Another gem, but one which provokes mild dissent, if it can even be termed as such:
“In earlier times, the very survival of the human race was predicated on the protection of women, and concern for women became a strong cultural norm. But feminism certainly made it much worse, destroying the cultural norm that affirmed and celebrated the male capacity for goodness.”
While feminism—female gender narcissism as a social phenomenon—purports to protect women, it pathologically seeks to harm and destroy the very essence of what it means to be a women in an act of collective self-loathing. In harming and emasculating men and isolating women from their natural protectors, feminism further harms women.
Feminism harms all whom its long, malignant shadow is cast upon.
I don't disagree (and have written on this subject), but I do think it is still more possible for women to avoid the malignant reach of feminism than it is for men to do so. Aside from the trans phenomenon, which is a relatively recent outgrowth of feminist social constructionism that is literally destructive, much of feminism seeks mainly to persuade women to adopt its paranoid, narcissistic, self-flattering, accountability-averse, and grievance-filled mentality. But women still have some choice about that, wouldn't you agree? Men have no choice; they may not be at all interested in feminism, but it is perennially interested in stunting male lives through law and public policy.
I think you are right to point this out. I do think that the deep "empathy gap" is actually often displayed by those who believe themselves to be on men's side. Think how often either insults are thrown about which are basically of the "man up" or "simp" variety by MRAs about other men or they join in the "women damaged most" narratives. The contempt for "unmanly" men runs deep from both sexes and even those trying to champion men find it really hard to extend a warm hand to their "brothers". Frankly in my experience in DV it is very often other women in the lives of abused men who seek help for them. It is very difficult to shift attitudes, but as you say feminism has moved beyond words to laws and government institutions that have real world punishments and direct discriminations applied to real men that are intended to "stunt male lives".
Have to agree with you re: men being especially unable to avoid the adverse influence of feminism. Men are necessarily the primary recipients of feminist vitriol as a function of gender asymmetric mirroring.
It is similar in another way as well: Both Marxism and Feminism are ideological cover stories for power grabs that people would not accept without the illusion that said power grab is going to achieve some overarching Moral Imperative.
“Gender narcissism develops in reaction to feelings of inferiority about one’s gender and might be defined as excessive love or concern for one’s gender, one’s genitals, or one’s gender identity, and negative feeling about the opposite sex—generally involving fear, disgust, resentment or competitiveness.”
Way to go. So, make fe-MALE narcissism gender neutral. I don't see MEN whipping out their testicles the way wo-MEN whip out their breasts as an answer to everything. Thanks for letting us know you buy into psychobabble. Gyno centrism is the only expression of gender narcissism on the landscape, and it's backed by the Matrix, government/police/media/church/. On the other hand, /RED PILL /MRA / MGTOW/ is a reaction to a SYSTEMATIC attack on BOYS & MEN. Would you categorize (Justice for Boys & MEN) headed by Mike Buchanan or XY CREW (MEN building MEN) headed by Paul Elam as gender narcissism? Would you call these GREAT MEN 'gender narcissists'? It might benefit you to stop beating your chest while listening to Jordan PETER PAN types
The human survival instinct has nothing to do with Gyno-centrism. Gynolatry is literally the worship of wo-MEN and has nothing to do with survival. The survival of the human race was predicated on many things, not just protection for wo-MEN. That is white night SIMP bullshit. wo-MEN perpetrate TWICE as many child murders as MEN. Not counting infanticide which is also mostly perpetrated by wo-MEN. Many modern wo-MEN boast about aborting MALE fetuses. However, throughout HIS-story wo-MEN have murdered the MALE children exclusively, going back to biblical times when the wo-MEN of pagan tribes would KILL the 1rst born MALES as offerings to false Gods. Muslims are a billion in the world. ONE MAN with a harem could probably build bigger, better & more stable families than the blind protection of wo-MEN.
I agree that we (by which I mean anti-feminist and male-positive advocates) over-emphasize the biological necessity of centering women. Much is cultural, certainly. Men are by no means naturally expendable or disposable. But given the extraordinary richness of gynocentric traditions, including chivalry and courtly love, etc., and the deep-seated desire of many men from a young age to protect and provide for women, I think it must be reckoned with as a powerful part of nature, no?
“In earlier times, the very survival of the human race was predicated on the protection of women, and concern for women became a strong cultural norm.”
I hesitate to re-enter this particular discussion, because I’ve already done so both here and elsewhere many times. But it’s complicated enough to warrant weighing in as often as necessary.
First, our remote ancestors lived for at least 100,000 years in small, nomadic, bands. They depended on everyone to do whatever each could do in the interest of group survival. This included every man, every woman and even, to some extent, every child. They depended on women to produce and feed infants, because only women could gestate and lactate. They depended on men, therefore, to protect the band from predators (and, eventually, to hunt big game). Both jobs were essential, and both jobs were very dangerous. Many women died in childbirth, after all, and many men were killed by predators. My point is that no community could have survived without as many women and as many men as it could support with food.
This state of affairs continued until the rise of horticulture and then agriculture (or pastoralism) in the relatively recent past—and it continued for several thousand more years only with more elaborate organization. This change in food production amounted to a cultural revolution, because it entailed settled communities (eventually cities and states). These communities could now store their food and other resources. But they also had either to defend those resources (along with their land and their access to water) from raiding communities or to indulge in their own raiding. By this time, moreover, communities were much larger than in earlier times and more specialized. They required more complex divisions of labor. This context was the origin of gender systems. Even though most men and most women—that is, the serfs—worked in the fields, the labor of women still included birthing and caring for infants, and the labor of men now included military service to chiefs and eventually to kings (instead of hunting, which became the symbolic but vestigial keystone of aristocracy). My point is that these changes did not make men “expendable.” (And no healthy person, then or now, can accept expendability as an identity—a huge topic in itself.) This brings up the topic of trade-offs.
Early states relied on “social contracts” that exploited both men and women, though in different ways, because organized communities would have been impossible otherwise. Both sexes still had dangerous jobs specifically as women or as men, and both were rewarded, at least in theory, specifically as women or as men—not merely, by this time, as individuals who happened to have this or that urgently required skill. For risking their lives in childbirth, early social contracts gave women some assurance that men would provide them and their infants not only with resources but also with protection. For risking their lives in battle, however, these social contracts gave men some assurance of greater prestige and more privileges than their dependents. This was reciprocity, or inter-dependence, in my opinion, not “oppression.” To be dependent is, after all, to be subordinate. In early hierarchical states, most people were subordinate to nobles and rulers (who, in turn, were subordinate to the gods and goddesses). My point is that just as most women had to survive in order to produce children most men had to survive in order to produce food.
To conclude, it’s true that concern for women has long been a strong cultural norm, one with an biological substratum, but that does not necessarily amount to gynocentrism (let alone misandry), because the same has long applied to men as well. Perfect reciprocity, like any other form of perfection, is impossible. The answer to that is not a utopian ideology, which ignores human finitude along with both common sense and common decency. Rather, it’s to continue seeking reciprocity (interdependence, complementarity or whatever you call it) on both moral and pragmatic grounds.
I suppose in reality feminism is only possible in societies as in the "developed" world, in which comparatively few struggle for existence and the majority enjoy a life of abundance unprecedented in human history. People rarely consider how and who this abundance is produced. In this country partly because almost all heavy industry, mining etc. was exported to India and China and so on and we rely on massive food imports for the majority of our food ... the how and who is literally invisible (but not to the men (and women) of those nations who produce them). It is in this really rather "aristocratic" society that feminism has attacked boys and men. And of course it appears there is no consequence in this other than an increase in entitlement for women. Though in fact there is a probable link with the decades of stagnant productivity and ballooning private and state Debt here in the UK as we borrow and "print" money to cover our lack of effort.
