About NCFM

National Coalition of Free Men (NCFM) is a non-profit educational & civil rights organization that looks at the ways sex discrimination affects men and boys. NCFM publishes "Transitions: Journal of Men's Perspectives" six times a year and sponsors various activities according to the interests of its volunteers.

NCFM was founded on the realization that men needed a unified voice when expressing their desires and beliefs on important political and social issues of the day.
 

TO OUR INTERNATIONAL READERS - NCFM was founded in the United States. Most of its members are from the USA. While undoubtedly many of the issues NCFM touches on affect men all over the world, NCFM's focus is on issues that have arisen culturally in the United States.

"The female institution that subordinates the needs and nature of men to those of women, while promoting special entitlements, privileges, and protections for women, is feminism (although feminists would deny that that is what feminism is about).

"But men have their own institution: chivalry is the male institution that subordinates the needs and nature of men to those of women, while promoting special entitlements, privileges, and protections for women."

Pradeep Ramanathan, National Vice President NCFM,
Transitions, March/April 1999

If any of the issues we raise here seem familiar to someone living outside the United States, then you will need to reinterpret what we say in terms of your own culture. If none of what we raise here seems familiar, then watch out! American feminist values are coming your way through the influence of our State Department, media, business contacts and tourism.
 

Unless you understand something about the social issues at hand, the need for and existence of NCFM isn't going to make a lot of sense. So, before explaining what NCFM does it is important to summarize some of the issues.

SOME COMMON UNTRUTHS ABOUT GENDER IN THE U.S.A.:

A QUICK REBUTTAL TO THE ABOVE UNTRUTHS:

NCFM will be posting files that will deal in detail with these and other topics. Editorials, rebuttals and opinion will (for the most part) be available to you for free.

Cumulatively, the above list of charges has gone unanswered. The first rule of politics in the U.S. is that an unanswered charge is the truth. American men have been amazingly silent, because to criticize a woman (in this case the American women's movement) is to be seen as anti-woman. A lot of men would rather go to their grave than be accused of that.

Next, men were caught off guard by such notions as sexual politics. Few guys, if any, knew what it meant, so while women pundits were busy developing issues for women, there were no men developing issues for men. For 30 years the women's movement has gone unchallenged and this has contributed greatly to the breakup of American families and the social ills which follow: high rates of teen pregnancy, high rates of juvenile crime, high rates of teen suicide, depression and poor school performance.

American men have been raised to feel sorry for American women. It is wrapped in the old expression, "A Woman's Work is never done". The charge made by American feminists that all men had "oppressed" women was an easy charge to get past the guilt that American men were raised to feel.

The result of all of this has been a women's movement that has sought special privilege and which has gone unopposed in the pursuit of special privilege. In a nut shell, women have been given choices while holding men responsible for those choices. To wit:

* Men have no reproductive rights.
 

* Men can whimsically be denied access to their children after divorce.

* Men are at a disadvantage in the work place because of female hiring quotas. Those who want to fuel the racial issue in the U.S. concentrate their focus on black hiring quotas (which often benefits black women) and articulate the problem as a "white man's" issue. But black men have been victimized by it too (by being passed over for promotion and denied jobs, the same as white men).

* Women have three choices: stay home and raise a family, work full time or work part time. Men have three choices: Work full time, work full time or work full time.

* Women can choose whether or not to go into the military and once there whether to go into combat. There is no requirement for them to register for the military. In the U.S. all males must register. It is presumed that if the U.S. reinstates the military draft that only men will be required to go. In the past, that was certainly the case.
 

Let's go back and reply to the earlier charges made against men:

1- Men have all the power.

2- Only wives are abused by husbands.

3- All men are in a conscious conspiracy to keep all women in fear of rape.

4- Women are a special "oppressed" class in need of special compensation because of past discrimination.

Because the charge that men "oppressed" women has been so powerful, it is worth exploring for a minute.

What escapes people who make this charge is that men had no choices either in their role as provider and protector. Men were expected (forced) into the work place where they often risked life and limb to provide for women. In the U.S. around 90% of all work related deaths are by men. Men also have had no choice (except to leave the country) when confronted with a military draft. American women have never been forced to serve in any capacity for the good of their own nation.

