but subsections 13(2) and 14(5)
state that, in all applications for protection orders, the judge must
take into account:
(a)The perception of the applicant or a child of the applicant's
family, or both, of the nature and seriousness of the respondent's
behaviour; and
(b)The effect of that behaviour on the applicant or a child of the
applicant's family, or both.
So, not only is Natural Justice breached by the fact that a penalty
can be imposed on someone in their absence, but they can be penalised
for the effect of their behaviour on someone else and for the perception
that someone (apart from the judge) has of their behaviour -- neither
of which the latter person can fully control.
Some -- maybe many -- people would say that the effect of someone's
behaviour on someone else is something that the law should be concerned
with -- even if that effect is not totally under the control of the
former person. However, since the Act mentions the effect of someone's
behaviour, why should it also mention someone's perception of someone
else's behaviour, which is also not under the second person's full
control?
Most people who apply for protection orders are female, so what
is really involved here is the law's concern for female subjectivity.
22.Liberty of the person -- Everyone has the right not to
be arbitrarily arrested or detained.
Does the Domestic Violence Act breach this section? There are two
issues:
-
Does the Domestic Violence Act provide for people to be arrested
or detained?
-
If so, can they be arrested or detained arbitrarily, under the
Domestic Violence Act ?
The initial effect of a Protection Order is not to arrest or detain
the respondent. However, section 49 of the Domestic Violence Act provides
for
"imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to a fine
not exceeding $5,000" (or imprisonment for up to 2 years for
certain categories of repeat offenders)
for failing to comply with the terms of an Protection Order or
of a direction to attend a programme. So, if, in a particular case,
a Protection Order has been imposed, and the respondent subsequently
receives a prison term under section 49 of the Domestic Violence Act,
I consider that he has been detained in terms of section 22 of the
New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.
The next question, then, is whether there is scope for the arbitrary
imposition of a Protection Order under the Domestic Violence Act.
This is the point at which words almost fail me, because of the sheer
scale of the breach of the Bill of Rights that is involved, and because
of the fact that it appears to have attracted no public criticism.
I refer to sextion 13 (2) of the Domestic Violence Act, which reads:
13.Application without notice for protection order -- (1) ....
(2) Without limiting the matters to which the Court may have regard
when
determining whether to grant a protection order on an application
without
notice, the Court must (my emphasis) have regard to --
(a) The perception of the applicant or a child of the applicant's
family, or
both, of the nature and seriousness of the respondent's behaviour;
and
(b) The effect of that behaviour on the applicant or a child of
the
applicant's family, or both.
Section 13 applies to Ex Parte Protection Orders, but there is also
a smilar section which applies to ordinary (on notice) Protection
Orders.
I do not claim an encyclopedic knowledge of the Law in all its historical
and geographical forms and variations, but this subsection seems to
me to be unprecedented in what we arrogantly call "civilised"
communities. Normal courts routinely have to determine what the objective
facts of a case are. In criminal cases, they also routinely have to
determine what was going on in the mind of the alleged perpetrator
at the time of the alleged crime, in relation to the mens rea (i.e.
intention, recklessness, etc.) elements of the crime, as described
in the statute. All that is reasonable, since a person has control
over his acts (with certain exceptions), and can reasonably be held
to account for his own intentions, negligence, or recklessness, etc.
But to be subject to a court sanction -- which may be converted
into a fine or imprisonment if one does not comply with its terms
-- because of what goes on in the mind of another person is such an
unreasonable assault on the inherent dignity of the individual, I
submit, that even the Third Reich, that icon of crimes against humanity,
did not go so far in its inhumanity to man. This modern, Feminist,
New Zealand provision is certainly arbitrary, in my opinion.
The Academic Manifestations of Female Subjectivity
It is my experience that what gets published or taught by the education
system is decided on the basis of political and economic factors.
Since Feminists claim to represent a disadvantaged group (women),
and this claim is arguably a foundation-stone of the dominant ideologies
of modern Western states, powerful political and economic factors
ensure the publication of Feminist writings.
