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Men's rights movement

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Men's rights began as a recognisable movement in the 1980s, largely in response to the women's rights or feminist movement. It aims to address issues of concern to men and to remove institutional and societal discrimination against males. Most men's rights activist hold anti-feminist positions. Some, like Darren Blacksmith or Kenneth Pangborn, condemn the entire history of the women's rights movement, while others argue that feminism, a positive force in its early phase, has gone too far. The majority of the demands of the men's rights movement are phrased in terms of equal rights. At present the main engine for change for men's rights derives from men's role as fathers and/or divorcees. The men's rights movement is often equated with the masculist movement, but although there is some overlap, large parts of both movements strongly dispute this equation.

Critics, many of them feminists or pro-feminist men, criticize the movement's ignorance of male privileges, power, and aggression. They also allege that men's rights activists, instead of furthering men-related concerns, spend much of their time fighting women's rights.


The Movement's Structure

Amongst men's rights advocates there are a number of women, including those in significant positions in the movement. For example, Sue Price in the Men's Rights Agency has been at the forefront of activism in Australia. Men's rights advocates are not a uniform group: they include both singularly religious and atheistic individuals, as well as those from the left and right of politics. Most supporters of men's rights are from western nations, where gender equity has for some time been advocated mainly from a woman's perspective.

The men's rights movement has grown and changed in character since the 1980s. Although it is still a rather small movement that lacks a single strong organization, it is gaining in strength, as shown by its recent success in removing Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them T-shirts from several thousand retail outlets.

Critics such as Michael Flood of the Australian organization pro-feminist men's organization XY see the men's rights movement as the most extreme part of the broader men's movement [1]. According to this view, most men's rights activists have joined the movement as the result of negative personal experience during a divorce or custody battle. Many activists do not dispute this claim, but argue that this is due to the fact that many men do not realize legal discrimination after they have experienced it themselves.

Issue Areas

The single biggest issue for the men's rights movement is family law. Activists claim that there is a systematic bias against father's rights in child custody cases as well as against husbands in divorce cases. Opponents of the movement dispute this claim. They point out that such decision are always based on individual consideration and have claim that in several cases of men's rights activists were denied custody because of a history of physical abuse.

In the area of employment, the men's rights movement denounces unequal treatment in the areas of parental leave, retirement age, and pension entitlements. They also accuse sexual harassment policies to be directed against males. Advocates for harassment policies respond that the policies themselves are gender-neutral, they are only directed against men as far as the vast majority of perpetrators are men.

Other issue areas addressed by the men's rights movement includes male military conscription, male circumcision, the depiction of violence against males in the media as humorous, and the coverage of men's vs. women's issues in the media more generally.

Activists frequently cite statistical evidence to support their claims of discrimination against men. The most frequently cited statistics are:

  • Girls are performing better at all educational levels
  • Suicide rates are higher for men of all age groups
  • Funding for prostate cancer research in the US is significantly lower than for breast cancer, which is less frequent

One of the most emotional issues for both men's rights activists and their opponents is physical abuse against men. Activists cite government statistics that show that in 15% of the cases of domestic violence the victim is male, arguing that the real number is likely to be higher, since victims are unlikely to report abuse due to social stigmatisation. They argue that the percentage of shelters for battered men should make up a respective percentage of all shelters. The National Organization of Free Men has unsuccessfully sued several shelters with the goal of forcing them to admit battered men. This has caused outrage among those in charge of the shelters as well as feminists, who argue that men's rights activists, were they truly concerned, could open their own shelters. Moreover, they dispute the statistical evidence, claiming that a large number of the male victims of domestic violence are in homosexual relationships. Since official statistics on domestic violence do not differentiate between the two, neither claim can be supported by evidence. Shelters for gay men exists in most major cities in the U.S., but are rarely acknowledged by men's rights activists.

Major Events

The 2nd National Men’s Equality Congress is scheduled for July 15-16, 2005 in Washington D.C [2]. The organizers have scheduled many prominent men's rights activists as speakers: Former NOW officer and author Dr. Warren Farrell, David Burroughs, Talk show host Glenn Sacks, Professor and President of ACFC Dr. Stephen Baskerville, author Jack Kammer, and President of NFJA Carnell Smith.

See also

Men's rights Pages

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