A set of T shirts sporting “Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them” have been pulled from several retail chains thanks to a campaign launched by radio talk show host, Glenn Sacks. Besides the ruckus over whether this is over-reaction to a joke, it raises a possibly threatening larger question. After decades of a women’s movement that takes it for granted that men have all the power so deserve no consideration, is it possible this itself has spawned a men’s movement that most still resolutely ignore? As a member of any such thing, the short answer is no, not a coherent one, and probably never will be. Feminists have little to fear. Most women can’t understand why. Given just the misandrist male-bashing – but especially the feminist grabbing for privilege such as children all to themselves upon divorce, that girls must far exceed boys in school, protection from domestic violence only for women, and others – most women think there’d be a men’s movement simply out of self-defense. Why do we only hear from women on all issues as though men didn’t exist? Of the three main reasons, male chivalry looms largest. What better opportunity than “women’s rights” to show you are a man? Protecting the weak is what masculinity is, making men chief co-conspirators against men. Most woman know – far better than men – that this male trait is now being exploited. Men have always been naive about female power exactly because it comes in a form so different from their own. The second reason is that men do not have the group identity that women have with their personal “connecting” and its networking. While women quickly relate to all other women “as a class,” men see themselves as individuals. Each has his own field to tend. Richard Doyle of the Men’s Defense Association has been urging a united men’s movement for 37 years. Shortly after the National Congress for Fathers & Children was forming it suffered a large split. Each man has his personal mission and fights solely for it. So John Murtari parades alone outside his New York courthouse, trying to recruit others to his way, ignoring their input for strategy. One’s personal path means more than its objective. Oh, men work in teams very well. They team up all the time to build bridges, organize countries, even fly to the moon. Teams make men feel like brothers: working for a common goal. Men connect to each other through doing which connects them to the universe. Team sports is this for its own sake. For men, nothing produces a greater sense of being part of something bigger than working with other men. But what men form teams for is never personal. It must be external, of benefit to their family or community. Men do not form teams for personal issues, and certainly never to stand up to women. (Stand up to women? That’s the chivalry factor, or what might be called male nurturing. Women and children are to die for – to fight for, not against – and men do. When feminists declared a gender war, men never showed up.) A third reason is another characteristic of masculinity. I do not accept that the male trait to “just take it” is mere cultural indoctrination nor insensitivity. I think there’s something inherent to being a man that is willing to put emotion and pain aside to just do. Someone must do the doing, irrespective of how they feel, and that sense of communal responsibility defines masculinity. This makes taking action against a strictly personal wrong, an extreme. Men must be deeply hurt and very angry. So you often only see the kind of man in the men’s movement that nobody wants to know because he keeps saying “unconstitutional” with his eyes bugging out. But it is a mistake to ignore him as though it had nothing to do with you. When one gender is hurt, both are. Is there a men’s movement? Will men ever organize for their own self-interest? I’m not very optimistic. The very things that make men vital and indispensable are the ones that make them vulnerable. ©2010 KC Wilson To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons. - Marilyn French
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