Not only do Feminists get public money to carry out so-called "research"
into legal and other issues which is politically biased -- many of
these researchers do not even try to be objective.
The following prominent New Zealand Feminist researchers, for example,
come into that category: Ruth Busch, Neville
Robertson, Hilary Lapsley, and Joanne Morris OBE ( a former Law
Commissioner).
The publication which apparently was most influential in the passing
of the Domestic Violence Act 1995, which robbed men of their right
to Natural Justice, was Protection from Family Violence (Victims Task
Force 1992, Protection from Family Violence: A Study of Protection
Orders Under the Domestic Protection Act 1982 (Abridged), Commissioned
by the Victims Task Force and prepared for public release from an
original report by Ruth Busch, Neville Robertson and Hilary Lapsley,
University of Waikato), which was written on the basis of work by
Busch, Robertson and Lapsley.
On page 25, this publication states: "It is now widely recognised
that 'objective' data is largely a myth...." This work relies,
instead, on a subjective assessment of archival material, interviews
with selected people, including women's refuge workers, and submissions
from women who had experience of how the law dealt with domestic violence
in practice. It is noteworthy that it included no input from men's
rights activists or men who had experience of how the law dealt with
domestic violence in practice
Similarly, the methodological Appendix to Women's Access to Legal
Services (Morris, Joanne, Study Paper 1: Women's Access to Legal
Services: Women's Access to Justice, He Putanga Moo Ngaa Waahine ki
te Tika, Law Commission, Wellington: June 1999, p. 268) states
that "... neither qualitative nor quantitative research is 'objective'."
This belief is inconsistent with her paper's statement (on page
1) that a justice system should:
-
be just in the results it delivers;
-
be fair in the way it treats litigants.
Feminists do not seem to have the intellectual capacity to avoid
contradicting themselves, and Western men have lost the courage to
demand ( a difficult task, admittedly !) that women reason logically.
But it is obviously impossible for a justice system to be just and
fair if you can't rely on the objectivity of research -- to some extent,
anyway.
In fact, Morris simply ignored the submissions of Men's Rights submitters
such as myself, and went on to produce such a biased draft report
that even the Law Commission (hotbed of Feminist politics that it
is) created a historical precedent by refusing to publish it under
its own name.
So it seems, from the above two examples, that the notion that
objectivity is a "myth" (a favourite Feminist word) amounts
to nothing more or less than a justification for the usual Feminist
practice of ignoring men's points of view, men's needs and men's rights.
The history of philosophy is full of discussions of various points
of view on the issue of objective knowledge about the World. This
is not a new issue -- nor has this ongoing discussion been resolved
by consensus in the way the above authors pretend. There is more available
than just a simple choice between saying that objectivity is real
and saying that it is a myth -- there is also the possibility of saying
that objectivity is possible to some extent, and that the publication
of of rival research helps society as a whole to get close to objectivity.
This, in fact, is the working hypothesis that underlies the vast majority
of research in the World today.
When I was studying for a Graduate Diploma in Psychology at Massey
University, New Zealand, there were two courses in experimental methods.
The introductory one was what you would expect -- it was full of statistical
methodology, and ways of ensuring good experimental design. However,
the more advanced course emphasised subjective and politicised forms
of research, referring to standard scientific methods pejoritively
as "Positivism". This course was taught by a Feminist, who
twice said that men committed more domestic violence than women did,
but was unable to provide evidence, when challenged.
This Subjectivist, Left-Wing culture in Social Science teaching
has the following characteristics:
-
It lowers standards of objectivity;
-
It is staffed mainly by Leftists;
-
Consequently, the objective result of 1. and 2. above is that
standards of objectivity are lowered by and for Leftist researchers,
while their results are publicised to the public at large as if
they had the same validity as the results of objective research;
-
These Leftists base their promotion of subjective methods on
the notion that real objectivity is unobtainable;
-
However, there is a self-contradiction between believing that
real objectivity is unobtainable and continuing to carry out research;
-
If that is one's belief, one should cease to carry out research;
-
It is possible to react to the notion that real objectivity is
unobtainable by attempting to get as close as possible to objectivity,
in the belief that there are degrees of objectivity;
-
We all recognise that there are degrees of objectivity, and to
pretend that we only have a choice between total objectivity and
total subjectivity is a scam which benefits the Left-Wing ideologues
who control much Social Science research and teaching.
