Why MHRA? WHYYYY?!?

under_the_thumb_cartoonPeople use MRA as a slur and as a way to cut off any and all discussion. So little wonder people have been shocked and upset as I’ve slid into being what I would call an ‘equity MHRA’ (analogous to CH Sommers’ equity feminism).

‘He’s an MRA.’

‘They’re just MRAs.’

This is often an end to the conversation.

The irony, of course, is that the kind of people using it that way are the kind of people who have been dismissed with a sneering ‘Bah, feminists…’ in the past, so their dismissal of men’s rights campaigners is… ironic.

If one takes the bald definition of either, neither sound too bad. Feminism is supposedly simply equality for women and men’s rights is simply equality for men. That’s not a form of feminism that I have any problem with and it shouldn’t be a form of men’s rights that anyone else should have a problem with.

It’s not that easy though, is it? There are overreaching, authoritarian feminists, TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists), SWERFs (sex-worker exclusionary…)  and there are bitter and nasty MRAs who are in it for the wrong reasons, bad divorces, poor treatment, past abuse and so on. Same with feminists.

However there are still good feminists who are genuinely concerned with equality and work hard on issues like abortion in Ireland or freedom for women in Muslim countries. There are also plenty of good MHRA advocates who are genuinely concerned with the plight of men and boys.

Four or five years ago I’d have called myself a feminist and I’d have been ignorant of all the rest of this. I’d have assumed feminism meant equality for women and that there wasn’t much left to it – given that we have full legal equality in the west. However what changed my mind has been a) personal experience b) the actions of publicly visible feminism c) the plight of men and boys.

I’ve experienced prejudice and difficulty due to my gender.

Feminism has, seemingly, become an authoritarian and censorious force in our society, especially on university but also more broadly in creative enterprises and the public sphere.

I’ve seen how men and boys are suffering in education and work, healthcare and many other ways.

I’m still an egalitarian, but here in the west I think it’s men’s issues that need more attention now and the overreach of a certain brand of feminism that needs to be debated, questioned and countered.

#SavePage3 Don’t Mess with the Breast, ‘Cause the Breast Don’t Mess

retro_118So according to reports, Page 3 is no more. Thanks to the campaigning of the No More Page 3 campaign which, for some reason in a world of 24/7, high speed access to hardcore online pornography, decided to set their sites on the appearance of breasts (and only breasts) in a newspaper.

So why does this upset me? I’m on the far left (The Sun tends to the right), I’m a soft, fluffy, liberal type, I believe in equality, right? So why would the end of an inarguably archaic institution in a right-wing tabloid, owned by the excreble Rupert Murdoch upset me?

Well, that’s the test of conviction isn’t it? Will you still stand up for a principle when it aids and abets people or ideas you don’t like? Free expression is a fundamental human right and it extends to people who say things and make things that I personally do not like and to things that you, personally, do not like either. Personal taste or offence cannot be any useful guide to what speech or art should be repressed – if any. The only valid basis upon which it could be possible to do so is actual, demonstrable harm.

Pornography has often been referred to as the ‘canary in the coal mine’ for censorship and that canary is definitely starting to look a bit peaky. The Page 3 issue is just the latest of these problems and its important to contextualise it within the continuum of what is going on in the United Kingdom. The Page 3 ban comes on the heels of other events:

  • Opt-Out, automatic internet filtering.
  • The ‘Extreme’ Porn Ban.
  • BBFC Ban on Spanking/Fisting/Female Ejaculation and more in porn production.
  • Anti-Sex Worker Campaigning (Swedish model of criminalising sex worker clients).
  • Anti-Sex Worker Campaigning (Exploiting sex trafficking to create guilt by association).

This is really just the tip of the iceberg, when even feminist artists like Leena McCall are being censored because of the adult nature of their work – by fellow feminists – the problem is obviously even more acute. The attacks spread beyond pornography into writing, computer games, comics and all other media too. Despite there being a broad swathe of choices available for people to exercise their personal discretion and taste, somehow the mere existence of things that people object to is enough to motivate some to try and take it away.

And that brings us to Page 3.