Yes, Nigel, that's an interesting way of describing our society. In one sense, it is becoming more democratic by expanding the ranks of entitled citizens (and even non-citizens). In another sense, however, it is indeed becoming more aristocratic by excluding men (or at least straight, white, "cis" men) from the ranks of full citizenship. The new aristocrats, like the old, inherit their privileges on the basis of genetic factors such as sex or race.
Another take on all this is that the modern state--not this or that ethnic group-- has replaced men. Yes, this is my version of the "great replacement" theory. Women can not only attack men with impunity but also separate from men, because women have married the state. In other words, the welfare state (a.k.a. the "nanny state") makes it possible for women to protect themselves, and provide resources for, both themselves and their children--if not on their own then with help from government agencies. This arrangement leaves women "autonomous" in family life, but not necessarily happy. It leaves men irrelevant in family life, moreover, and not necessarily happy. That's because they can no longer establish a healthy identity specifically as men--no longer make any contribution to either family or society that is (a) distinctive, (b) necessary and (c) publicly valued. Not, I would add, unless we recover the historic importance to both family and society of fatherhood.
From the time I was 11 years old, I had dreamscapes of diving into a lake to save a drowning wo-MAN, being shot on the way down, wounded and all, still managing to rescue her, only to hear her giggle and walk away while I lay dying.
ELEVEN YEARS OLD!
Gyno centrism/ 'Gynolatry' is the WORSHIP of wo-MEN and goes beyond protection.
So, while I agree that wanting to protect wo-MEN/children/those who are weaker/ is a Christ like sacrifice, I see this as spiritual, more so than biological.
- your figure of 61% of homeless being men surely includes those who have a roof over their heads, but may technically be considered homeless. It therefore includes those (almost all women, with or without their children) for whom accommodation is provided either by the state - i.e. mainly paid for by men's taxes - or private individuals or organizations. If we consider only 'true' homelessness i.e. street homelessness - the most harmful form, by far - then over 90% of the homeless are men. I have been informed by a number of people who run homeless shelters that a woman's behaviour has to be absolutely intolerable to be denied admission, unlike for men. We examined the issue in our final manifesto, pp.62-7:
- To my mind the most important book ever written by an MRA on the empathy gap is William Collins's "The Empathy Gap: Male Disadvantages and the Mechanisms of Their Neglect" (2021). A link to the book on amazon.com (the ebook is a steal at USD5.99, the paperback - 700+ pages - costs USD37.00). I happen to know that Collins makes almost nothing on the paperback, due to printing costs:
Thank you, Mike. I was uneasy with the statistic about homelessness. Your explanation makes sense, and certainly corresponds to what one can see with one's own eyes in any city in the Anglosphere.
I have been reading and re-reading your excellent manifesto.
I agree about William Collins, our friend Rick. He is unparalleled.
Thanks Janice. He is indeed, as are you (is that contradictory haha?!!!) People are looking forward to watching your keynote speech and others (including William Collins's) at the coming (online) International Conference on Men's Issues over 10,11 August. The speaker roster https://icmi2024.icmi.info/?page_id=21.
I've often wondered what the 'official' definition (if there even is one) is and whether it includes people who are just crashing with friends or family temporarily.
Are those in homeless shelters also considered homeless?
Thanks D. Yes to both of those. The best-known charity for the homeless in the UK is Shelter, whose CEO is Polly Neate, formerly CEO of Women's Aid, a charity for only female victims of domestic abuse. As CEO of Shelter I have only heard her talk about women, most of whom have a roof over their heads,
Australian federal govt changed the definition of "homeless" about fifteen years ago. At the stroke of a pen we went from more than 90% of the homeless being male to about 60%. Those who never have a roof over their heads are still almost exclusively male.
Yes here in the UK the term "homeless" means without a permanent home and as Mike Buchanan points out most will be in temporary housing, short term rents, hotels or other forms of "temporary" housing. Rough sleepers, ie sleeping in doorways and so on, are over 90% male. This is the result of public policy here because access to temporary housing is through "priority" and a measure of "vulnerability". As you may guess being male renders one invulnerable by definition and with no reason to be so assisted. Here in "Greater Manchester" during the "pandemic" the Mayor funded a scheme and all Rough Sleepers found a bed. The concern and funding ended and one finds plenty of rough sleepers in our conurbation again.
I recall the fan fair when Shelter announced redefining homelessness to include people in temporary accommodation etc. and suddenly women were the greater number of homeless they were reporting. (I contacted shelter saying I'd seen one of their ads and asked if they still helped men... they gave me one case study of helping a man that appears in ads but wouldn't share stats overall when I asked)
This changing definitions is an important tactic in feminism. Whenever I saw published figures for modern day slavery I always saw men at 60% and women at 40% even though far more effort and coverage was given to women. But now they've redefined slavery to include child marriage so now women make up 70% of modern day slavery.
So I lived in Singapore many years. They use Bangladeshi workers a great deal for Infrastructure projects. Singapore withdrew ratification of the Forced Labour Protocol in the 1970s I believe. The government do not release numbers but many of these workers fall under the definition of forced labour (having to give up their passport etc) an NGO I worked with briefly in Singapore estimates 2 of these workers die each week.
But they are left out of estimates of the global slave trade. The total number of these workers in Singapore isn't that big - around 300,000 - but when you also consider the numbers in the Middle East and Africa the numbers get much bigger. It's generally accepted that the number of people in modern day slavery estimated by parties like the UN is much smaller than the true value. And I would argue that the majority of the missing people are men.
The impact of feminists controlling how we define oppression
Thanks Mike. I meant to add that this is used to justify ignoring mens issues and not helping them. But when they can't they'll find another way to focus on women. The number of women might be small but it's fastest growing for example. I heard this with respect to female prisoners. Or women have different needs to men that deserve advocacy and shouldn't be ignored. They always find a way to dismiss demean or morally disengage from mens issues and center women.
Indeed they do! And most of these damnable women's funding comes from men, whether from men's taxes or otherwise. I highly recommend William Collins's three books including "The Empathy Gap; Male Disadvantages and the Mechanisms of Their Neglect". It's 700+ pages long so the paperback isn't cheap, but the ebook is an absolute steal at under USD5.00.
This has turned many men formerly very sympathetic to women's issues (I am one such) not only indifferent, but actively hostile.
With the exception of actual friends, and women I can tell, over time, have not been affected by this brain rot, I am now actively distrustful of women as a sex. The sex earned it. Women have to jump over a much higher bar for me than men do before I will even consider trusting them.
Given the extraordinary feminist, now mainstream, insistence that hating men is perfectly "honorable" (Robin Morgan)--see Julie Bindel, "Why I Hate Men" and Susanna Walters, "Why Can't We Hate Men?" and so many more--yours is a prudent response.
We as women should have to prove ourselves abundantly worthy of trust.
Even if she is not an actively rabid, toxic feminist, most of them are very happy to standby and say nothing and reap the benefits that being a ‘special’ classification gives them! Some hide their hatred of men very well, using it when it’s most advantageous (I. E. Divorce) I don’t trust a single one of them…
There is a new breed of feminism/traditionalism garnering a lot of attention and praise for criticizing feminism--but only in order to create a feminism/gynocentrism that is better for women and has men even more completely in service to them.