What is more fundamental than objective knowledge is the rules
of logic. Researchers cannot be allowed to contradict themselves
and maintain credibility by mere (Feminist) political pressure.
If someone believes that there is no such thing as objective research,
then they should stop doing research, because otherwise they are
contradicting themselves.
In practice, moreover, as we have seen above, doing research while
denying the possibility of doing it objectively has the practical
result of allowing you to be more blatantly subjective than you
would allow yourself to be if you believed that it was possible
to be objective. People who believe that objectivity is impossible
should stop researching, because their research will be super-subjective.
Self-Contradiction as a Type of Subjectivity
Although Feminism has acquired the power that it now enjoys by claiming
that it was fighting for equality for women, neither Feminists nor
men have been willing to stop making special allowances for women,
in areas where it is obvious that women are inferior to men and would
suffer if real equality was enforced. This applies principally to
sports,
Female athletes do not compete against men, but against other women
-- and make a lot of money, in some cases;
Female athletes get the glory of competing in a separate competition
at the same time as men, while other types of athletes, such as Juniors,
Seniors, Special Olympians, and Para-Olympians, have to compete in
separate events, away from most of the publicity;
The Feminist media delete the word "women's" from terms
such as "Women's World Champion", "Women's Competition",
etc., so that it seems that their medals and results mean the same
as men's.
I propose that the Special Olympics, Para-Olympics, Junior Olympics
and Senior Olympics take turns to replace women at the Olympics, so
that Men would compete at the Olympics every four years, but that
the Women's Olympics, Special Olympics, Senior Olympics, Junior Olympics
and Para-Olympics should each only take place once every 20 years.
Ultimately, the Women's Olympics should be abolished, in favour of
an open competition on a level playing field.
Some chivalrous men have said to me that New Zealand men would
never be in favour of sexual equality in sports. Why not -- why should
women get so-called "equality" only when it suits them,
and never when it suits men ?
There are serious consequences resulting from this chivalrous attitude
towards women: Since women are allowed double standards in sports,
they are also allowed into the Police force at lower physical standards
than men. This robs men of jobs, produces physically incompetent female
police officers who can't restrain aggressive members of the public,
and endangers these females' male colleagues, because they have to
compensate for this female physical incompetence, as well as do their
own job -- on equal pay!! Because female police officers are physically
incompetent, this increases the pressure to let the police use deadly
weapons, which endanger the public.
What is most important to note here is that our societies are getting
used to the notion of double standards for men and women. This is
not necessarily limited to physical standards, since intellectual
standards are harder to assess objectively and harder to enforce.
There are also double standards as between words and actions. Feminists
talk about equality but practice chivalry.
Self-contradiction, of course, is an extreme form of illogicality.
The article The Emergence of Feminist Jurisprudence: An Essay
(Scales, Ann C., The Emergence of Feminist Jurisprudence: An Essay
(Patricia Smith (ed.), Feminist Jurisprudence, OUP, New York, 1993,
94-109) is indicative of how unbridled Feminist subjectivity can lead
to self-contradiction. Ann
Scales is described as "among the founders of the field of
Feminist legal theory."
The above essay by Ann Scales relies crucially on a self-contradiction.
The issue can be stated quite briefly: On page 99, Scales states her
conclusion as follows:
If I am right that the “rights-based” and “care-based”
approaches are incompatible, we must make a choice between adjudicative
principles.
It will surprise no one that the choice she advocates is the Feminist
approach, which she calls the “care-based” approach. Note
that the term care-based appeals to the stereotype of Woman as Caregiver.