Page 3 is an archaic, outmoded, superceded institution. In an age when you can get 24/7 live, streaming, hardcore pornography on your smartphone or tablet anywhere you go, some bare, newsprint breasts hardly seem relevant. Working to censor Page 3 is not locking the stable door after the horse has bolted so much as locking it after the horse has bolted, disappeared, retired to the south of France, married a nice mare, settled down, raised some colts, retired, died and been recycled as glue for binding reprinted copies of Black Beauty. Protesting it is a irrelevant as the page itself.

So why would you, why would anyone bother with doing so?

No More Page 3 gives their reasons for doing so on their web-page, but they do not stand up to scrutiny.

They Say it Isn’t About Censorship

This seems to be a current tactic of those who do wish to censor, denying that it is censorship. They operate under an extremely narrow definition of censorship that is utterly outmoded. To limit censorship to government is to deny that there are many other ways in which free expression can be choked. Violence limits free speech, either in its execution (book burnings, murderous attacks on cartoonists) or in the threat that it will take place. Unwarranted shaming, lies and demonisation, whipping up a moral panic can do the same thing. This last is what NMP3 has done, based on nothing more than offense, no different in moral basis than Islamist violence over cartoons, only different in execution and extremity.

They Say It’s Sexist

Sexy isn’t sexist. Sex isn’t sexist. There are differences in audience, gendered behaviour, gendered sexuality etc. Rather than sexist, this is about demonising male sexuality. It is sexist, however, to presume that men automatically view women as objects (pictures, incidentally, are objects).

They Say it Isn’t News

Neither are TV listings, fashion spreads, opinion pieces, feature articles or – in my opinion – sport. I think newspapers are multi-role organs with more to them than simply news. I also think that there’s more than one possible way to go about creating and filling the medium. Contrast, say, The Guardian with a supermarket tabloid.

They Say Children Can See It

We’ve all suckled on breasts from a very, very young age. Looking at them seems not to be such a big deal. There’s an inconsistency between being offended over breasts in a newspaper (optional, consensual) and not being offended by breastfeeding (public, not optional, non-consensual viewing). There’s also an inconsistency the other way around from those offended by breastfeeding who would defend Page 3. Both are, of course, harmless. I would far rather young boys and girls got an eyeful of healthy boob on Page 3 than the fashion pages and their size zero heroin chic. Come to that, porn has a much, much wider variety of body types and ages and presents a far healthier and broader representation of women’s bodies than mass media and fashion alike. Not to mention that Page 3 has always had jokey, humorous edge and the idea that sex and sexuality are fun is a much better message to give to kids than pressuring it out of existence. They cite studies in support of the claim that it causes harm, but those studies are not without criticism or challenge, or even contradiction – not that you would know it.

They Say it’s Oudated

Given. However it does not mock or disrespect women and the models are consenting, as are the readers. Many careers have been started there and the demands on the models are few. The oudated nature of it is a great deal of what makes it so harmless, even positive. Our moral perspective, as they put it, had moved on with the sexual liberation of the 60s and 70s. NMP3 has taken us backward, not forward, back to a much older set of puritanical values where the female body is something to be hidden away and sex is something to be repressed. We already know that doesn’t work and the progress to develop beyond that was hard won.

They Say They Have a Right to do This

And they do, they have a right to protest it certainly, a right to express their displeasure but I don’t believe they have a right to lie, to misrepresent studies or to claim that there’s anything more to this than their own personal distaste and offence. I believe lies and misrepresentations constitute fraud and that decisions based on bad information rarely lead to positive or effective solutions. If the argument is to be made, it should be made on a factual basis, not by whipping up moral panic and erasing the experience of the great many women who believe differently to their campaign. I also don’t believe that when a matter is harmless and entirely consensual, that there’s any basis upon which such a thing should be banned or stopped is deeply questionable.

They Say They’re Not Anti-Sex

And yet… (they also backed the ‘Extreme’ Porn Ban).

51mo+zrTiILThey Reject ‘Don’t Buy It’ as a Solution

Yes, The Sun can be found all over the place. So can the Daily Mail which contains all sorts of horrible, nasty shit (just in word form). You still have to pick it up and open it. Don’t buy it, don’t read it, don’t look at it are all still valid solutions.

