JwWells

From Scott Adams

2006-03-24T02:22:00.000-08:00

These are some quotes which caught my eye. They're included in a Scott Adams "Diblert" blog posting here.

A woman thinks her feelings are important. A man knows his aren't.
Oddly enough the gender differences spring from the one thing men and women have in common. They're both trying to impress women.
I don't think that women consider men to be defective women, otherwise they would keep trying to "fix" us...wait...oh dang!
You want to be left alone? Date a bisexual woman. When women actually date other women, they start to really empathize with men, because they finally see how crazy they can get...
The most likely to be true statement is: "First world women are defective." It's not a male or female thing at all. It's a culture sickness and we have it.
I went on a date where the girl didn't eat a thing. She ordered a glass of tea and didn't drink it. I, on the other hand, ate a full meal (keep in mind, this was a dinner time). Now, which one of us is deffective?

Male Pay Dating Services

2006-03-16T02:36:00.000-08:00

This article caught my eye:

Dating firms fight gender price bill

"TORONTO -- Two major online dating services have hired an influential Liberal lobbyist to stop legislation that would outlaw gender-based price discrimination."

These firms have telephone dating services where men pay and women get the service for free. I'm against these telephone dating services as they are sexist, discriminatory and do not do the job they claim to do: The women who are worth marrying do not use such services as such women have enough pride in themselves that they would not take advantage of a woman's right to discriminate against males.

What bothers me is the attitude of the Bill's sponser Lorenzo Berardinetti (Lib). Mr. Berardinetti seems to think that such male-pay and female-free services would not be covered by his Bill. He seems to think such services are fine and fair.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission agrees with Mr. Berardinetti. They form that opinion on the basis that men must get something for their money. They do not mention that women get something for the men's money.

Let's look at a similar legal case. Many bars have male only cover charges. The Human Rights people say that these are accpetable because men get women into the bar, which is something for their money. Again they ignore the fact that women get something for the man's money.

Let's take it a little further though. How about a gay man who simply wants to listen to the band? He pays, he gets nothing extra for his money. How about a lesbian? She does not pay and gets to listen to the band for nothing. The same thing applies to a married men and women who just want to listen to the band: She gets the band for free, he pays for both of them.

What we're really talking about here is the right of women to force a male to pay for her pleasure. That is the heart of the matter.

Men and Reproductive Rights

2006-03-14T02:04:00.000-08:00

There are more than a few good arguments about choice for men:

Cathy Young: Roe v. Wade for men
neo-con: Men's rights and Child support
The Green Knight: Good for the Goose is good for the Gander
The National Center for Men's Choice for Men Project

All center on the male & female have sex and she gets pregnant, "Does he have any rights to not be a father?" point of view. I think this does not go far enough.

We all should know that sometimes women molest boys and occasionally rape men. It happens, we know it. Oh I agree, many will loudly scream out that no female can rape a male. Sexism is alive and well in society ... So let's rephrase it, occasionally a female will use force to get sex and often a female will get a male drunk to get sex from him. Plus, sometimes women will intentionally use the date rape drugs to get sex. Any of these conditions may result in pregnancy. Happy now?

The law as it exists in most jurisdictions says that the male is a father and will pay child support: The fact that he had zero choice in becoming a father is not relevant. The law also, in most places, says any child born to a married woman is the child of the husband.

We know that at least ten percent of babies born to married women are fathered by a man other than her husband. That's been known for sometime. Under some social conditions this rate goes over 30%.

We also know that vasectomy is very hard to get without a female's permission. Most doctors are worried about lawsuits (by women) and so will not do a vasectomy on a man without a woman's permission. The idea long floated around that a man can donate to a sperm bank and have a vasectomy is not really possible as a single man would need a woman's permission to get the vasectomy. He would also have to take the chance that the sperm bank would simply give away all of his sperm: They do have that right.

Condoms are not very good as contraceptives. The Sex Project say that the condom failure rate is 10% when used as contraception.

The "male pill" has been in human testing. Severe side effects drove it off the testing market; once the known side effects were explained, there were no men left willing to take it. It is highly unlikely to ever make it to the market as research funds go to female contraception, not male. Creating a male pill is very expensive as it is a more difficult task that creating the female pill. But, there is far less funding for the male pill.

Put this all together and we have a nasty situation. Men are the father of any child born to any woman who gets a sample of their sperm, regardless of what level of force was used to get pregnant. Men are the father of all children born to their wife. Men have no reasonable contraception available to them.

So, what the law really says is that no male has any right to choose to be or not to be a father. Males' "rights" belong to any female who wants to own them. We live in a society which says that males are not human enough to be worthy of making the choice to be or not to be a father. Slavery: That's what we are talking about here.