Scales characterises the difference between the two approaches as
follows (page 98):
Whereas the male self/other ontology seems to be oppositional, the
female version seems to be relational. The female ontology is an alternative
theory of differentiation that does not define by negation or require
a “life and death struggle” to identify value in the world....
It perceives dichotomization as irrational.
Having stated on page 98 that a Feminist, care-based approach avoids
dichotomization, why does she create a dichotomy between the “rights-based”
and “care-based” approaches on page 99? Having stated
on page 98 that the care-based approach does not define by negation
or require a “life and death struggle” to identify value
in the world, why does she state on page 99 that we must make a choice
between adjudicative principles?
It is clear that Scales, in choosing between the “rights-based”
and “care-based” approaches, is in fact adopting the so-called
“male”, “oppositional” approach. She has identified
value in the Jurisprudence part of the world by using supposedly “irrational”
dichotomization to promote the victory of female ontology over male
ontology – negating it in a “life and death struggle”.
Telling Lies as a Form of Subjectivity
Contrary to popular belief, women do not always tell lies -- they
only tell lies when they are communicating, and they generally only
communicate when they are awake.
Now that Feminism controls the Western World, what has changed is
that women now ban truth. According to the webpage http://english.sina.com/sports/1/2006/0109/61055.html
,
Spectators booed loudly when Murray said "we were both playing
like women" in a first set in which there were seven breaks of
serve.
Now, people who watch sports matches are not doing it in order to
think. They are doing it either because they can't think, or because
they want a break from thinking. Obviously, these spectators were
not thinking when they booed.
It is bad enough that we have sexual apartheid in sports, with women
earning huge amounts for competing in second-rate competitions with
each other, when they would not survive in free and fair competition
with male players. In the rest of the employment sector, men have
to compete on a level playing-field with women, even if this means
earning much less than women do -- e.g. in the modelling industry.
As if that were not bad enough, the spectators who go and watch those
events are now booing people who point this out !
The Political Roots of Female Subjectivity
Once people become convinced that men's domination over the World
has disadvantaged women, it becomes hard to insist that Feminist arguments
or policies be objective. That is because the Feminists can argue
that the men who are still dominating the World are using their power
to judge Feminist arguments as subjective and/or illogical. The problem
is that there are no objective judges who can decide a dispute between
men as a whole and women as a whole -- everyone has a conflict of
interest, and so everyone can bee seen as biased.
Some people might have been surprised when fathers started picketing
the houses of Family Court lawyers, psychologists and judges, but
this was, in part, a reaction to the conflicts of interest that affects
all professions in New Zealand society -- including those three. The
two main conflicts of interest involve women who see their careers
and/or relationships as (in part) a way of pursuing Feminist goals,
and men who see their careers and/or relationships as dependent on
not upsetting such women, which leads them to reinterpret issues in
a feminism-compatible way. The personal is political.
Historically, this started with a conflict between the interests
of separate groups. The family was a strong institution that stood
between the individual and governmental and other organisations. Like
all institutions, the family needed leadership, and this was provided
by the eldest male. Feminists manage to persuade a large proportion
of society that these males were affected by a conflict of interest
which was detrimental to the interests of females, and that the solution
was to move towards a model involving "equality" -- later,
this often became "equity", and then sometimes "girl
power."
However, Feminists themselves have been affected by a conflict of
interest, as a result of the fact that they have been involved in
political activism over many decades, in order to attempt to solve
the conflict of interest mentioned above. They have claimed victimhood
for women and have often acted to suppress attempts to disclose the
male victimhood which arguably existed (and still exists) -- even
under the patriarchal model. They have clearly seen that any societal
acceptance of a victim-role for men would undermine the case for female
victimhood that Feminists have been building up.
A Court of Law would not simply accept one party's bald assertion
that that party's goal is equality or equity between the parties,
and then deny the other party a say in the determination of what that
equality or equity might, in practice, involve -- yet that is the
way the Law Society, the Institute of Judicial Studies, Law Schools,
law journals and the vast majority of individual lawyers appear to
behave in relation to feminism. Natural Justice is absent.