Yes both create bizarre fantasies which have in common unreality and a belief in males as the workhorses of society. Down my street, as the older generation die or "downsize" young families move in. In my generation generally the pattern was one and a half earners in the couple while the kids were young, now most couples both work "full time" and mix and match shifts. The main driver being the simple fact my house is "worth" 5 times its purchase price and wages about twice the amount at the time I "bought" our house. Just as we did ,the modern couples try to work together for their children dealing with the practicalities of today. It may have been different in North America but the same % of women were working in 1900 as 2000 (look at the work by Dr Catherine Hakim) single earner households were always a minority here. As I grew up in the 60s and 70s the only friends' mums who didn't work once we'd settled into "Junior School" were the sons of a Doctor and a "Chief Engineer". The need to cooperate still remains even if the economy has changed.
Brilliant summary! If Riley Gaines wasn't so but hurt over losing to a boy, and she acknowledged the humiliation BOYS suffered for decades at the hands of TOM BOYS like herself, invading MALE spaces, I might forgive her for being the insufferable fe-MALE chauvinist/Jezebel/gender antagonist/ she is.
My apologies Janice for being sidetracked, but on a good note: President Trump is going to be alright. Moreover, he is now a genuine martyr and will probably win.
Thanks for this Prof Fiamengo. Yes, the obfuscation of sex in reporting of victimhood is especially evident in reports of workplace deaths and serious injuries. While the gender workplace death gap is over 1500% (work it out yourself or a ratio of about 95 male victims for every 5 female), the victims are almost always referred to only as 'workers' or by other terms that fail to specify the male sex of most victims or the disproportionate sacrifice men make in serving our civilization. Yet the alleged gender pay gap of about 10% is considered so egregious that it's used as the main justification for continuing special women's government departments etc in the absence of any attention to men's issues.
"A man's work is from sun to sun but a woman's work is never done. Maybe that's why they get paid less." I wish I could remember who said that, but I just can't.
Which female politician was it who said that women suffer more from war because they have to carry on without their fathers, husbands, brothers, male friends (who merely die)?
That's as old as the hills. When my father was flying combat missions over Vietnam in the late 60s, my mother expressed that exact same sentiment to me and my siblings. I assume she heard it somewhere else and just repeated it.
Even though I was only 13 or 14, I took her to ask for it.
In a way its a sort of admission of just how important men are. There has been an interesting version on this in the Ukrainian Parliament, as it spent months debating extending military service. Of course no one seriously proposed women be included (though there are female volunteers). The balance that was at the centre of the eventual compromise in terms of the age limits, was the need to ensure that there were going to be enough men, specially young vigorous men, to rebuild the nation once the war ended. Hence its from age 25. Of course younger men do volunteer but it is interesting that the eventual law is part of trying to preserve the youth to be available to rebuild the nation. Of course this also does rather illustrate Warren Farrell's description of "human doings", that males are valued for what they can do/contribute .
I think gynocentrism, to some extent, is an evolved trait. Janice is right, though, that, even though evolutionarily appropriate, feminism has perverted it to the detriment of all.
Evolutionary gyno-centrism is >BULLSHIT. It is the worship of wo-MEN and its called >gynolatry< an actual word that literally means the worship of wo-MEN.
This is a brilliant piece Janice. Thank you. This is one of those issues that society ignores, perhaps because it has become convenient to do so. The recent trials in Australia attempting to charge soldiers with war crimes amazed me, when the people who sent them to unjust wars continued on living in entitlement and self aggrandizement. Wealthy societies that experience few, if any, challenges to physical survival, where there is no fear, lose connection as to why men are needed. But when natural disasters arrive: bushfires, floods, earthquakes....the men show up and do their thing, with courage, endurance and a profound level of care. Then we forget again. Right now, we are teaching men how to step into the "A" Game, to reclaim their true masculinity, to show up for their kids, and to never be deterred by the rantings of virtue signaling feminist idiots.
" Wealthy societies that experience few, if any, challenges to physical survival, where there is no fear, lose connection as to why men are needed. But when natural disasters arrive: bushfires, floods, earthquakes....the men show up and do their thing, with courage, endurance and a profound level of care. Then we forget again." And of course who actually builds the buildings, power , water services, transportation, ........ on and on. In an actually "man made" world, its as though everything came into being by magic spells and men simply took the credit! And that it will simply carry on if all men simply down tools and knitted.
Amen to that Nigel. Although it is good to see more and more women getting involved in construction. And they can because of the tools we now have at our disposal, tools mostly created by very creative men.
It was a horrible woman, Sherele Moody, and her remarks were based on pathetically biased and shoddy research by Monash University academic Debra Parkinson.
Thanks, Janice. I did not know that you had published a version of this valuable essay in the ET. They ought give you a regular spot for essays. ET has some fine contributors who stand up for men and dads and boys, and I am always grateful for those essays. You would be a distinguished addition to their roster. It's always striking to see the emphasis on victimization right next to the glorifying of, as they like to call it, girl power. Powerful men harm women; somehow powerful women can't harm men.
Thanks Allen, agreed. I'd also like to see Janice write regularly for the Spectator - I think the Oz edition has published a few of her pieces - Quillette, Unherd, and others. They all have a substantial roster of feminist writers and not one anti-feminist one, male or female, between them.
Janice is a FAR better writer than I am. In 2015 I was commissioned by the International Business Times to bring some balance (they already had two female feminist writers including the execrable Laura Bates) and write an article every two weeks. They were very happy with my first two articles - on gender balance in corporate boardrooms, and male suicide. They then wrote to me and fired me, replacing me with Ally Fogg, a male feminist (aka a 'mangina') journalist with the Guardian. The sorry (but to me, hilarious) tale is related here, along with the email content when they fired me:
One final thing. I first encountered the term 'mangina' in a hilarious book by an American, Dick Masterson - a pseudonym, surely? - titled "Men Are Better Than Women". A real gem, funny in large part because so much of what he writes is self-evidently true.
Quite a story about getting fired because they decided what you had written before "courted controversy." Did they read your work before they asked you to join them? The fear of difference of opinion, which one sees all the time in feminist discourse, is to me a sign of intellectual weakness. These play offense very well; but their defense stinks. Any disagreement causes them pain and paralysis. Scream, shout, carry signs, sure; sit down and talk to somebody on the other side? Out of the question.
This was surely about some butt-hurt females or feminists who complained. So Mike was cancelled. Yet another proof of patriarchy and powerless women, I guess...wait..
I ‘m a fan Mike…I’ve read your stuff on Janice’s substack and I can appreciate your perspective. I was just going to leave a like but for some reason the page isn’t letting me!
I read Bettina's brilliant (as always) essay. Yes, it is extraordinary that coercive control is being defined as a "gendered" (i.e. male) type of abuse when in reality it is at least equally practiced by women and men. I have never met a woman who was afraid of her male partner (which is not to say there aren't any); I have known many men who were afraid of their wives, not least because they knew that if the wives decided to divorce them, they would lose all they had worked for and would lose access to their children. Such women are highly controlling and abusive because that is in women's nature and because they know they have the law on their side.
'Coercive control', in plain English, is just negotiation and standing up for one's own interests. The fact that they can send someone to prison for that is sickeningly despotic.
Victoria's Family Violence Benchbook is THE manual applied by enforcement and judicial services in the state. It's a remarkable read. Originally created in 2004 I summarised some of it a decade ago on the AVFM blog but thought the manual wasn't in use any more. Wrongly as it turns out.