We need to make changes so that males have some reasonable level of choice in reproduction.

I think that there should be a specific requirement in the law which goes like this:

-----------------
- Given that a male can show there is reasonable grounds to believe that a pregnancy is the result of HER violence, fraud or other criminal behavior:

A male is required to make one of the following choices:

- to assume full legal custody himself
- to place the baby up for adoption
- to appear bedfore a family law judge to plead other arrangements

In this the female has no rights nor say.
----------------

Something like that at any rate ... There must be an excemption to stop women from profiting from their own violence and other criminal behavior.

After that? I don't pretend to know what is right. I do know that some level of rights must be applied to males. The current thinking that no male is human enough to have rights is wrong!

Sex: Men need to ensure consent

2006-03-07T02:47:00.000-08:00

This article from Britain caught my eye:

Ensure consent for sex, men told
Men should make certain that a woman has consented to sex to avoid being accused of rape, a new campaign launched by the Home Office is to warn.

So men need to ask "Do you want to have sex?" A male who fails to ask is a rapist under this plan and the laws which support it.

What about the women? Why do women have no responsibility? Do they think there is no sex between sober females and drunk males? They're wrong if they do! Cindy Struckman-Johnson PhD showed that young women commonly get their young man drunk for purely sex reasons.

This goes to the heart of the biggest problem we have in society: Women have protection and rights, men have duties and responsibilities. Worse, far worse, most social action groups demand we go further and ever further along the path of "no male is a human."

This is the very heart and soul of the "Men are machinery and not humans" which is the greatest threat to our society and our children.

You think terrorism is the biggest threat we face? NO! Not at all, not even close. Dehumanization of males is by far a larger threat. Dehumanization of males is always a forerunner of war or worse. The less we see our males as human, the greater the chance that we will not have the chance to see females as human.

The further we go down the road of no-male-is-a-human the greater the odds that the terrorists (or others) will win and win easily.

Four year old boy seduced her

2006-03-02T23:48:00.000-08:00

This article caught my eye: "Sources tell us in what amounts to a bizarre confession that the suspect is actually accusing the four-year-old boy of seducing her. But police are not buying that explanation as they investigate several instances of rape and sexual abuse inside the day care center over a six-week period. "

OK, let me get this lady ... a four year old boy seducd you? GET REAL!

With female sex offenders this lady's attitude is common: Female sex offenders think they are the victim. This is a lot less common in male sex offenders.

We have a big problem with female sex offenders. Oh there's not as many as there are male, but there are still a lot more than most people realize. To make the situation worse there are a lot of people who think that no female ever rapes a male. These, very common people, twist all cases and all data in amazing feats of mental gymnastics.

This boy is lucky, in one way, he's from New York and will have access to some of the best treatment for sex assault survivors. If the boy were Canadian? Ah now, then he'd be in big trouble. Canada doesn't allow help for male survivors. Canada is very strongly opposed to helping any male victim of violence. Canada is very bigoted and hateful in its treatment policies. You think I'm wrong? Try getting help for a male survivor: Then you'll know I'm right.

The entire field of sex crime research and treatment is a field of broken rocks without a single clear path. There are so many agendas that simple humanity is forgoten. Add in the definition of all males as non-human and the thing becomes a nightmare.

People hurt other people. What's between the offender's legs has nothing to do with the fact that people hurt other people. Sadly we here in Canada are so into making sure that only females are sufficiently human to be worthy of help that we've forgotten the simple message that males are also human.

Why do you, my fellow Canadians, deny that this little boy is a human?

Family: Men?

2006-02-26T03:22:00.000-08:00

Steve Janke has two posts on "Angry in the Great White North" which bother me.

In Children have no value he writes of the drop in the number of child births without including male reluctance to marry or have children. This, increasingly common problem for middle class males, is crucial to understanding dropping birth rates. It is also almost never mentioned. SAD!

Young middle class men are shying away from marriage in ever greater numbers for the very good reason that family law has become increasingly anti-male. That's one thing: We also have the problem of dropping sperm count to bring into the equation.

In Mothers he speaks of Michael Coren's Toronto Sun article on mothers in the home. Again Steve leaves out the men. Without understanding the reality of the first world male there is no understanding of any part of our family structure. Without understanding that fathers are indeed part of our family structure there is no understanding of any part of family.

We have problems in the family and with numbers of children. We ensure we cannot solve those problems when we leave out the men. We demand more problems when we try to solve a problem involving males without including males. Males are either part of society or we have no society. That is a message too many people seem incapable of understanding.

Violent Again

2006-02-22T05:35:00.000-08:00

On Saturday Ian Gillespie wrote a column to which I complained. My complaint is here:

Here is Ian Gillespie's response to men's complaints, including my complaint.