For all its power, Feminism is basically a brain-dead ideology that
achieved its remarkable victories through a combination of bullying,
blatant lies, simple-minded distortions and emotional blackmail, rather
than on the intellectual merits of its arguments. Kate Millett, for
example, is a very important name in the intellectual history of modern
Feminism, yet her reasoning is rife with errors:
If one takes patriarchal government to be the institution whereby
that half of the populace which is female is controlled by that
half which is male, the principles of patriarchy appear to be twofold:
male shall dominate female, elder male shall dominate younger.
(Millett, Kate, Sexual Politics. London: Abacus, 1972, p.
25).
That is Millett's definition of patriarchy. Her crucial point is
the notion of "control." What Millett means by this term
is made clear as follows:
(O)ur society ... is a patriarchy. The fact is evident at once
if one recalls that the military, industry, technology, universities,
science, political office, and finance – in short, every avenue
of power within the society, including the coercive force of the police,
is entirely in male hands. (ibid, page 25).
It is a good rule of thumb that, if you want to look for the weaknesses
in someone's argument, find sentences starting with words such as
"evident," "evidently," "obvious," or
"obviously." These flag the weak assumptions the writer/speaker
needs to prop up with confident-sounding language. In this case, the
weakness is the fact that there is a large number of males in these
professions does not logically imply they are "controlling"
women any more than they are controlling other men. Men may occupy
many high-status positions, but they comprise the majority in very
many low-status occupations, as well. More importantly, if the "coercive
force of the police" is directed mainly at women, why do men
constitute the overwhelming majority arrested by the police?
Feminists assume that male officials usually promote the interests
of men over those of women, which is seldom the case. True, male officials
may at times have been unaware of a female perspective on certain
issues, but this was counterbalanced by paternalistic chivalry, which
has led male officials to treat women more leniently than men. Nowadays,
in Western societies, Feminist propaganda is the ruling ideology,
and few male officials are unaware of Feminist positions on everything
under the sun - whereas pro-male viewpoints are either derided or
ignored. At the same time, male chivalry has hardly decreased, and
Male Feminists are anti-male, so that women now have it both ways.
Female Feminist officials, on the other hand, use their power almost
exclusively to benefit females. For example, New Zealand Minister
of Women's Affairs, Christine Fletcher, used her power to establish
the position of Women's Health Officer in her Ministry. She did this
without the slightest attempt to prove women have greater health needs
than men, who certainly don't have any "Men's Health Officer."
This sexist woman just felt "passionate" about the issue,
and that was that!
The fact is that we can make a case that democratic countries are
actually matriarchies, and male politicians are the paid servants
of Feminists. The litmus test is whether the (mainly male) politicians
enact legislation favouring men's interests more than women's interests.
What we find is that during the last two hundred years western history
is peppered with examples of mainly male governments enacting legislation
benefiting women more than men. Since the late 18th Century, mainly
male governments have enacted legislation giving women the vote, according
women equal pay with men, liberalising abortion laws to permit mass-murder
of infants, increasing penalties for rape, and so forth, all without
protecting men's interests in family, mating rituals, work-place behaviours
or educational institutions.
Most decision-makers in society's political institutions may be
men, but they have done and do little for men and much for women.
Why?
Male decision-makers are subject to pressure from individual women
(friends, family members, etc.), as well as female pressure-groups.
Feminism created the slogan, "the personal is political,"
thereby turning many a bedroom into a battleground, forcing men to
choose between their marriage and their principles, between love and
integrity, between wealth and poverty. Feminist policies also contributed
much to the increase in two-income families. While employers' need
for workers grew at about the same gradual pace it had always grown
at, the supply of workers almost doubled over the span of a few years.
Wages stagnated while profits grew and the male executives who prospered
as a result have a vested interest in perpetuating the Feminist system
and catering to Feminist sexism.