The whole thing is based on unproven concepts and ideas, on overstating the influences of media, in rejecting the voices of dissenting women and ignoring men entirely. It is a campaign by middle class pseudo-feminists (extending far beyond matters of equality) and against largely working class men. It attacks something that it already admits is outdated and irrelevant, making the campaign outdated and irrelevant and it sets us back over 50 years when it comes to the liberation of sexuality.

In and of itself it doesn’t look like a significant battle in the increasingly heated gender-wars. In context however, it is a big warning sign of just how bad things have gotten and just how much under threat free expression genuinely is. It’s not under threat by government, it’s under threat by mob mentality, sentimentality and private groups and we need to organise better to resist it. Even when it’s something as pointless and seemingly silly as boobs in a newspaper.

#InternationalMensDay Shouldn’t Exist

19International Men’s Day shouldn’t exist, nor should this website, nor – for that matter – should any of these special interest days or activist groups. Equality is a matter for all people and there are arenas where anyone and everyone is both under and over privileged in different ways.

A true equality movement should not be concerned with any single group’s equality, but with that of people overall. Sadly a great many activist groups don’t seem to be so much concerned with building up the places in which they have less rights or privileges, but rather with tearing down even the basic rights of others.

Sadly, in the world in which we do live even established rights need protecting and many that are taken for granted for some groups are not available for others, or are under threat. Despite being blamed for a great many of the problems of other groups and despite dogma that denies that sexism can be directed towards men, men face a great many problems. Sadly, some of the qualities that are considered masculine – forebearance, endurance, duty, honour, sacrifice – also prevent men speaking up about or pursuing these issues, or being attacked as being unmanly when they do.

Circumcision, education, imprisonment rates, sentencing, child custody, divorce settlements, reproductive rights, workplace deaths and injury, the draft, war, employment and unemployment issues, intimate partner violence, lack of domestic abuse shelters, child abuse, rape, mental health, lifespan, medical research disparity and many, many other serious issues. Even access to due process and presumption of innocence is under threat, for men, and already abrogated in a university setting.

There are other, more frivolous issues as well. We live in a world of slutwalks where women – rightfully – demand to be able to dress how they wish and celebrate their sexuality without judgement, but the self same people will destroy the victory day of an eminent scientist for celebrating his own in a very limited way with a rather tame shirt.

Men have lost a lot of the privileges of old, which is right and good. However they have not lost their responsibilities or the pressures of the ‘man’s role’ which has not been revised in the way the idea of ‘womanhood’ has. Little wonder then that there is talk of a crisis of masculinity.

Worse, men today are being held accountable for the ‘sins of the fathers’ in a peculiarly secular concept of ‘original sin’. Entirely innocent men living in today’s world of virtual, legal equality, being blamed and held responsible for things that happened deep in the past.

A very peculiar concept indeed.

Until we can move beyond these individual and competing fights for rights, we’ll never actually get true equality. Until we do though, people will have to continue to fight their own corner and – perhaps – being more reasonable and moderate is the only positive way forward.

Men deserve love, help, the same freedoms that others demand and deserve. Men aren’t villains. Men aren’t the problem.

PS: Please post something positive on the #internationalmensday tag, as its currently hijacked by hatred.

#HeForShe? Not Without #SheForHe

518420688-Emma-Watson-Touched-By-Reception-In-UruguayEmma Watson gave a speech to the UN, beseeching men to get involved in the fight for gender equality, but despite a good effort to present equality as the case I’m afraid it ended up ringing false. While claiming it to be about equality and while claiming this included men, much of the speech, its setting, its context and the content of the HeForShe campaign make it clear it’s not about equality, but about feminism – and yes, these are two different things.

If the aim is to reach men and to fight for genuine gender equality then the contradictory messages on the campaign website need to be removed and the whole campaign needs a different name. HeForShe brings men on board to fight for women, but within its name says nothing of the inequalities men face and the campaign site says very little – if anything – about that either. It’s ironic that, perhaps, the Scottish Independence No campaign’s tagline ‘Better Together’ might have made a much better slogan for this campaign.

If we want to truly address gender inequality we do need everyone involved Miss Watson, yes, but we also need to address everything involved – including men’s issues such as, but not limited to, educational performance, medical spending, male genital mutilation and the erosion of male oriented work (and the identity that goes with it).