My response to Mr. Gillespie follows.

Amazing.

Decades ago, I was “The most dangerous man in Canada.” That's how I was described by assorted feminists and pro-feminists. Back then, I advocated for the right of men with custody of small children to access the female only single parent programs: I advocated against the starvation of children and was “dangerous.” Now, after all this time, nothing has changed. I complain about hatred of men and am described as “violent” and “opposed to equality.”

Life is funny. I, who stand for equality and decency for all, am violent. I, who have written against discrimination all too many times, am described as opposing equality. The common factor is that I believe that males and females deserve equality. I believe all people deserve decency as a basic human right.

I could, with ease, produce an argument blaming women for a great number of evils. Putting the blame for abused children onto women's shoulders would be quite easy: It would also be wrong. Putting the blame for male on the job deaths onto women's shoulders is a piece of cake: It is also a poisonous piece of cake.

Here's the thing, the heart and soul of the feminist/pro-feminist movement is male collective responsibility and female innocence. I reject collective responsibility as hatred and state, openly, that women are people and as such, often behave atrociously. That is fact. People usually behave quite well. That said, sometimes men behave badly and sometimes women behave badly. People sometimes behave badly: We are human.

If there is any collective responsibility for violence it goes to all adults. To say all adults share the blame for Canada's violence problems may have merit. To say that men, and men only, share collective responsibility for violence is hate: It is an attempt to harm innocents and nothing more. There is nothing of an effort to solve violence related problems in collective male responsibility. There is only an attempt to harm all of society.

Let me be clear: The violent are responsible for their violence. The non-violent may share some responsibility for allowing the conditions under which violence grows. To put any more to the matter assigns blame where none exists. This is not the message of Katz and Gillespie. They assign to men responsibility for the violence itself and in so doing –in taking on the role of God– they breach all the learning our culture has built up over the centuries.

Contempt breeds violence. This we know, the hated are more likely to become violent. By breeding hate, by assigning to the innocent the responsibility of the violent, the pro-feminist seeks to breed violence. Oh the seeking is unconscious! Oh yes. I do not believe that the pro-feminist argument is one of intent to harm. Yet, the harm is there. The massive error remains.

Reducing violence is something we can do; removing all violence is beyond our capabilities. A reduction in violence will require us to look at our behavior: This is obvious. That look must be one of all adults looking at their actions, their thoughts and their assumptions. For violence is a phenomena with a great many causes. Violence comes from many sources and will only be reduced by carefully targeting all of the sources. Adding contempt for men to the mix ensures no reduction in violence, for it requires that any looking will be through a dark glass.

Oxford and the ALF

2006-02-21T02:05:00.000-08:00

The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) threaten violence over Oxford Univeristy's new testing centre. The ALF says that Oxford students are valid targets for terror. A death threat for going to University ...

Terror is the mark of the weak argument and the weak mind. An activist, with a valid case, has no need for terrorism. The case alone shows the need.

Normally, I'd be willing to listen to the arguments of the anti-animal research people. That said, once the ALF threatens violence, all my willingness to listen goes out the window. The threat alone is proof there is no case for the anti-animal research people.

To my mind, the ALF's home base in Florida USA should be considered a valid military target.The ALF, in participating in international terrorism, has declared itself a valid military target.

I'm not saying that violence is never called for! Far from it, there are well known cases wherein military action against an injustice is the only solution. These cases are rare and should be easily seen by any person with a clear mind. The ALF do not have such a case.

Violence: It's all the men's fault

2006-02-19T02:55:00.000-08:00

I was shocked and disgusted by this article in our local daily, The London Free-Press. The author, at least passively, supports the hate filled conclusion that all violence is all men's problem. Violence is the problem of every person: Blaming and shaming men is nothing but contempt for men.

The argument used by Katz is one based upon male collective responsibility and female fragility. It is dehumanizing to all people. Worse, in a country which proudly refuses to help male victims of violence putting responsibility onto males is hate.

I wrote the following letter to the newspaper:

Blame and Shame

Ian Gillespie (and Katz) blame all males for all violence. Too many times I've heard this deeply flawed argument. This is the argument which allows and encourages a Karla Homolka.

This thought type calls all Muslims responsible for the troubles in the middle east. This is the same argument used to blame Jews for government error. This is the same argument which states that women should not have the vote as women are too hormonally challenged to think clearly. This is the same argument which calls for Blacks to ride at the back of the bus as they are too simple to be competent members of society.

This is a deeply flawed and hate based argument. Hatred serves no purpose in reducing violence; for contempt increases violence. These are the messages Gillespie and crowd fail to understand.