Here is an example of Male Feminist behaviour: at a regional meeting
I attended of teacher union representatives, the chairman, who was
the male partner of a high-profile Feminist teacher, started the meeting
by telling us on which floors the toilets were, and saying, dead-pan,
there were combination-locks on the women's toilets, but not the men's,
because men were too stupid to operate combination locks! No one protested
this blatantly sexist remark, but as he gazed across the room he received
a glance of affirmation for his Uncle Tom-like behaviour from the
women. Imagine the enraged reaction had he said women were too stupid
to operate combination-locks.
How can they get away with such behavior? Where are the groups speaking
on behalf of men? Women's pressure groups far outnumber men's. For
example, as of December, 1999, a search at Alta Vista for "men's
rights" produced 2,256 pages/results while searching for "women's
rights" produced 39,527 pages/results – 17½ times
as many. Evidence of just how much Feminists dominate gender-issues:
men's voices in this area are virtually silenced by the overwhelming
pressure Feminists bring to bear on male decision-makers. On this
basis, one could almost suggest women have about 17½ times
as much power as men in western societies.
There are various forms of power in Society:
-
the power of decision-makers, such as politicians, judges and
juries;
-
the potential military and police power to apply armed force;
-
the power of the media to cover and package (or ignore) issues
as they see fit;
-
the power of the educationalists to inculcate values they believe
in;
-
the power of pressure-groups to influence the media, politicians
and the bureaucracy;
-
the power of bureaucrats to interpret legislation and regulations,
and discriminate against certain clients.
This last sort of power is also now largely in the hands of women:
the December 1998 New Zealand Household Labour Force Survey, for example,
shows men concentrated in employment categories involving working
with objects, whereas women are concentrated in occupations dealing
with members of the public. This pattern is likely to be the same
all over the western world.
Men outnumber women in:
-
Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing by 107,300 to 49,900;
-
Manufacturing by 195,700 to 86,300;
-
Construction by 104,300 to 12,500, and
-
Transport, Storage, and Communication by 70,300 to 34,000.
On the other hand, women outnumber men in:
-
Education by 89,600 to 41,000, and
-
Health and Community Services by 98,400 to 23,100.
In Other categories ("Wholesale and Retail Trade, etc.",
"Business and Financial Services," "Other Services",
and "Not Specified"), men and women were present in roughly
equal numbers. This gives women disproportionate power in administering
and interpreting – on a daily basis – the rules and regulations
affecting the lives of men, women and children. Whenever a man or
boy comes into contact with a social worker, court psychologist, teacher,
etc., that person will probably be a woman, or – even if not
actually a woman – a member of a female-dominated profession
with a hefty bias against men.
Nowadays, Feminism is so mainstream that Mussolini's granddaughter,
the leader of a Neo-Fascist party, described herself as a Feminist.
However, 20th Century Feminism originally tacked itself onto the back
of the Left in general, and Marxism in particular. This is the part
of the political spectrum which loves to use the word "oppression."
Feminists rely heavily on the Frontman Fallacy. They point to the
number of male decision-makers as evidence the political system favours
men. This argument is extremely superficial and has flourished only
because of the lack of intellect, objectivity and male input into
Gender Studies. Hence, Women's Studies is really an ideology rather
than an academic discipline.
Ideologies are akin to religion. Like religions, an ideology such
as Feminism or Marxism is compatible with more or less any state of
affairs in the real world. All theologians and ideologues worth their
salt can explain virtually any apparent counterexample, if necessary,
as being irrelevant to their beliefs, and therefore compatible with
them. However, religions have an other-worldliness that gives them
greater durability than ideologies. Political, economic and military
failures tend to be blamed on governments and their ideologies more
often than on religions. So ideologies come and go.