I already am an advocate for change Miss Watson, but as an egalitarian. I have chosen to align myself with moderate Men’s Human Rights and issues because they are overlooked, consistently in favour of women, but I am an egalitarian. You have a lot of work to do to convince me this campaign is any different and to elicit my support in any meaningful way.

Miss Watson, you say:

“I was appointed as Goodwill Ambassador for U.N. Women six months ago and the more I’ve spoken about feminism, the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.”

Yes, it does. I know for a fact that for speaking out on men’s issues makes me a target of hate, accusations of misogyny and so on. For being an advocate of free expression, for being sex-positive, for challenging bad research and so forth I have been called various insulting things by self-proclaimed feminists up to and including spurious accusations of rape. If you want feminism to no longer be synonymous with man-hating you need to stop feminists hating men. It’s not like this is a fringe problem either, the hatred is palpable on popular websites and in newspaper columns. Lately it has been especially apparent in #gamergate with men bearing the brunt of insults for even trying to defend something they love, but it’s not just relatively ‘petty’ things like that.

You claim:

“For the record, feminism, by definition, is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes. I started questioning gender-based assumptions a long time ago.”

But you also say:

“They may not know it, but they are the inadvertent feminists who are changing the world today. We need more of those and if you still hate the word, it is not the word that is important. It’s the idea and the ambition behind it. Because not all women have received the same rights that I have. In fact, statistically, very few have been.”

Miss Watson, the idea and ambition behind the term has become one of misandrist hate. It has become a revolt against a patriarchy that doesn’t exist. It has become a culture of mocking, hatred and dismissal of men’s issues.

Words are important, but they’re important for the meaning they convey. You refer to the dictionary definition of feminism, but that is not reflected in the actions – the ideas and ambition – of modern feminism, which has become a censorious and socially violent movement that threatens basic civil liberties. Bring any of that up and it’s just ‘male tears’ and ‘what about the menz?!?’ but really, yes, what ABOUT the men?

You talk a good game, Miss Watson, when you bring up the issues that men have expressing their feelings, but there’s also an implicit judgement in that, that traditional male qualities, such as stoicism, are necessarily inferior and pathological and to be discouraged, rather than seeing that they too, can have value.

It doesn’t help your cause that when you speak on it, you perpetuate certain known falsehoods:

“I am from Britain and I think it is right that I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should be able to make decisions about my own body, I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and the decisions that affect my life. I think it is right that socially, I am afforded the same respect as men. But sadly, I can say that there is no one country in the world where all women can expect to receive these rights. No country in the world can yet say that they have achieved gender equality.”

The European Union, Scandinavia, Australia, the USA, Canada, New Zealand. You’re right, there is no one country where all women can expect to receive these rights, there are many. There are still some bumps, for both genders, but by and large we have all these things you mention in the west. Indeed taken as a whole it’s arguable that women have more rights than men – especially in reproductive rights – and are becoming a privileged class.

“Men, I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too. Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society despite my needing his presence, as a child, as much as my mother’s. I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help, for fear it would make them less of a men—or less of a man. In fact, in the U.K., suicide is the biggest killer of men, between 20 to 49, eclipsing road accidents, cancer and coronary heart disease. I’ve seen men made fragile and insecure by a distorted sense of what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality, either.”

And I’m afraid, Miss Watson, that despite your speech and despite these words within it, your campaign still doesn’t seem to address these issues. Thank you for bringing them up and I hope it does raise the profile of these issues, but your speech stands out in the campaign as being the only apparent mention of these problems and, again, even within this is the implicit assumption that ‘male’ traits are somehow inferior and without value.

“If you believe in equality, you might be one of those inadvertent feminists that I spoke of earlier and for this, I applaud you. We are struggling for a uniting word but the good news is that we have a uniting movement. It is called HeForShe. I am inviting you to step forward to be seen and to ask yourself, ‘If not me, who? If not now, when?’ Thank you very, very much.”

I believe, passionately, in equality Miss Watson. That devotion to equality and fairness is the very reason I am absolutely and unequivocally not a feminist. The uniting term that you are looking for is ‘egalitarian humanism’ or, if you prefer, simple ‘equality’, which you have already used. #HeForShe isn’t it, because implicit in that title is the idea that men necessarily hold the power and that they do not need help, despite your speech.