We here in Canada have a large problem with inner-city youths and murder. That problem is made worse by the hatred of all males which is the heart and soul of Katz's argument. We either want:

Katz's misandry and more dead kids

we want to do something about violence.

We can have one or the other. Which is it?

We Canadians have a massive problem with dangerous levels of misandry. Misandry is to males what misogyny is to females and it is more of a problem as so many people spout their contempt for all males. We also have serious problems with services to help male victims of violence. There are none in Elgin-Middlesex; worse, referral agencies send male victims to offender's agencies. Worse still, Elgin-Middlesex's mental health services, who have been ordered by government to try to help male victims, refuse openly and proudly to do so. Katz and crowd support this discrimination by spreading their contempt for male life.

There is a strong relationship between offender's groups and suicide in male victims of violence. There is a strong correlation between suicide in male victims of violence and refusal to help by agencies so charged. Yet, in spite of the Free Press' stand against suicide, the Free-Press takes an attitude of contempt for males which increases suicide. When examined in the harsh light of reality, “More dead men” becomes the attitude of the Free Press.

Online Dating

2006-02-17T03:07:00.000-08:00

My wife and I met online. Her daughter was out trolling for men for her mother and fished me up. Our first meeting was at her home with her sons, daughter and son-in-law all sizing me up. I'd driven the 200 Km to her home on a delightful summer day and was not in the least afraid. I was only curious.

This morning I read this: (After being redirected from www.menstuff.com/ )

A dozen tips for online dating? Including bringing a friend? What in the world have we become?

The odds of being hurt on a date are a lot less than being hit by lightning. I think a lot of people are getting their knickers in a knot over sillyness. Chill out people. Dating is supposed to be fun.

Women, Men and Being

2006-02-16T03:17:00.000-08:00

Jack Kammer in a recent article says:

"In other words, women are valuable merely by virtue of their existence as women. Men are worthless without performance. Denied, as they are, the reasonable expectation of success, young Black men are especially vulnerable to this form of sexism. Without money, they are consigned to the living hell of feeling inferior to and unworthy of their female counterparts.",

We face huge problems with young men murdering and being murdered. Yet, we refuse absolutely to look at male problems. The 2005 murder numbers for Canada will likely be 500 male and 33 female victims. Yet, all help and all research is radical feminist and "women and children" only. It is little wonder that young men find drugs and death preferable to life: To us, to society, they are not worthy of life. Young men, to Canadians, are not sufficiently human to be worthy of life.

Harsh? Not really. That is who we are and where we are in our social evolution.

All cultures change. Ours made changes for women; changes that were badly needed. In those changes we allowed very dangerous sexism. That sexism has now left us with problems which need solution. Those problems show most in poor males. Sadly, all proposed solutions to the problems start with shame and blame of males, leaving us in a place werein we are getting worse and worse every year.

We will start the long road to a better future for all when we start treating male problems as problems worthy of our notice.

Daycare and Harm to Kids

2006-02-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

Quebec's universal child care system is under view by several groups. The biggest look at la Belle Province's system comes from the C.D. Howe Institute who find that there is an increase in aggression for children in daycare. The Howe Institute's report is here.

Others say that for at risk children aggression goes down.

I think there is good reason to believe both views are right. If we think of universal daycare as creating aggression in some children, reducing aggression in other and making no difference in the reat, the varied views make sense.

For children being raised in at risk homes, daycare likely reduces the child's chances of aggressive acting out. For children being raised in solid two parent families, daycare probably increases the risk of the child acting out. The remainder are children in border line homes.

It is far past time to look at daycare with open eyes and concern for all children. There is no one perfect view of universal daycare. Rather, there are a large set of factors all of which need be examined.

I find myself neither pro nor con on the daycare issue. Rather, I see it as an issue wherein too many people have vested interests and not enough people are willing to look at all parts of the total equation. If we're going to have daycare, fine. Let's make it the best daycare we can. That means listening to all sides and then acting on the information we get with an open mind and caring heart.

Valentine's Day

2006-02-14T03:22:00.000-08:00

It's February 14th, Valentine's Day. A day to celebrate love and caring OR a day to spend money on fake love. Unfortunately, it is now also a day to promote contempt for males:

VDAY
Why can't they just 'Get Along'?

Reducing violence is important: Hatred of males will increase, not decrease violence. Sadly, too many cannot understand that.

I adore my wife: We exchange small, but well thought out gifts. This year she gave me a new journal, one picked out for a man who has major troubles moving his hands due to a bad tremor. That's thoughtful. Blating on about Vagina Day would have been sickening and not-only not loving, but contemptuous: Thankfully, my wife cares about me.

When will these people on our university campuses get the message that caring works, contempt does not.