Marxism is no longer the force it used to be. Feminism has been
around longer than Marxism, and is bound to be weakened by the virtual
demise of Marxism because of the de facto alliance between the two
(See, for example, Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The
Case for Feminist Revolution, 1970, William Morrow). Feminism
started off as an underdog ideology, but has long since become firmly
entrenched in the establishment. This is helping remove the blinders
from all the men conned by their claims of oppression. In fact, I
am quite pleased that New Zealand has had a female Governor-General,
a female Prime Minister, a female leader of the main opposition party,
a female Chief Justice, and a female head of Telecom, the country's
largest listed company, because it makes it harder for the Feminists
to portray all women as victims of the "Patriarchy". As
the Feminists consolidate their power, people will see them as the
establishment. With that kind of status comes the glaring scrutiny
they have avoided so far, and this cannot help but contribute to their
eventual demise.
The comparison of women with oppressed minorities has generally
been done in a completely unbalanced way. Their hunt for similarities
between women and genuine minority groups has been more than a little
biased. The obvious differences between women and genuinely oppressed
minorities, on the other hand, have been determinedly overlooked.
For example:
-
women are a numerical majority in most electorates;
-
they have a greater life-expectancy than men;
-
much more research is done into their diseases than male diseases;
-
Gynecology is a medical field in its own right, but specifically
male diseases are hidden away in Urology; in most universities;
-
women have the vote but do not have to do military or alternative
service in countries where men have to do this – e.g. Germany
and the United States – nor are they drafted into the front
line (even in Israel);
-
women are much more likely to get custody of children on separation
and divorce;
-
many more men than women are in jail, even when women live unscathed
on the proceeds of their male partners' crimes.
Feminists believe their own lies. So they almost never seek equality
with men in areas where men are at a disadvantage compared to women
– how many demonstrations have you heard of demanding that women
be subject to the draft on the same basis as men? Certainly, many
Feminists are ruthless in using their positions of power to advance
their cause. Until this changes, is it really a good thing to promote
even more women into positions of even greater power? As the "False
Prophet" says, "There's no use in exalting the humble and
the meek. They don't remain humble and meek once they're exalted."
(Martin Burke, the "False Prophet,"—formerly at: www.tribal.com/newtrib/inter3.htm
).
Subjectivity in the Judiciary
A Seminar for New Zealand judges on so-called "Gender Equity"
took place in 1997, where the term "Gender Equity" was not
even defined, and occurred in the title of only one paper -- and even
that was just an introduction to research on judges' attitudes! Bear
in mind that one of the main activities of working judges is defining
terms!! The reason for this gross, mass incompetence by the judges
is that "Gender Equity" is just a slogan covering a wish-list
of political issues that Feminists want to brainwash judges about.
That brainwashing is now continuing in the Institute of Judicial Studies,
which provides in-service training for judges.
One of the papers presented at that seminar was entitled: Proving
Gender Bias in the Law and the Legal System. (Martin, Sheilah
L., Proving Gender Bias in the Law and the Legal System, Paper
presented at the Seminar on Gender Equity in the Judicial System,
Rotorua, New Zealand, May 16, 1997.) This paper did not attempt to
prove that gender bias existed. It was just about how hard it was
for Feminists to prove that gender bias existed. (There was no paper
which actually tried to prove that gender bias existed.) This paper
mentioned several factors, but basically it just assumed that other
Feminists had already proved that gender bias existed elswhere in
society, and that it therefore must exist in the law and the legal
sytem, so the paper concentrated on explaining why this had not been
proved yet (mainly because male judges and lawyers were biased). However,
there is an
official government statistical study which shows that being a
male in itself increases the likelihood of receiving a severe sentence
for a given crime. Note that this study was published after the Seminar,
however.
Because there is so much money invested in Feminism -- i.e. because
so many people are paid to carry out Feminist research and advocacy
-- there are a lot of studies which Feminists can refer to, and claim
that those studies have proved some fact or other, which relieves
the person doing the referring from the need to prove that fact themselves.
(Contrast that with the position of men and fathers, who almost have
to start from square one and prove every element of their argument
from the ground up!). However, these Feminist studies which are referred
to are often of very low intellectual quality and do not actually
go anywhaere near proving what they are said to have proved.