So I’m afraid, I’ll be declining your invitation. I suspect you mean the best and I think you’re sincere when you talk about the problems men face, but this campaign isn’t the one to change that and shift to true egalitarian campaigning.

Sincerely,

TDA

Positive Discrimination?

grimachu's avatarThe AtheFist

cgon621lJust before going to bed (so not the best time) and on Twitter (not the best venue) I got into a discussion with a friend about positive discrimination, specifically in games. I tried to explain why a 50/50 hiring policy wouldn’t be representative of the state of play and wouldn’t be good for business. Twitter made that a bit ham-fisted though and it was apparently received that I was somehow in favour of discrimination.

This, then, is my attempt to expand on the point and as to why positive discrimination is a bad idea and that the problem lies elsewhere. At the end I’ll try to suggest some solutions.

None of the below example is meant to be realistic, just a mental exercise to illustrate the problem.

For the sake of argument, say that business boss, Mr Gamey McGamerson has a fat wad of venture capital and is looking to…

View original post 624 more words

Gentlemen and Ladies, Let’s Help Christy Mack

BuyVUx3IUAA0-wt

There’s plenty to be said about this, and people’s reactions to it, and people’s perceptions that lead to those reactions but now isn’t the time. What I can tell you is that a ‘man‘ who does this to anyone doesn’t deserve to be free, and that a beautiful – and by all accounts lovely – woman needs help. What a gentleman and a decent human of any persuasion does in this situation is that he steps up, he helps and he makes up for the fact the world is full of arseholes by not being one himself.

I’ve given, I’m asking you to do so too.

Get well soon Christy.

You can give money to help with medical expenses and recovery time HERE. I’ve checked it out and I vouch for it being genuine. The money will go to Christy.

BuyVUGpIgAEuE4s

No Gods, No Masters (Or Mistresses)

grimachu's avatarThe AtheFist

A Left-Anarchist Critique of Modern Feminism

Marina Ginestà of the Juventudes Comunistas, aged 17, overlooking anarchist Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War - 21 July 1937I’ve become increasing more critical of modern feminism and more sensitised to the problems faced by men over the last three years or so. Prior to that time I would have called myself a feminist and progressive and, while my values haven’t changed, I no longer call myself either. As a result I am intimately familiar with how powerful cognitive bias and apophenia can be. Prior to my ‘revelatory’ experience I would have brushed off, ignored or not even noticed the million little ways in which men are mistreated, dismissed and misrepresented. Now I see it, though much of it is still – in my opinion – down to hypersensitivity, on both sides.

I have been following many of the ‘social justice’ issues that have been churning to the surface on social media since that period and trying to understand and debate the points…

View original post 3,523 more words

Cards For Compliments

Street harassment or street compliment, opinion seems divided on the subject.

A Minneapolis woman named ‘Lindsey’ came up with a passive-aggressive note method of dealing with catcalls called Cards Against Harassment.

Here’s a totally not passive-aggressive and entirely un-creepy replacement for catcalling, use them, make someone’s day, report back.

Make your own! Might I suggest: “Um… gosh… that’s a SMASHING blouse you’ve got on.”

cards

cards

#WomenAgainstFeminism Speak for Themselves

I’ve continued to watch the hashtag #womenagainstfeminism with interest. The reaction from within feminism seems, to me, to be one of denial, deflection, distortion and denigration. I have not found the women involved to be ignorant of feminism, stupid, anti-equality or any of the other things they’ve been accused of.

Twitter – or indeed a little white sign – aren’t the best places to get into an in depth discussion or clarification, so I reached out and asked some of the women involved what it was about and what was really going on.

I think it has to be acknowledged that, even if you reject and are horrified by everything the women of #womenagainstfeminism say, at the absolute bare minimum, modern feminism has a huge PR issue. True or not, it’s seen as a hate-filled movement out to impose it’s point of view, in toto, even on those who want nothing to do with it and it’s absolutely not seen as being about equality any more.