Ontario: At Risk Youth

2006-02-13T02:51:00.000-08:00

OK, McGuinty gives Pinball Clemons $15 million with promises of more.
OK, Pinball has a good record of working with drug addicted boys.
OK, Toronto has a big problem with gangs and murders.

So far OK. Now then we run into a problem. Pinball now needs to work with a big time board of directors in a city which violently opposes wasting money to keep boys alive. Is Pinball capable of overriding the degree of contempt for males which infests all of Toronto politics? Here, I doubt it.

Mike "Pinball" Clemons is used to working in a soft Christian environment where the good of all over-rides all other concerns. That's not the way a modern Canadian city works, not at all. Now, he must spend most of his time not-offending any of the power groups. The thing is, to do anything, to save the lives of any of these boys, he has to not only offend most of the city's power groups, he has to drop kick their faces. He has to much more than offend, he has to use word-force of the strongest sort to stop the agenda of most of the city's power groups.

While Pinball is a good speaker, maybe a great one, I'm not as of yet convinced that he is a Churchill and it is a Churchill that is needed.

Family Violence and Reality

2006-02-10T03:08:00.000-08:00

There's a new study on Family Violence. A New Zealand group studied 25 year olds and found that men and women hit each other equally. This is what one would expect from a study. Sadly, the people who run family violence treatment groups are strongly opposed to helping males and so do some of the most amazing mental gymnastics possible to make the female batterers and male victims go away.

Here are two views of the New Zealand study:

Young women equally likely to assault partners

Domestic Violence and Mental Health

Why are male victims left out?

We know, we know for sure, that leaving the male victims out of the system causes real harm to children. Yet, for reaons unknown, the males are left out of the system. Sexism hurts children.

Prophet Mohammed Cartoons

2006-02-09T04:53:00.000-08:00

I'm appalled that Canadian media outlets failed to publish the Danish-Islam cartoons. All Canadian media should have published these drawings at the first hint of violence.

By failing to immediately publish these cartoons we teach radicals everywhere that violence will control the first world media. The message we send is that we bow to any person's violence. We act to increase not decrease violence by refusing to publish these cartoons.

These drawing were published in Egypt long before they were published in Denmark: There was no violence in Egypt. The answer for the why of that is:

the Egyptian government will not tolerate violence
and
the radical islamists are not watching the Egyptian press.

We, the first world, on the other hand, not only tolerate violence, we encourage it and we are very definitely being watched.

I could go into Dr. Sanity's long and well thought out post on the difference between shame and guilt based culture of Monday Feb. 6, 2006. I could go on about respecting the feelings of the religious everywhere. None of that matters in the face of the simple fact that we need to reduce violence. Encouraging violence is the single stupidest thing we can do. Cowing to the violent is bad policy and counter-effective to our long term best interests.

Gays, Lesbians and Others

2006-02-05T03:31:00.000-08:00

There's a few things about homosexuality which bother me:

Why do people care?
Why do some people hate gays?
Why are gay men the primary target of violence?
Why do the right demand gays are perverts?
Why do the left demand gays are weak?
Why doesn't the GLT community do something about their promiscuity problem?

Frankly I don't understand: Why would I care who you sleep with?

A great many questions and very few answers. For me, everything in and on this topic has more questions than answers.

Now, I care more about dust bunnies under the couch than I care about someone's sex partner. Well, given that partner is of age and there's been no violence or coercion. That said, my opinion appears to be rare.

The fundamentalists go on and on about the biblical ban on gay men. Well, yes, there's a ban, there's also a lot in the bible that the fundamentalists do not pay attention to. Stoning for cheating in marriage is only one example.

I think there is a connection to dominant men in the right's disgust about gay men. Dominant men see gay men as weak. Dominant men would rather clean public toilets with their tongue than see themselves as capable of weakness. Looking at a gay man, to the dominant male, is a sign that he might be capable of weakness. The reason the right has problems with gays is the same reason the right has problems with telling women to be nice to their husband: It implies that dominant males may well have a weakness.

Dominance partly explains the right and the gay men being more likely to be the victims of gay bashing. We also need to add in society's much more rigid view of male behavior. Females have freedom to behave that is simply not extended to males. There's also the almost total lack of concern over male victims of violence to be added into the mix. Our culture, like most before it, simply doesn't much care about violence against males and that's a problem in desperate need of solution.

What about the left? Why does the left keep on saying that we need to protect the gays? The gays and lesbians I know are pretty decent and strong people. I think the reason here has to do with extending the leftist power base. There's nothing of concern for gays in making homosexuals seem weak, there's only a concern for extending the leftist power base. Selfish politics, not concern for people is the cause here.