The section titled "Responding to men who claim to be victims of family violence" is a real highlight for me. As an example..."Women, if they feel safe enough, may undertake small acts of retaliation, which can be construed as ‘evidence’ of a pattern of violence on their part."
All the systems and institutions in our communities are being weaponised in line with the aggressive strategies preferred by women. It will not end well.
Interesting, the section "Responding to men who claim to be victims of family violence" says "Is there evidence of the man using controlling attitudes, beliefs and behaviours, or having rigid attitudes towards gender roles?", appears to target any man seeking to assert traditional roles to save their marriage.
No worries. There are enough female child molesters in day-cares/kindergardens who can operate under the protection of non-suspicion. And once they want to siphon money via child support from their targets when they become adults, some cases will surface.
A boomer on twitter was complaining the other day about her immigrant neighbour renters - dozens of people living in one house, driving cars without plates, etc. She complained to the police, who send "one of their own" to have a chat with them. Then she got a phone call from the police telling her that no charges would be laid, fines imposed, etc. Then she got back on twitter to complain about the special treatment this segment of immigrants got from the authorities. I told her that if she was OK with government discrimination when it went in her favour for decades, don't expect me to be sympathetic now that she is no longer flavour of the month.
Janice, Thanks for another great article. Men and boys are suffering and no one cares. It makes me angry that "feminists" get the unchallenged right to speak for all women. Women like me and my friends, who want the reliable love and protection from our husbands, we simply don't count as real women. We want our sons to grow up to be educated and employed. Women like us have known from the beginning that we too, were targets of "feminism."
One more thing, while I'm on my soapbox: there are many real harms that non-feminist women have endured either directly or indirectly because of "feminism." The "feminists" didn't care about forced abortion in China, which went on for decades. They don't care about the fertility gap, the fact that at the end of their child-bearing years, women on average end up with fewer children than they said they wanted at the beginning of their child-bearing years. This finding has been replicated for years, and around the world. And feminists don't care.
Thank you, Jennifer. All too true. The end goal of feminism is a cruel society run by embittered women who, by and large, don't like men and don't like women who like men.
Thanks Jennifer. And of course we can squarely lay the blame for elective abortions at the door of feminists. 73+ million unborn children killed in elective abortions every year (WHO estimate). Genocide on a scale unparalleled in human history, with no end in sight. What did people expect would happen if women were given the power to kill their unborn children? To my mind no society that permits (and funds) elective abortion can be considered a civilized society.
Feminists are only interested in control over everyone .. the more I delve into Feminism through such Blogs - after reading the above article - I'm more convinced than ever that Feminism is all about grabbing power over everyone - men and women - that falls in line to some invisible border that is determined based on which minority is the flavour of the month and even where the moon might be in its cycle!!! In some cases there is a minority within a so called minority...mmmm...and they take precedence over the other minority.. its insane...
Otherwise, wouldn't they be all over such sites as OnlyFans - where women are objectifying themselves as sexual objects - wouldn't they be shutting down such patriarchal sites that are meant, obviously, to repress females and reduce them to nothing but sex machines (I'm trying to be ironical here or is that sarcasm...) !!!
Yet another good article from Janice Fiamengo. On the subject of the criminal justice system treating female criminals more leniently than male for the same crime, I don't know if it is true in N America, but here in Britain people quite often repeat the saying 'The law is an ass', ass here meaning donkey. It comes from Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield, when the characters Mr & Mrs Bumble are caught committing a crime together. Mr Bumble is advised that he will receive a harsher sentence than Mrs Bumble, because (as was true at the time) the law would presume that the wife was acting under the commands of her husband. Mr Bumble protests 'If the law presumes that then the law is a ass, a idiot! The law is a bachelor, Sir! The law has never been married!'
Very good! I had forgotten that literary context for the phrase. Ernest Belfort Bax is good on the legal responsibilities heaped on men and removed from women in the late Victorian period.
Natural selection was the source of the male-female differentiation. Women gave birth and nurtured the children, while men protected and supported women and children. The species (eventually) prospered. Today, in the West and other developed countries, women have stopped having children. They "don't feel like it," or "have other interests." We have followed the neo-Marxist feminists' directives to avoid children and abandon families. So our countries are dying. "You go, girl!" Feminism is literally death.
"Progressives" like to think that they are leading thinkers, advancing the latest causes. But in reality, they merely rationalize the Pleistocene moral psychology we inherit. Their identity politics is just the most recent twist on tribalism. Cancel culture is just modern-day shunning and ostracizing. Feminism is the formerly adaptive inclination to be overly protective of the child-bearing members of society who are needed to replenish the hunters and guardians who get killed off at faster rates. None of this is adaptive in a technologically advanced, pluralistic, world with rapid communications and transportation. Freedom is not natural, but it is more adaptive to our circumstances today. It isn't a big part of our Pleistocene moral psychology, however, so it is a hard sell (even to conservatives, who cling to other elements in our Pleistocene moral psychology).
Another gem, but one which provokes mild dissent, if it can even be termed as such:
“In earlier times, the very survival of the human race was predicated on the protection of women, and concern for women became a strong cultural norm. But feminism certainly made it much worse, destroying the cultural norm that affirmed and celebrated the male capacity for goodness.”
While feminism—female gender narcissism as a social phenomenon—purports to protect women, it pathologically seeks to harm and destroy the very essence of what it means to be a women in an act of collective self-loathing. In harming and emasculating men and isolating women from their natural protectors, feminism further harms women.
Feminism harms all whom its long, malignant shadow is cast upon.
I don't disagree (and have written on this subject), but I do think it is still more possible for women to avoid the malignant reach of feminism than it is for men to do so. Aside from the trans phenomenon, which is a relatively recent outgrowth of feminist social constructionism that is literally destructive, much of feminism seeks mainly to persuade women to adopt its paranoid, narcissistic, self-flattering, accountability-averse, and grievance-filled mentality. But women still have some choice about that, wouldn't you agree? Men have no choice; they may not be at all interested in feminism, but it is perennially interested in stunting male lives through law and public policy.
I think you are right to point this out. I do think that the deep "empathy gap" is actually often displayed by those who believe themselves to be on men's side. Think how often either insults are thrown about which are basically of the "man up" or "simp" variety by MRAs about other men or they join in the "women damaged most" narratives. The contempt for "unmanly" men runs deep from both sexes and even those trying to champion men find it really hard to extend a warm hand to their "brothers". Frankly in my experience in DV it is very often other women in the lives of abused men who seek help for them. It is very difficult to shift attitudes, but as you say feminism has moved beyond words to laws and government institutions that have real world punishments and direct discriminations applied to real men that are intended to "stunt male lives".
Have to agree with you re: men being especially unable to avoid the adverse influence of feminism. Men are necessarily the primary recipients of feminist vitriol as a function of gender asymmetric mirroring.
Gender narcissism 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
The lives of men & women are so intimately intertwined that no ideology that harms one gender can fail to harm the other.
Exactly, MEN deserve as much protection as wo-MEN. If not psychically legally. If there are no MEN, there isn't survival for anyone
I always say that feminism is like Marxism. It contains just enough truth to be plausible, but not enough truth to be true.
It is similar in another way as well: Both Marxism and Feminism are ideological cover stories for power grabs that people would not accept without the illusion that said power grab is going to achieve some overarching Moral Imperative.
Well said!