But I’ll let the ladies speak.

tumblr_n9acsbpRJz1syitgfo1_1280Why did you decide to take this picture?
This wasn’t my first picture for this campaign. I’ve been doing this for about 3 years, and the picture was originally to combat the feminists that liked to claim I was a man pretending to be a woman. They couldn’t fathom the idea that a woman would disagree with them. So I took the picture as proof. I’ll about a tiny part of me enjoyed bursting the bubble of their skewed world view. 🙂

What did you hope it would accomplish?
The big picture? I want to bring attention to the atrocities of feminism. I’ve seen so many people Including myself, subjected to numerous forms of abuse, all in the name of feminism. Years ago, it was about empowerment, and the right to choose how you wish to live your life. Now, It’s about who can be the biggest victim. Take TERFs, for example. Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists. They hate transgender individuals because, “women who want to be men are traitors, and men who want to be women are trying to invade a safe space for real women, and trans people appropriate oppression from real women.” That’s feminism now. Or sex negative feminists. I’ve had them try to get my children taken from me because I’m a submissive. I’ve been called a dick-slave (which I am, but that’s beside the point), a slut (also true), and a disgrace to women… all because of my consensual sex life. By feminists. I want the western world to see that feminism isn’t about choice anymore, or even equality. It’s about superiority, and power.

People are saying you don’t understand feminism. Do you?
I understand it perfectly. I’ve studied feminism for nearly 5 years. They like to throw the dictionary at us, when that definition hasn’t been applied in years. I also find it ironic that it’s usually the same people that discredit the dictionary when speaking about racism. Actions speak louder than words. Understanding feminism is simple: just look at the state of men in the western world. Men are utterly disposable, only worth what they’re willing to die for. Feminists have fought against opening male abuse shelters, they’ve rallied to have men excluded from rape laws. They push campaigns filled with the ideal that only men can rape. They constantly talk about Real Men™ and reinforce gender roles, but screech about gender roles being placed on women. To understand feminism, all you have to do is objectively look at the group of peoples feminism has left out.

People are saying what you complain about isn’t feminism. Is it?
Absolutely. What we’re complaining about are the people at the forefront of the movement. The ones actively changing things. Feminism is ideology, anyone can ascribe to it. So it becomes whatever the loudest members are shouting about. The radicals have taken over, and by definition, are no longer the radicals. The True Feminists™ are the minority now, and seem far too interested in telling us that they’re not at all like that, rather than policing their own movement. That’s why it doesn’t belong to them anymore. What the NAFALTers are saying isn’t feminism anymore, no matter how much the want to deny it.

10530754_241286346080611_2189960942423940097_nWhy did you decide to take this picture?
I have always been a been skeptical about feminism. It honestly makes no sense to me – the end goal of equality, while focusing on a single demographic. We live in a complicated world – and I WISH it was as simple, but it is not. Taking into account geographic location, race, sexual identity, cultural and religious beliefs, and maybe most importantly, social class, women aren’t even equal to women. I have more rights than many men in this world. This is indisputable. So the idea of women = to men, I have to ask, which women? Which men? It is not nearly so simple, without addressing other areas that factor in. A single mother is certainly not going to be skipping hand in hand with Hillary Clinton on the road to a perfectly equal world.

What did you hope it would accomplish?
I joined the WAF group when there were about 1000 ‘likes’ on Facebook, before it went viral. I never anticipated this. I was happy to find a group of women I could express myself with. The biggest reason behind my particular sign was to try to open up an honest, intelligent dialogue with the feminists commenting on the page. Unfortunately, instead of addressing my words, they opted for attacks. I was quite disappointed.

People are saying you don’t understand feminism. Do you?
I understand feminism. I understand what it is, and what it should have been. I acknowledge the very real and stark differences between gender feminists and equity feminists. Feminism has always been marred with extremists, racists, and elitists, throughout every wave. With the dawn of technology and social media, the extremists are no longer a small majority group that you can put in a corner and talk over. They are the ones talking about the “oppressive patriarchy” in America. They throw the word rape around with zero concern for the effect on true victims (stare rape, and switch rape being the most absurd examples). They claim there is a rapist animal in every man, with a switch just waiting to be activated. And the typical response is “Not all feminists…” And I believe that. But enough of them are indeed like that. That is not a lunch table I want to be sitting at. I can fight for, and support, equality without committing myself to a single label.