The GLT community itself confuses me. They have a big problem with sexually transmitted diseases and yet refuse to do much about their promiscuity problem. Reducing promiscuity and increasing stable two partner relationships saves lives. Why not work hard to encourage stable GLT marriages? Is standing against society really worth people's lives? Is being a non-breeder worth your life?

While I understand a few things, it still comes down to more questions than answers.

Part Four: Conclusion

2006-02-04T02:58:00.000-08:00

Many writers go on and on about how church domesticates men. “Church is good and nice” so men aren't interested, seems to be the theme. This is garbage. Men are very interested in good and nice, we aren't interested in judgment by people who don't care about us as we are.

Here we pick up on the dominance problem. Dominant people see men as other dominant people trying to steal their thunder. Dominant preachers see the men in the congregation as threats. Needless to say, the men aren't all that interested in being treated as threats.

How can a preacher, rabbi or mullah, who sees the men as threats to his or her dominance teach good and nice? The teacher/leader cannot.

Herein lies the essential problem. Men are judged according to rules which make sense to the most dominant among us.

It is no wonder that men aren't all that interested in going to church.

Part three: Men communicate differently

2006-02-04T02:50:00.000-08:00

We in the men's movements have long known that men speak of our feelings much better when writing than when speaking. A woman who really wants to know what her husband thinks of her should get him to write her a letter. In print men speak more openly and more passionately.

Church is a verbal community. Someone gets up in front of the congregation and talks and talks and talks ... For most men this is unnatural. For many men it is boring.

Some churches are slowing learning the lesson. Some small groups ask men to write out our thoughts and feelings. These letters create an opening for communication. Greg Vaughn points this out in his “Letters from Dad” book.

Men communicate best in writing, but must learn in a religious environment based on speech. This causes a problem.

Our schools have trouble with boys. Boy's are not doing at all well in comparison with girls. Part of this problem has to do with biology, another part has to do with the feminization of the school. Schools are much more verbal these days. Verbal skills are a female strong point. Males often learn strong verbal skills, learn being the key point. The schools are not teaching the boys the needed verbal skills.

In the same way, churches need to extend to men a hand in communication by improving the communication. By including men's natural strong points in the written arts.

Religious institutions must also add in men's strong point of communicating by doing. Doing is also a communiction.

Part two: Men are machinery or fools

2006-02-03T04:33:00.000-08:00

“Men are powerful”
“Women are saints in need of protection from those evil males.”

This dualism is the central theme of religion. Religion as it exists today is a dualism which describes neither sex very well. The dualism does make women feel good and so tends to keep more women than men.

Writers pontificating on men in the pews don't seem to know many men. One feminist suggests that churches need to have laziboys, beer and fight scenes, that will attract men: In her mind, men are pro-violence fools. A conservative pastor lambastes men for not loving their family: He calls out to men “Hey, you baboons!” This man is a Promise Keepers leader too. Men, in his mind, exist only to provide women and children with money: In his mind, men are biological cash machines.

Faced with viewpoints such as the above which are by far the most common viewpoints, is it any wonder that men stay away from church? I think it is a wonder that some men do go to church.

Men are neither fools nor machinery. Yet, these views are central to modern day religion.

The idea of the man leading the home may once have had merit: It no longer works. Progressives speak of the diminishment of women in the fundamentalist religions. OK, the progressives may well be right. That said, they speak nothing of the “men are machinery” view which accompanies the “women are weak” message. Fundamentalist religion has some very serious gender flaws. So does progressive religion.

Progressives go on and on and on about women's troubles. Of course women have troubles. That in no way means men do not. That in no way means that contempt for men is a good thing. Progressives cannot understand this message.

Both sides of the religious community seem to feel that sticking to the “men are machinery or fools” meme is the only way to see life: Both sides are wrong.

The viewpoint, the heart concept, that males are machinery or dangerous & powerful fools keeps many men away from the pews.

Why are there few men in the pews: Part one

2006-02-02T06:17:00.000-08:00

Part One: The Sensitive Man

Why are there so few men in the pews? This is a tough question which requires a long and complex answer. It will take me several posts to explain what happens with men and religion.

While there are times and places where a given religious movement will be mostly male: These times are the exception. For the most part religions are male led sororities or almost female only sisterhoods such as is the case in Wicca.

Religion tends to be male leader and female follower. Yet, men are interested in religion. Internet threads on the topic of men and religion tend to be long and complex. Coffee shop conversations on the topic are full, rich and often heated. Many men want their faith. Yet men stay away from the church, mosque, synagogue and temple.

We can start our discussion by looking at the leaders in any religious movement. Religious leaders tend to be the most dominant people. Whether the religious movement was started by a dominant person or not, within a few years, the religion will be lead by a dominant person.