So the judges were given a talk which (wrongly) assumed that it
had already been proved that women suffered more bias against them
in society than men did, and which avoided trying to prove that anti-female
bais existed in the law and the legal system by trying to show how
hard that would be to prove! Imagine a trial where a female lawyer
tried to convince a male judge that a man was guilty of a crime against
a woman, and the lawyer's main argument was that it would be very
hard to prove that he was guilty, and so he should be convicted! We
may laugh now, but Western legal systems are getting very close to
that position already!
Objectivity and the Role of the Men's &
Fathers' Movement
Since policy and law are increasingly being formulated on the basis
of what women feel and want (female subjectivity), the only possible
response for the Men's/Fathers' Movement, in the first instance, is
to assert what men feel and want (male subjectivity). However, it
is also important to assert the importance of objectivity, and to
try to hold the Men's/Fathers' Movement to the standard of objectivity.
There are two reasons for this:
-
Society will tend to break down, if it becomes obvious that women
and men are just fighting for their own self-interest, and if there
is no standard of objectivity on which Society can rely most of
the time and for most purposes.
-
If the Men's/Fathers' Movement holds itself to the standard of
objectivity, then it will be able to gain support amongst those
people who are not committed Feminists.
One source of the problem of Feminist subjectivity is war. Although
women had the vote in most countries at the time of the Second World
War, only men were conscripted to fight in the frontline. This was
unjust: either women should have been denied the vote or they should
have had to serve in the frontline. In addition, we have to ask ourselves
what all those men thought they were doing during the Second World
War. My suggestion is that they thought they were protecting women
and children. That was their fundamental motivation, apart from the
legal fact of being conscripted.
After the Second World War, then, men continued to think that their
role was to protect women and children -- otherwise, their self-sacrifice
would have seemed meaningless. Women had used the opportunity created
by men's absence in wartime to take on many jobs that previously only
men had performed, and this was also unfair. However, since men saw
their role in life as protecting women and children, this mentality
was transferred, to some extent, into a tolerance of -- or even a
support for -- Feminist attacks on men's rights.
Conclusion
The topic which I have been addressing in this paper has been has
Feminism actually gone too far, or was Feminism already a step too
far when it first emerged? The answer to this question is that Feminism
was already a step too far when it first emerged. This is because
Feminists did not bother to carry out a a study which systematically
compared the disadvantages which men suffer in society with the disadvantages
which women suffer in society.
Feminists, instead of doing that, have concentrated on gaining control
of our brains, by controlling the information that gets into our brains.
They have done this by gaining control of most of the media, educational
institutions and trade unions in Western societies. They have not
yet got control of the internet, however.
Feminists have simply assumed that women suffer from male oppression
and that men do not, and have diverted huge resources to the search
for data to back up that assumption.
Feminism does not provide for any standard of objectivity that can
limit Feminists' demands. Sometimes Feminists back up a demand for
change by saying that they want equality or equity, but only Feminists
are allowed to select the issues where equality or equity are necessary.
There are many issues where we could say that men need equality or
equity with women. Moreover, only Feminists are allowed to define
what equality or equity means for those issues.
Increasingly, Feminists are finding that they do not need to claim
that what they want is equality or equity. It is enough that Feminists
want something for them to be able to get it. That is, the political
process revolves around female subjectivity, and what Feminists are
pushing for is for individual women to get whatever they want whenever
they want it. That is, law and policy will increasingly revolve around
female subjectivity.
Now, men have to choose between becoming selfish and subjective,
like women, or trying to reimpose objectivity on Society. The first
approach could be called the liberal approach, and the second one
could be called the conservative approach.
An optimist would perhaps be a liberal and a pessimist would be
a conservative. This is because the reimposition of standards of objectivity
on male-female relations would probably require a radical reaction
against the permissive and relaxed attitudes which have dominated
the Western World since the 1960s. This might result from internal
turmoil which occurred after some crisis such as a great depression,
or it might be imposed from the outside by Islamic radicals, for example.
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