Modern Academic Feminism is from Marxism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_Family,_Private_Property_and_the_State Engels book has all the underpinning theoretical concepts now so familiar to us from Feminists. Certainly in its European incarnations, feminism is a child of Engels.
“Gender narcissism develops in reaction to feelings of inferiority about one’s gender and might be defined as excessive love or concern for one’s gender, one’s genitals, or one’s gender identity, and negative feeling about the opposite sex—generally involving fear, disgust, resentment or competitiveness.”
https://www.freepsychotherapybooks.org/ebook/gender-narcissism-and-its-manifestations/
Way to go. So, make fe-MALE narcissism gender neutral. I don't see MEN whipping out their testicles the way wo-MEN whip out their breasts as an answer to everything. Thanks for letting us know you buy into psychobabble. Gyno centrism is the only expression of gender narcissism on the landscape, and it's backed by the Matrix, government/police/media/church/. On the other hand, /RED PILL /MRA / MGTOW/ is a reaction to a SYSTEMATIC attack on BOYS & MEN. Would you categorize (Justice for Boys & MEN) headed by Mike Buchanan or XY CREW (MEN building MEN) headed by Paul Elam as gender narcissism? Would you call these GREAT MEN 'gender narcissists'? It might benefit you to stop beating your chest while listening to Jordan PETER PAN types
The human survival instinct has nothing to do with Gyno-centrism. Gynolatry is literally the worship of wo-MEN and has nothing to do with survival. The survival of the human race was predicated on many things, not just protection for wo-MEN. That is white night SIMP bullshit. wo-MEN perpetrate TWICE as many child murders as MEN. Not counting infanticide which is also mostly perpetrated by wo-MEN. Many modern wo-MEN boast about aborting MALE fetuses. However, throughout HIS-story wo-MEN have murdered the MALE children exclusively, going back to biblical times when the wo-MEN of pagan tribes would KILL the 1rst born MALES as offerings to false Gods. Muslims are a billion in the world. ONE MAN with a harem could probably build bigger, better & more stable families than the blind protection of wo-MEN.
I agree that we (by which I mean anti-feminist and male-positive advocates) over-emphasize the biological necessity of centering women. Much is cultural, certainly. Men are by no means naturally expendable or disposable. But given the extraordinary richness of gynocentric traditions, including chivalry and courtly love, etc., and the deep-seated desire of many men from a young age to protect and provide for women, I think it must be reckoned with as a powerful part of nature, no?
“In earlier times, the very survival of the human race was predicated on the protection of women, and concern for women became a strong cultural norm.”
I hesitate to re-enter this particular discussion, because I’ve already done so both here and elsewhere many times. But it’s complicated enough to warrant weighing in as often as necessary.
First, our remote ancestors lived for at least 100,000 years in small, nomadic, bands. They depended on everyone to do whatever each could do in the interest of group survival. This included every man, every woman and even, to some extent, every child. They depended on women to produce and feed infants, because only women could gestate and lactate. They depended on men, therefore, to protect the band from predators (and, eventually, to hunt big game). Both jobs were essential, and both jobs were very dangerous. Many women died in childbirth, after all, and many men were killed by predators. My point is that no community could have survived without as many women and as many men as it could support with food.
This state of affairs continued until the rise of horticulture and then agriculture (or pastoralism) in the relatively recent past—and it continued for several thousand more years only with more elaborate organization. This change in food production amounted to a cultural revolution, because it entailed settled communities (eventually cities and states). These communities could now store their food and other resources. But they also had either to defend those resources (along with their land and their access to water) from raiding communities or to indulge in their own raiding. By this time, moreover, communities were much larger than in earlier times and more specialized. They required more complex divisions of labor. This context was the origin of gender systems. Even though most men and most women—that is, the serfs—worked in the fields, the labor of women still included birthing and caring for infants, and the labor of men now included military service to chiefs and eventually to kings (instead of hunting, which became the symbolic but vestigial keystone of aristocracy). My point is that these changes did not make men “expendable.” (And no healthy person, then or now, can accept expendability as an identity—a huge topic in itself.) This brings up the topic of trade-offs.
Early states relied on “social contracts” that exploited both men and women, though in different ways, because organized communities would have been impossible otherwise. Both sexes still had dangerous jobs specifically as women or as men, and both were rewarded, at least in theory, specifically as women or as men—not merely, by this time, as individuals who happened to have this or that urgently required skill. For risking their lives in childbirth, early social contracts gave women some assurance that men would provide them and their infants not only with resources but also with protection. For risking their lives in battle, however, these social contracts gave men some assurance of greater prestige and more privileges than their dependents. This was reciprocity, or inter-dependence, in my opinion, not “oppression.” To be dependent is, after all, to be subordinate. In early hierarchical states, most people were subordinate to nobles and rulers (who, in turn, were subordinate to the gods and goddesses). My point is that just as most women had to survive in order to produce children most men had to survive in order to produce food.
To conclude, it’s true that concern for women has long been a strong cultural norm, one with an biological substratum, but that does not necessarily amount to gynocentrism (let alone misandry), because the same has long applied to men as well. Perfect reciprocity, like any other form of perfection, is impossible. The answer to that is not a utopian ideology, which ignores human finitude along with both common sense and common decency. Rather, it’s to continue seeking reciprocity (interdependence, complementarity or whatever you call it) on both moral and pragmatic grounds.
Brilliant, as always, thank you Paul.
I suppose in reality feminism is only possible in societies as in the "developed" world, in which comparatively few struggle for existence and the majority enjoy a life of abundance unprecedented in human history. People rarely consider how and who this abundance is produced. In this country partly because almost all heavy industry, mining etc. was exported to India and China and so on and we rely on massive food imports for the majority of our food ... the how and who is literally invisible (but not to the men (and women) of those nations who produce them). It is in this really rather "aristocratic" society that feminism has attacked boys and men. And of course it appears there is no consequence in this other than an increase in entitlement for women. Though in fact there is a probable link with the decades of stagnant productivity and ballooning private and state Debt here in the UK as we borrow and "print" money to cover our lack of effort.
Yes, Nigel, that's an interesting way of describing our society. In one sense, it is becoming more democratic by expanding the ranks of entitled citizens (and even non-citizens). In another sense, however, it is indeed becoming more aristocratic by excluding men (or at least straight, white, "cis" men) from the ranks of full citizenship. The new aristocrats, like the old, inherit their privileges on the basis of genetic factors such as sex or race.
Another take on all this is that the modern state--not this or that ethnic group-- has replaced men. Yes, this is my version of the "great replacement" theory. Women can not only attack men with impunity but also separate from men, because women have married the state. In other words, the welfare state (a.k.a. the "nanny state") makes it possible for women to protect themselves, and provide resources for, both themselves and their children--if not on their own then with help from government agencies. This arrangement leaves women "autonomous" in family life, but not necessarily happy. It leaves men irrelevant in family life, moreover, and not necessarily happy. That's because they can no longer establish a healthy identity specifically as men--no longer make any contribution to either family or society that is (a) distinctive, (b) necessary and (c) publicly valued. Not, I would add, unless we recover the historic importance to both family and society of fatherhood.
From the time I was 11 years old, I had dreamscapes of diving into a lake to save a drowning wo-MAN, being shot on the way down, wounded and all, still managing to rescue her, only to hear her giggle and walk away while I lay dying.
ELEVEN YEARS OLD!
Gyno centrism/ 'Gynolatry' is the WORSHIP of wo-MEN and goes beyond protection.
