Men's Rights

The men's rights movement (also known as the Men's Movement) seeks to develop parity for men in the law and in society. Over the past 30 years, men have lost equality in several areas, feminists have managed to rewrite the laws to their preference and in favor of women. The ultimate goal being that male resource provision is transfered systemically and government husbandry infrastructure has also becomes the resource provider. As such the male is ostracized from the pair bond and sanctity of marriage and his place in society becomes nothing more than an isolated resource provider. The result is the increasing isolation and subjugation of men to provide to women that are not their wives and children they are not able to see by government mandate. 75% of men in the U.K. loose contact with their children within two years as laws permit women to cut contact with the father with impunity and with geographic isolation away from the father. In the United States, Hilary Clinton who is overwhelmingly liberal has stated that the dissolution of the two parent traditional marriage has reached a point of "critical mass". Marriage rates in the U.S. are on a 45 degree angle decline. Fathers rights activists point out the overwhelming evidence from government and other sources that a child without a father has many health issues. The United States and U.K have been rated by UNICEF as the poorest of all developed nations for child wellbeing. Overall, the movement focuses on the following areas:

Custody Law Reform: Custody laws and family courts are often stacked against men. It is rare that a man will win custody over a woman, even if it is shown that the father is the better parent. In addition, there are several tactics used by women against men to make sure that they retain custody (such as getting a restraining order under false pretenses, then using them as a means to coerce) that are underhanded, if not illegal - yet if such tactics are discovered, women rarely suffer any penalty. VAWA has been instrumental to this inequity. Lawyers refer to VAWA as "the silver bullet" to begin a divorce and custody battle. Men are taken out of their homes and held inside jail cages and are unable to return home. Police agents have authority to search the home and remove and confiscate family firearms. VAWA goes above and beyond human rights and give special privilege to women. It takes away men's constitutional rights and he is guilty until innocent. Men must confess to any accused crime against him in order to see his children again. This is Orwellian in manner and a gross neglect of human rights. In Great Britain fathers have taken to the streets in large numbers in protest for the right to have a child and to be a father. In the U.S. groups like RADAR have sprung up to amend VAWA. Sisters, Mothers, Grandmothers fill the ranks demanding change to protect men and boys.

Most importantly, though, is the treatment of non-custodial parents, who tend to be disproportionately male. Laws instituted regarding child support have made it difficult (if not impossible) for child support amounts to be modified down, while there are few laws protecting the non-custodial parent's right to see their children. The result has been the viewing of fathers as nothing more than walking ATMs.

The movement seeks to make family courts fairer in their assessments of who should be granted custody, as well as get laws that penalize the aquisition of restraining orders under false pretenses (usually by making restraining orders under penalty of perjury). Most important is getting child support reform, such as a lifting of laws preventing retroactive modification of child support owed and enforcement of visitation rights.

Domestic Violence Reform: The movement does not disavow the existance of domestic violence - just the way that feminists represent it. The movement points out that 30 years of studies have shown that domestic violence, contrary to what feminists have made common knowledge, is equally the province of men and women as abuser. As such, laws and policies that are predominately favorable to women in regards to domestic violence need to be changed.(PLEASE SEE my post on domestic violence)

The movement's goals are to make laws and policies regarding domestic violence more gender-neutral, and more fair. The policy of removing the man from the house by police on a domestic violence call is a major target, as are battered persons shelters or even counseling services that refuse to aid battered men. Under VAWA upon a woman's request men are seized by government agents and held inside jail cages with no evidence of violence and further more allows her the clause "I feel threatened seize him, hold him in a jail cage and enact a court order for him not to come back or see his children and more so without admitting guilt."

This process of forced guilt should it reach the point is also used as the basis of a custody battle and divorce. Lawyers support this injustice by recommending VAWA and it's Orwellian state of process to win custody of children.

More important is education - the movement seeks to expose the truth to the public, as a way to make the current policies regarding domestic violence untenable. Finally, there is a push to remove "battered woman's syndrome" as a legal defense for the murder of a man. A man convicted of murder is 20 times more likely to receive the death penalty than a woman convicted of murder. In the U.S. since 1954 approximately 70,000 women have murdered 60,000 men but not one woman has been executed for killing only a man. Women in the U.K. are seeking to shut down women's prisons under the concern that women need to be mothers. "If adopted by the home secretary, Baroness Corston's approach would see Holloway and about 14 other all-female prisons in England and Wales shut down or converted into jails for men." >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6444961.stm

Sexual Harassment Reform: While nobody is disputing that quid pro quo sexual harassment is wrong, the movement takes issue with laws that define sexual harassment as the creation of "hostile work environments". Such laws cast a chill over the workplace, as stray comments to the wrong person may be taken as harassment, and could cost a person their job. Again, if a woman so decides there are grave consequences for men in the work place. This has created an environment in which women, as having these sole privileges are threatening to a workplace environment and causes great harm in their integration into the workplace. In addition, such laws are unfair as they protect only one segment of society from a problem while allowing others to be subjected to the same problem - after all, hostility is NOT just subject to gender differences, but can be based on all sorts of differences.

The movement seeks here to have laws that allow for nebulous and subjective definitions of sexual harassment repealed, while keeping the laws regarding quid pro quo harassment intact.

There are other points as well, such as the male right to choose and abortion in terms of obligation and support for the child and a woman can make her decision to abort accordingly. Also of concern is paternity law reform, and family law to help support a woman's added choice in society to stay at home to wean an infant. Given the average -2 percent savings rate many couples in the U.S. struggle to do this and sometimes the burden is on a man's shoulders to support this choice as women have saturated the labor pool in the work force many families can not be supported during this time on a single income. Men are working harder than ever before to support a woman's choice.

Men's rights also seeks to repair the damage of female "independence". The affect on our social culture in courtship and male provision of resources such as paying for meals, opening doors etc has been a growing issue of confusion between the sexes and a growing resentment among men. Some want to restore our mutual devotion, trust and dependence rather than advocate "independence" from women as women have. Others want male independence and feel increasingly resentful toward the hypocrisy of female "independence" only when it is convenient but take gladly from men when it suits them. It is said that "chivalry is dead". The damage has been done but which way we will go from here is unknown....