People are saying what you complain about isn’t feminism. Is it?
My complaint is with the exclusiveness of feminism – focusing on a single demographic. I think much more needs to be addressed before you can even accurately measure if there is inequality. The wage myth has already been exposed. It has been estimated by the CDC that 40% of rapists are women, although the FBI definition doesn’t even acknowledge it. Why can’t we be focusing on getting all people onto a level playing field, before throwing around an assumption that there is inequality? Yes, there is sexism. There always will be. There will always be murderers and rapists. This is not indicative of an entire gender. This is the realization that assholes exist. And always will.

#womenagainstfeminism because I'm really rather fond of being barefoot in the kitchen.

#womenagainstfeminism because I’m really rather fond of being barefoot in the kitchen.

Why did you decide to take this picture?
I was cooking in the kitchen, barefoot, and I thought about how that’s a symbol of what (real) feminists fought against, that notion that women belong in the home, not out in the workforce. Don’t get me wrong, I value the option to work out of the home & believe women are highly capable and productive members of society in and out of the home. But I chose to make my children a priority because it is such a short period of time on the big scheme of things, and it just feels right. There are feminists who believe I’m wasting my degree/talents/mind. But I’m enjoying my stereotypically domestic role & found it funny that I was truly barefoot in the kitchen.

What did you hope it would accomplish?
A smile from my fellow non-feminists, a laugh from those who appreciate my sense of humor. I would also like to draw out the anger/disgust of the feminatzis so that we can have public dialogue that explains my position/opposition to the extreme direction feminism seems to be headed in. It’s just a picture of feet though, really. I posted a few more serious thoughts while the # was trending.

People are saying you don’t understand feminism. Do you?
I understand the initial movement, the ideals behind it. I value the right to vote, the achieved gender equality. I understand that there are women all over the world who still need a voice. But I don’t understand how alienating men helps that cause. I believe we are at a point in our society where humanitarian injustices should & can be addressed by everyone, regardless of gender. I understand that some women find reasons to call themselves victims & I think they seek injustice as a way to carry on the spirit of the feminist movement – but I believe they’re giving it a bad name.

People are saying what you complain about isn’t feminism. Is it?
I don’t think I’m complaining. I like to think I am one of many pointing out what feminism has become and why it shouldn’t continue on that path.

Circumspection on Circumcision

TSWJ11-373829.001I apologise for the image, but I’m trying to make a point and so I’m taking a page out of the playbook of anti-abortion activists. The difference is, however, that I’m not lying or misrepresenting by using this image. I’m demonstrating the bloody horror of an entirely unnecessary medical procedure.

Yes, I’m talking about circumcision.

This is a common practice, affecting around 1/3 of all little boys worldwide – and rising, even as the population rises. This means that approximately 1.2 billion little boys are at risk of having their bodily integrity impinged upon, completely unnecessarily and bloodily.

At least 8% of circumcisions result in complications at some point in life, whether it be when the procedure is performed or later in life. Those complications can include: ‘do overs’, infections, bleeding, death, loss of sexual function, pain, loss of sexual pleasure, regrowth and phimosis, fistula of the urethra, necrosis of the glans and more.

Circumcision is excused via culture and religion, dubious research that suggests it may have some incredibly tiny health benefits and wild accusations of racism – since circumcision is most commonly associated with Islam and Judaism. None of these excuses stand up to scrutiny. It is still the bloody mutilation of a helpless child.

That 8% complication rate, by the way, is based on western statistics and assumes that the act is being performed hygienically and in a medically proficient fashion. That is not always the case, especially since the act is associated with religion and sometimes performed by unqualified religious clergy – whose behaviour also leads to herpes.

It is so obviously wrong that little  more should need to be said, but it does.

Unfortunately, we can’t address male genital mutilation without also addressing female genital mutilation.

I am not suggesting, in any way, that FGM is not also a serious problem and a barbaric practice. It absolutely is. The problem is that where the anti FGM and MGM movements should be a singular cause of intactivism, activism on circumcision is constantly sidelined and undermined by the very people who should be its allies.

The bald fact is that 12 times as many boys as girls are under threat from genital mutilation globally and that at least as many boys will suffer complications from that procedure as are there are women affected by FGM in total – of any degree.

Despite this, action against MGM is constantly undermined by FGM activists and others who regard aesthetics, culture, religion, ‘racism’ and spurious medical claims as valid in relation to MGM that they do not in regard to FGM.

Why aren’t we working together to try and guarantee the bodily integrity of all boys and girls?

You tell me…