So, while I agree that wanting to protect wo-MEN/children/those who are weaker/ is a Christ like sacrifice, I see this as spiritual, more so than biological.
I see Gynolatry as a separate animal.
I see, thank you.
Thanks Janice, I'd like to add a few points:
- your figure of 61% of homeless being men surely includes those who have a roof over their heads, but may technically be considered homeless. It therefore includes those (almost all women, with or without their children) for whom accommodation is provided either by the state - i.e. mainly paid for by men's taxes - or private individuals or organizations. If we consider only 'true' homelessness i.e. street homelessness - the most harmful form, by far - then over 90% of the homeless are men. I have been informed by a number of people who run homeless shelters that a woman's behaviour has to be absolutely intolerable to be denied admission, unlike for men. We examined the issue in our final manifesto, pp.62-7:
https://j4mb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/c8af6-221128-j4mb-manifesto-3.pdf
- To my mind the most important book ever written by an MRA on the empathy gap is William Collins's "The Empathy Gap: Male Disadvantages and the Mechanisms of Their Neglect" (2021). A link to the book on amazon.com (the ebook is a steal at USD5.99, the paperback - 700+ pages - costs USD37.00). I happen to know that Collins makes almost nothing on the paperback, due to printing costs:
https://tinyurl.com/4hjcfjuc
- In a blog piece published on his website today http://empathygap.uk/?p=4580 Collins linked to a piece on the (German) Gender Empathy Gap webite, titled, "What Happened in Srebrenica?" https://genderempathygap.de/english/
Mike Buchanan
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS http://j4mb.org.uk
CAMPAIGN FOR MERIT IN BUSINESS http://c4mb.uk
LAUGHING AT FEMINISTS http://laughingatfeminists.com
LPS PUBLISHING (publishing books on gender issues, including feminism) http://lpspublishing.uk
Thank you, Mike. I was uneasy with the statistic about homelessness. Your explanation makes sense, and certainly corresponds to what one can see with one's own eyes in any city in the Anglosphere.
I have been reading and re-reading your excellent manifesto.
I agree about William Collins, our friend Rick. He is unparalleled.
Thanks Janice. He is indeed, as are you (is that contradictory haha?!!!) People are looking forward to watching your keynote speech and others (including William Collins's) at the coming (online) International Conference on Men's Issues over 10,11 August. The speaker roster https://icmi2024.icmi.info/?page_id=21.
I've often wondered what the 'official' definition (if there even is one) is and whether it includes people who are just crashing with friends or family temporarily.
Are those in homeless shelters also considered homeless?
Thanks D. Yes to both of those. The best-known charity for the homeless in the UK is Shelter, whose CEO is Polly Neate, formerly CEO of Women's Aid, a charity for only female victims of domestic abuse. As CEO of Shelter I have only heard her talk about women, most of whom have a roof over their heads,
Australian federal govt changed the definition of "homeless" about fifteen years ago. At the stroke of a pen we went from more than 90% of the homeless being male to about 60%. Those who never have a roof over their heads are still almost exclusively male.
Yes here in the UK the term "homeless" means without a permanent home and as Mike Buchanan points out most will be in temporary housing, short term rents, hotels or other forms of "temporary" housing. Rough sleepers, ie sleeping in doorways and so on, are over 90% male. This is the result of public policy here because access to temporary housing is through "priority" and a measure of "vulnerability". As you may guess being male renders one invulnerable by definition and with no reason to be so assisted. Here in "Greater Manchester" during the "pandemic" the Mayor funded a scheme and all Rough Sleepers found a bed. The concern and funding ended and one finds plenty of rough sleepers in our conurbation again.
I suspected as much. It makes as much sense to call prisoners homeless.
I recall the fan fair when Shelter announced redefining homelessness to include people in temporary accommodation etc. and suddenly women were the greater number of homeless they were reporting. (I contacted shelter saying I'd seen one of their ads and asked if they still helped men... they gave me one case study of helping a man that appears in ads but wouldn't share stats overall when I asked)
This changing definitions is an important tactic in feminism. Whenever I saw published figures for modern day slavery I always saw men at 60% and women at 40% even though far more effort and coverage was given to women. But now they've redefined slavery to include child marriage so now women make up 70% of modern day slavery.
So I lived in Singapore many years. They use Bangladeshi workers a great deal for Infrastructure projects. Singapore withdrew ratification of the Forced Labour Protocol in the 1970s I believe. The government do not release numbers but many of these workers fall under the definition of forced labour (having to give up their passport etc) an NGO I worked with briefly in Singapore estimates 2 of these workers die each week.
But they are left out of estimates of the global slave trade. The total number of these workers in Singapore isn't that big - around 300,000 - but when you also consider the numbers in the Middle East and Africa the numbers get much bigger. It's generally accepted that the number of people in modern day slavery estimated by parties like the UN is much smaller than the true value. And I would argue that the majority of the missing people are men.
The impact of feminists controlling how we define oppression
Thanks Meyrick, interesting. Alex Crosbie captured the key point with his ICMI20 video, "World to End: Women Most Affected":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo6_ScVG6BA
Thanks Mike. I meant to add that this is used to justify ignoring mens issues and not helping them. But when they can't they'll find another way to focus on women. The number of women might be small but it's fastest growing for example. I heard this with respect to female prisoners. Or women have different needs to men that deserve advocacy and shouldn't be ignored. They always find a way to dismiss demean or morally disengage from mens issues and center women.
Indeed they do! And most of these damnable women's funding comes from men, whether from men's taxes or otherwise. I highly recommend William Collins's three books including "The Empathy Gap; Male Disadvantages and the Mechanisms of Their Neglect". It's 700+ pages long so the paperback isn't cheap, but the ebook is an absolute steal at under USD5.00.
This has turned many men formerly very sympathetic to women's issues (I am one such) not only indifferent, but actively hostile.
With the exception of actual friends, and women I can tell, over time, have not been affected by this brain rot, I am now actively distrustful of women as a sex. The sex earned it. Women have to jump over a much higher bar for me than men do before I will even consider trusting them.
Given the extraordinary feminist, now mainstream, insistence that hating men is perfectly "honorable" (Robin Morgan)--see Julie Bindel, "Why I Hate Men" and Susanna Walters, "Why Can't We Hate Men?" and so many more--yours is a prudent response.
We as women should have to prove ourselves abundantly worthy of trust.
That’s an important point.
Even if she is not an actively rabid, toxic feminist, most of them are very happy to standby and say nothing and reap the benefits that being a ‘special’ classification gives them! Some hide their hatred of men very well, using it when it’s most advantageous (I. E. Divorce) I don’t trust a single one of them…
Exactly. There is NO difference between fEMINISTS and right wing 'Christian' wo-MEN.
They are the >SAME. Both espouse gyno-centrism & misandry
There is a new breed of feminism/traditionalism garnering a lot of attention and praise for criticizing feminism--but only in order to create a feminism/gynocentrism that is better for women and has men even more completely in service to them.
Yes both create bizarre fantasies which have in common unreality and a belief in males as the workhorses of society. Down my street, as the older generation die or "downsize" young families move in. In my generation generally the pattern was one and a half earners in the couple while the kids were young, now most couples both work "full time" and mix and match shifts. The main driver being the simple fact my house is "worth" 5 times its purchase price and wages about twice the amount at the time I "bought" our house. Just as we did ,the modern couples try to work together for their children dealing with the practicalities of today. It may have been different in North America but the same % of women were working in 1900 as 2000 (look at the work by Dr Catherine Hakim) single earner households were always a minority here. As I grew up in the 60s and 70s the only friends' mums who didn't work once we'd settled into "Junior School" were the sons of a Doctor and a "Chief Engineer". The need to cooperate still remains even if the economy has changed.