Anthropologists often speak of dominance in terms of monkey tribes. Occasionally they speak of humans in terms of wolf packs. This happens because human dominance is almost a merger of monkey and wolf dominance. In humans you expect to see dominant males in charge, just like in a monkey tribe. Yet, you often see dominant men and women in charge, just like in a wolf pack. Throughout history there have been examples of dominant women rising to the top of human endeavor. Human dominance is what it is and is not describable in terms of any other species.

Dominant people, male and female, have a blind spot. Dominant people cannot see less-dominant men as anything other than dominant men trying to take their spot as leader. For highly sensitive men, who do not want the leadership, this seeing is not only wrong, it is offensive or frightening. Dominant church leaders mistreat most highly sensitive men because the dominant person cannot understand the highly sensitive man.

Ten percent of men are highly sensitive: That is, 10% of men are more sensitive than ninety-five percent of women. A small number of these men are themselves highly dominant, 10% of these men have significant dominance as part of their personalities. This leaves 9
% of men as non-dominant and highly sensitive.

Highly sensitive men are an important part of our species who have their own merit and their own way of seeing life. The highly sensitive man is part of the braking and control system in our species: These men act to keep the dominant people in check. Dominant people have trouble understanding this.

Telling the highly sensitive man to be the leader of his home is like telling your dog to do the dishes: It is useless. There is no communication because the core ideas being used are too different for communication to occur. This is a perfect example of Niven's law “The thing to remember about aliens is that they are alien.” Highly sensitive men are alien to the dominant leaders of any church, mosque, synagogue or temple.

This is the first part of why there are fewer men in the pews: Most highly sensitive men are driven from the church by the actions of the dominant leaders. The demands of the church leaders are foreign to most highly sensitive men.

Part Two: How we see men or “Men are machinery or fools”

Part Three: Men communicate differently

Women, boys and sex

2006-02-02T03:21:00.000-08:00

People molest children. That is sad and wrong, it is none-the-less reality. Some men molest: Some women molest. Here's a female molestor.

When the molestor is a woman and the victim is a boy many people choose to support the right of the woman to molest. Why?

This article from Russia shows a common viewpoint:

"In most stories of the sort it is not the pedophilia issue that actually matters. They are all about women's unmet needs. Women may easily cast prudence to the winds when receiving not enough care from husbands or after they break up with partners. Feeling absolutely abandoned these women either drop in sex shops or seek Internet acquaintances with students or teenagers."

The pedophilia doesn't matter? Women's unmet needs? Where do these people get these insane ideas?

Adults must protect chidlren. Adults must protect children from the child's own folly. This applies to women as well as to men.

There is nothing about needs here. There is a social desire to never see a woman as "bad." Women are people. Some people do evil things: Some women do evil things. Period.

I cannot understand how so many people writing in the Main Stream Media can use their platform to excuse a woman's bad behavior towards boys.

Are boys human? YES. Therefore, they are worthy of being protected from the actions of evil adults. It is really very simple. The hard part is getting sexist adults to say boys are human and worthy of protection from those women who would use them.

Absent Parents

2006-01-30T06:07:00.000-08:00

Forty percent of non-custodial parents lose contact with their children: Within three years 40% of parents, who do not have custody of their children, have lost contact with their children. This applies to both males and female, both mothers and fathers lose contact at the same rate if they do not have custody.

Why? Nobody knows for sure. There are a few things we do know:

1. sometimes the absent parent just doesn't care about the kids
2. sometimes the custodial parent interferes with the other parent's relationship with his or her kids
3. sometimes the parent with custody is so abusive to the non-custodial parent that the only safe thing the non-custodial parent can do is stay completely away
4. sometimes one parent moves too far away for close contact
5. governments care about money, not parental contact
6. some advocates demand that males are abusive, which drives many fathers away
7. some advocates demand that children must be mother raised, this ensures unfair outcomes which drives fathers away
8. some advocates demand that mothers who lose custody must have been abusive, this drives mothers away
9. a bad habit, common in our culture, puts all of the blame for absent parents onto males, this drives some fathers away
10. too often a judge's definition of 'best interests of the child' means ignoring the relationship with the non-custodial parent

There's an interesting (and long) discussion of problems 1, 2 & 3 at Dr. Phil's message boards, Nasty Custody Battles:

Whenever speaking of the best place to raise children we must remember that we are talking about odds. The best home for children has a closely connected mother and father: These homes have the best outcome odds for child rearing. It may be that gay/lesbian homes where the homosexual couple are closely connected will have the same excellent outcome odds as two parent homes; no one knows, there's simply not enough data.