Brilliant summary! If Riley Gaines wasn't so but hurt over losing to a boy, and she acknowledged the humiliation BOYS suffered for decades at the hands of TOM BOYS like herself, invading MALE spaces, I might forgive her for being the insufferable fe-MALE chauvinist/Jezebel/gender antagonist/ she is.
'Hell... hath... no... fury... like... a... wo_MAN... scorned'
My apologies Janice for being sidetracked, but on a good note: President Trump is going to be alright. Moreover, he is now a genuine martyr and will probably win.
I wonder if Biden or other politicians are now running scared...!!!
Angry purple haired group think 🤔 meh. I can't even hear them in my CL500 👌
Ditto.
Thanks for this Prof Fiamengo. Yes, the obfuscation of sex in reporting of victimhood is especially evident in reports of workplace deaths and serious injuries. While the gender workplace death gap is over 1500% (work it out yourself or a ratio of about 95 male victims for every 5 female), the victims are almost always referred to only as 'workers' or by other terms that fail to specify the male sex of most victims or the disproportionate sacrifice men make in serving our civilization. Yet the alleged gender pay gap of about 10% is considered so egregious that it's used as the main justification for continuing special women's government departments etc in the absence of any attention to men's issues.
This is so well said, thank you.
"A man's work is from sun to sun but a woman's work is never done. Maybe that's why they get paid less." I wish I could remember who said that, but I just can't.
Which female politician was it who said that women suffer more from war because they have to carry on without their fathers, husbands, brothers, male friends (who merely die)?
Hillary Clinton.
That's as old as the hills. When my father was flying combat missions over Vietnam in the late 60s, my mother expressed that exact same sentiment to me and my siblings. I assume she heard it somewhere else and just repeated it.
Even though I was only 13 or 14, I took her to ask for it.
Also, Sandra Day O'Connor said she wouldn't like to see women come back from war in body bags, when asked if she supported conscription for women too.
They not only die, they kill. And they live with that.
https://youtu.be/3zKCIf-vfbc?si=g6ehRAEBzTdP_cgf
In a way its a sort of admission of just how important men are. There has been an interesting version on this in the Ukrainian Parliament, as it spent months debating extending military service. Of course no one seriously proposed women be included (though there are female volunteers). The balance that was at the centre of the eventual compromise in terms of the age limits, was the need to ensure that there were going to be enough men, specially young vigorous men, to rebuild the nation once the war ended. Hence its from age 25. Of course younger men do volunteer but it is interesting that the eventual law is part of trying to preserve the youth to be available to rebuild the nation. Of course this also does rather illustrate Warren Farrell's description of "human doings", that males are valued for what they can do/contribute .
Thank you Janice. So true. And the bias is invisible and deeply embedded in our culture where good honest people are unable to see it but act on it.
I think gynocentrism, to some extent, is an evolved trait. Janice is right, though, that, even though evolutionarily appropriate, feminism has perverted it to the detriment of all.
Evolutionary gyno-centrism is >BULLSHIT. It is the worship of wo-MEN and its called >gynolatry< an actual word that literally means the worship of wo-MEN.
Perhaps a relaxing cup of tea in a garden might encourage a broader conversation style?
I'm not in the UK although I do admire their accent. I prefer truth over class.
This is a brilliant piece Janice. Thank you. This is one of those issues that society ignores, perhaps because it has become convenient to do so. The recent trials in Australia attempting to charge soldiers with war crimes amazed me, when the people who sent them to unjust wars continued on living in entitlement and self aggrandizement. Wealthy societies that experience few, if any, challenges to physical survival, where there is no fear, lose connection as to why men are needed. But when natural disasters arrive: bushfires, floods, earthquakes....the men show up and do their thing, with courage, endurance and a profound level of care. Then we forget again. Right now, we are teaching men how to step into the "A" Game, to reclaim their true masculinity, to show up for their kids, and to never be deterred by the rantings of virtue signaling feminist idiots.
" Wealthy societies that experience few, if any, challenges to physical survival, where there is no fear, lose connection as to why men are needed. But when natural disasters arrive: bushfires, floods, earthquakes....the men show up and do their thing, with courage, endurance and a profound level of care. Then we forget again." And of course who actually builds the buildings, power , water services, transportation, ........ on and on. In an actually "man made" world, its as though everything came into being by magic spells and men simply took the credit! And that it will simply carry on if all men simply down tools and knitted.
Amen to that Nigel. Although it is good to see more and more women getting involved in construction. And they can because of the tools we now have at our disposal, tools mostly created by very creative men.
Yup. But who was the Australian feminist who complained men who went to fight bush fires would go home and beat their wives?
It was a horrible woman, Sherele Moody, and her remarks were based on pathetically biased and shoddy research by Monash University academic Debra Parkinson.
I wouldn't mind finding out what instructions were given to Australian soldiers regarding the bacha bazi trade...
https://www.smh.com.au/world/we-can-hear-them-screaming-soldiers-told-to-ignore-paedophilia-by-afghan-allies-20150921-gjr283.html
Thanks, Janice. I did not know that you had published a version of this valuable essay in the ET. They ought give you a regular spot for essays. ET has some fine contributors who stand up for men and dads and boys, and I am always grateful for those essays. You would be a distinguished addition to their roster. It's always striking to see the emphasis on victimization right next to the glorifying of, as they like to call it, girl power. Powerful men harm women; somehow powerful women can't harm men.
Thanks Allen, agreed. I'd also like to see Janice write regularly for the Spectator - I think the Oz edition has published a few of her pieces - Quillette, Unherd, and others. They all have a substantial roster of feminist writers and not one anti-feminist one, male or female, between them.
Janice is a FAR better writer than I am. In 2015 I was commissioned by the International Business Times to bring some balance (they already had two female feminist writers including the execrable Laura Bates) and write an article every two weeks. They were very happy with my first two articles - on gender balance in corporate boardrooms, and male suicide. They then wrote to me and fired me, replacing me with Ally Fogg, a male feminist (aka a 'mangina') journalist with the Guardian. The sorry (but to me, hilarious) tale is related here, along with the email content when they fired me:
https://j4mb.org.uk/2024/02/13/international-business-times-our-articles-3/
One final thing. I first encountered the term 'mangina' in a hilarious book by an American, Dick Masterson - a pseudonym, surely? - titled "Men Are Better Than Women". A real gem, funny in large part because so much of what he writes is self-evidently true.
I don't think I knew that about your short gig at the International Business Times. More fools they!
Thanks Janice, I imagine their share price took a nose-dive as a result of my departure.
Quite a story about getting fired because they decided what you had written before "courted controversy." Did they read your work before they asked you to join them? The fear of difference of opinion, which one sees all the time in feminist discourse, is to me a sign of intellectual weakness. These play offense very well; but their defense stinks. Any disagreement causes them pain and paralysis. Scream, shout, carry signs, sure; sit down and talk to somebody on the other side? Out of the question.
Yes.
This was surely about some butt-hurt females or feminists who complained. So Mike was cancelled. Yet another proof of patriarchy and powerless women, I guess...wait..
Indeed!
"The Myth of the Monstrous Male, and other feminist fables" by John Gordon is an under-appreciated classic.
first time I have heard of this book.
I ‘m a fan Mike…I’ve read your stuff on Janice’s substack and I can appreciate your perspective. I was just going to leave a like but for some reason the page isn’t letting me!
I haven't been able to like comments on Substack for weeks. If you figure out how to fix it, let me know.
Thanks Chuck!
I also suggested Onlineopinon to her.
Australian Men are being targeted by new laws, as they are not listed as victims, only perpetrators.
Yet ironically, coercive control seems to be a hallmark of an emotionally abusive, controlling and emasculating wife.
"Coercive control is now a criminal offence in NSW, punishable by seven years in prison."
Full article below by prominent mens right advocate Bettina Arndt:
https://bettinaarndt.substack.com/p/women-are-great-at-coercive-control
I'd love to see Janice do a video, responding to this madness.
The new law is outrageous, I agree.
I read Bettina's brilliant (as always) essay. Yes, it is extraordinary that coercive control is being defined as a "gendered" (i.e. male) type of abuse when in reality it is at least equally practiced by women and men. I have never met a woman who was afraid of her male partner (which is not to say there aren't any); I have known many men who were afraid of their wives, not least because they knew that if the wives decided to divorce them, they would lose all they had worked for and would lose access to their children. Such women are highly controlling and abusive because that is in women's nature and because they know they have the law on their side.
Such a law is in action in the UK https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-abuse-bill-2020-factsheets/amendment-to-the-controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-offence
Originally introduced in 2015. There have been a few hundred such cases each year since and of course only a handful of male victims
'Coercive control', in plain English, is just negotiation and standing up for one's own interests. The fact that they can send someone to prison for that is sickeningly despotic.
Victoria's Family Violence Benchbook is THE manual applied by enforcement and judicial services in the state. It's a remarkable read. Originally created in 2004 I summarised some of it a decade ago on the AVFM blog but thought the manual wasn't in use any more. Wrongly as it turns out.
https://resources.judicialcollege.vic.edu.au/article/1053062
The section titled "Responding to men who claim to be victims of family violence" is a real highlight for me. As an example..."Women, if they feel safe enough, may undertake small acts of retaliation, which can be construed as ‘evidence’ of a pattern of violence on their part."
All the systems and institutions in our communities are being weaponised in line with the aggressive strategies preferred by women. It will not end well.
Interesting, the section "Responding to men who claim to be victims of family violence" says "Is there evidence of the man using controlling attitudes, beliefs and behaviours, or having rigid attitudes towards gender roles?", appears to target any man seeking to assert traditional roles to save their marriage.
We can't send women to jail - who's then going to stay home and emotionally abuse the little boys?
No worries. There are enough female child molesters in day-cares/kindergardens who can operate under the protection of non-suspicion. And once they want to siphon money via child support from their targets when they become adults, some cases will surface.
Sorry ... I didn't think it through. There are also grandmothers to call on - the real reason they didn't want us to 'kill granny'!
'grandmothers'
Omg! Now I know what people meant with 'your grammar is bad'.
I wonder how many victims she had.
I very good article with really alarming statistics. I agree with you, it’s horrible how we treat our men as a society.
A boomer on twitter was complaining the other day about her immigrant neighbour renters - dozens of people living in one house, driving cars without plates, etc. She complained to the police, who send "one of their own" to have a chat with them. Then she got a phone call from the police telling her that no charges would be laid, fines imposed, etc. Then she got back on twitter to complain about the special treatment this segment of immigrants got from the authorities. I told her that if she was OK with government discrimination when it went in her favour for decades, don't expect me to be sympathetic now that she is no longer flavour of the month.
Good for you.
Janice, Thanks for another great article. Men and boys are suffering and no one cares. It makes me angry that "feminists" get the unchallenged right to speak for all women. Women like me and my friends, who want the reliable love and protection from our husbands, we simply don't count as real women. We want our sons to grow up to be educated and employed. Women like us have known from the beginning that we too, were targets of "feminism."
One more thing, while I'm on my soapbox: there are many real harms that non-feminist women have endured either directly or indirectly because of "feminism." The "feminists" didn't care about forced abortion in China, which went on for decades. They don't care about the fertility gap, the fact that at the end of their child-bearing years, women on average end up with fewer children than they said they wanted at the beginning of their child-bearing years. This finding has been replicated for years, and around the world. And feminists don't care.
Thank you, Jennifer. All too true. The end goal of feminism is a cruel society run by embittered women who, by and large, don't like men and don't like women who like men.
Thanks Jennifer. And of course we can squarely lay the blame for elective abortions at the door of feminists. 73+ million unborn children killed in elective abortions every year (WHO estimate). Genocide on a scale unparalleled in human history, with no end in sight. What did people expect would happen if women were given the power to kill their unborn children? To my mind no society that permits (and funds) elective abortion can be considered a civilized society.
Nobody has a lower opinion of women than feminists.
I found the following via Justice for Men & Boys : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13496395/victoria-thomas-bowen-onlyfans-milkshake-nigel-farage.html
Feminists are only interested in control over everyone .. the more I delve into Feminism through such Blogs - after reading the above article - I'm more convinced than ever that Feminism is all about grabbing power over everyone - men and women - that falls in line to some invisible border that is determined based on which minority is the flavour of the month and even where the moon might be in its cycle!!! In some cases there is a minority within a so called minority...mmmm...and they take precedence over the other minority.. its insane...
Otherwise, wouldn't they be all over such sites as OnlyFans - where women are objectifying themselves as sexual objects - wouldn't they be shutting down such patriarchal sites that are meant, obviously, to repress females and reduce them to nothing but sex machines (I'm trying to be ironical here or is that sarcasm...) !!!
Yet another good article from Janice Fiamengo. On the subject of the criminal justice system treating female criminals more leniently than male for the same crime, I don't know if it is true in N America, but here in Britain people quite often repeat the saying 'The law is an ass', ass here meaning donkey. It comes from Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield, when the characters Mr & Mrs Bumble are caught committing a crime together. Mr Bumble is advised that he will receive a harsher sentence than Mrs Bumble, because (as was true at the time) the law would presume that the wife was acting under the commands of her husband. Mr Bumble protests 'If the law presumes that then the law is a ass, a idiot! The law is a bachelor, Sir! The law has never been married!'
Very good! I had forgotten that literary context for the phrase. Ernest Belfort Bax is good on the legal responsibilities heaped on men and removed from women in the late Victorian period.
Natural selection was the source of the male-female differentiation. Women gave birth and nurtured the children, while men protected and supported women and children. The species (eventually) prospered. Today, in the West and other developed countries, women have stopped having children. They "don't feel like it," or "have other interests." We have followed the neo-Marxist feminists' directives to avoid children and abandon families. So our countries are dying. "You go, girl!" Feminism is literally death.
"Progressives" like to think that they are leading thinkers, advancing the latest causes. But in reality, they merely rationalize the Pleistocene moral psychology we inherit. Their identity politics is just the most recent twist on tribalism. Cancel culture is just modern-day shunning and ostracizing. Feminism is the formerly adaptive inclination to be overly protective of the child-bearing members of society who are needed to replenish the hunters and guardians who get killed off at faster rates. None of this is adaptive in a technologically advanced, pluralistic, world with rapid communications and transportation. Freedom is not natural, but it is more adaptive to our circumstances today. It isn't a big part of our Pleistocene moral psychology, however, so it is a hard sell (even to conservatives, who cling to other elements in our Pleistocene moral psychology).