Children raised in some types of single parent homes have high odds of major social problems in life. While not all children raised in a single parent home will have troubles, the odds of a single parent raised child having major problems are much higher than for those raised in:
- a two parent home
- a lone parent home with a close and connected non-custodial parent
- a widowed home

We have a mess. We have a mess which is dumped squarely onto men's shoulders even though it is not a men's problem. All adults created the mess, yet men get the blame. This is stupid. Blaming men is not only unfair, it ensures that the problem cannot be fixed. Blaming men causes harm to children.

One thing we must clearly do in order to fix this problem is to get the advocates on all sides to calm down. Throwing out contempt for men, or women, will not help save children from high odds of major life problems. We also must demand that all people in the media, press and blogosphere throw aside their own bigotries. Contempt for men, or women, will not save children from major life problems. Caring people working together can make such a change.

Another thing we must do is require governments to care about parental contact. We allow a great many children to be harmed because we have been unwilling to stand up to governments: We have not been willing to demand governments put parental contact near the top of their action lists.

Also, we must consider abuse of either parent to be a serious matter. Today, few care about abused males. Abused men often run away: This leaves the children with the abuser which raises the odds of the children being abused. Also, this ensures some women have the right and ability to abuse the non-custodial father; abuse of the non-custodial parent sometimes happens to women as well. Abuse of the parent transfers onto the children causing considerable harm. Our discrimination against males causes harm to children, that is quite beyond dispute.

Lastly, we must force judges to see that the best interests of the child includes a close relationship with both parents.

All together, the absent non-custodial parent problem is quite solvable. It only requires caring people to work together without contempt and without rancor.

Mama's always right

2006-01-30T03:04:00.000-08:00

“Mama's always right” “If mama ain't happy, ain't anyone happy.”

These are becoming common sentiments. More and ever more men think that the way to marital happiness is to let their wife do all the thinking. To bow to her every whim.

I was reading Scott Haltzman's website “Secrets of Married Men” and in the posting community came across a man who said “Remember one thing. The women is ultimately always right, no matter how many facts one can place in front of her. Facts are not relevant. It's her "feelings" that rule her every thought and action. Deal with it or don’t get married.” The page is here: http://www.secretsofmarriedmen.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3

This sentiment forms the basis if many modern marriages. To me, these “marriages” aren't marriages at all. They are a form of psychological child molestation. They are parent & child relationships. These men are wimping out, these women are living a controlling lie.

Where did we ever come up with the idea that one partner in a marriage is always rights? Husband is always right showed up in European marriages sometime in the 1600's and stayed that way for centuries. Now, it has reversed. Wife is always right. It was daft then, why is it somehow proper now?

I could speak for pages on female criticism or male stonewalling. I still do not see how these things translate into anyone knows best.

For some reason people are increasingly giving way into a form of thinking which places female feelings and thoughts ahead of reality, ahead of the best interests of children and the family.

As I see it:

If you're in a "relationship" with a woman who is always right, you're not in a relationship. What you have is some perverted form of parent & child thing going on.

I do not always agree with my wife, she does not always agree with me. We talk it out and compromise or agree to disagree.

This "mama is always right" thing seems to come from both the Christian right and the progressive left. I cannot understand it. It makes no sense. It is no more a proper way to see marriage than the older "daddy is always right."

We might agree that the gender pendulum has swung too far. Women have too much power and men not enough. We do nothing towards making this a better world by agreeing to knuckle under to the political whims of this world. We do nothing towards making our own life better by knuckling under in issues which matter. (OK I agree, a little ignoring the small things is a good idea: For men and women.)

2006-01-29T06:39:00.000-08:00

Male Suicide

2006-01-29T05:44:00.000-08:00

I see the San Fransisco Chronicle has an article on male suicide:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/26/
BAGHRGT0DV1.DTL&hw=suicide&sn=003&sc=490

Males are three to four times more likely to kill ourselves. Sadly, due to the fact that there is no money for research into most men's health issues, nothing can be done to find out why this is so.
The Chronicle writer, Joan Ryan takes the stance that males are defective females: That stance says that we can fix male suicide by getting males to talk about feelings in a way similar to the way females talk about feelings. This is, to me, wrong headed.

Males under stress are less likely to talk about what or how we feel. We tend to stonewall. We through up a stone wall of non-communication. So, it seems likely that the way to stop male suicide is going to be different than the means we use to stop female suicide.

How do we stop males from killing themselves?

Probably we need to find a way to break through the stone wall. Talking about feelings will not do that. I do not know how to stop male suicide: I do know that if funders were willing to raise males to the status of fellow humans, researchers could find a way to stop males from killing themselves.

Therein lies the key: We must have males raised to the status of human. Then and only then will we see the male suicide rate drop to that of the female.