Finally, feminists (radical feminists in particular) have misrepresented history and the role women have played in it by claiming that women have been "oppressed" by men throughout time. In contradiction, Page Smith, (Daughters Of The Promised Land: Women In American History, Little Brown and Co., NY, 1970) for one, notes that women were well represented among the professions during colonial America. Alexis DeTocqueville (Democracy In America) raves about the freedom and education enjoyed by American women in the 1830's. In her 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan explores the changing roles and freedom of American women in the 1920's and questions why things became so restrictive during and after the 1930's.

Almost no one writing in America before 1970, who analyzed the condition of the American woman, blamed men for anything. Betty Friedan, (author of, The Feminine Mystique) for example, who is considered one of the most prominent founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW), blamed the advertising houses on Madison Avenue. Writers before 1970 were concerned with cultural influences. Something happened after 1970 to change all of that and to convince American men that it was alright to scapegoat them.

What happened was the introduction of socialism and the adaptation of its language which described the "oppression" of the "proletariat" by the "bourgeoisie". A quick glance at post 1970 feminist literature reveals that they did little more than substitute the word "woman" for "proletariat" and the word "men" for "bourgeoise". An account of how this came about was given by Simone DeBeauvior, considered by some the mother of modern feminism, who recounted how men in the socialist movement in France continued to treat women as subservient despite their doctrines against doing so.

The same thing happened in America among the radical student protesters of the 1960's (Carol Hymowitz & Michael Weissman, A History Of Women In America, Bantam Books, NY, 1980, Chapter 19). These young people with their resentment toward men and gender issues grew up to become, in the 1980's and 1990's, the loudest, and in some cases, the most influential voices in feminism. From within the Socialist movement of the 1960's women's groups began to independently emerge.

In the 1960's, with the ever unpopular Vietnam War as a backdrop, the Socialists gained a foothold in America through the civil rights movement to which feminism became attached.

And that, gentlemen, is how modern feminism in America got its start. The idea and slogan that men oppressed women worked. Because of its simplicity it affected the minds of almost everyone sympathic to women's concerns. It is an idea that blames one identifiable group through birth for the problems of all other groups. And that is the beauty of "scapegoating", which has from time-to-time been a very effective method in politics throughout the world. It requires no thinking or analysis.

Feminism in the 1960's and beyond became a shrill political movement that lobbied and boldly claimed to represent the interests of ALL women, which, of course it did not - but no one was willing to argue with it. Only now, some 30 years later are we beginning to see any courage on the part of anyone to expose feminism for the damage it has done. For example, Christina Hoff Sommers in her book, Who Stole Feminism (Simon & Schuster, NY, 1994) for the first time examines the untruths that were/are propagated by phoney feminist research that up to now no one has dared to criticize. The ABC Television Network presented a show, Boys and Girls Are Different (aired, February 1, 1995) where in both Gloria Steinem and Gloria Allred appeared and stated that certain types of research should be blocked.

The left wing nature of feminism found a foothold and It brought with it hostility for the nuclear family and the work place, which were seen as the centers of male power and the oppression of all women. Never mind that men were forced to pay a high price for whatever position they had, never mind that most men go through their lives with little or no power at all, never mind that American observers such as Alexis DeTocqueville and later analysts have insisted on the dominant role women play in shaping culture. This presents a different picture than we are used to. It presents the picture of the powerful female in place of her being helpless.

In fact one of the things what we need to start doing is to examine spheres of female influence and power and to pinpoint it. What makes it difficult is that a lot of female power is hidden or covert, but one place you could start is with Phyllis Schalfly's book, The Power of The Positive Women (a work no more complimentary toward men than feminism, but one that does teach women powerful techniques that utilizes sex discrimination to its advantage). Esther Vilar is another female author (The Manipulated Man, Farrar Straus Giroux, NY, 1972) who early on tried to alert everyone to the POWERFUL woman. In fact, the only organized opposition that has come to feminism in the United States has come from groups of women (defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. constitution is a case n point). Simply put, men, as a bonafide organized entity, have just not been heard from and as individuals their opinions have ranged from being for or against feminism to hoping it would all just go away. In the meantime, men are sitting ducks for all kinds of abuse socially and legislatively. And, indeed feminism has had many powerful and wealthy male allies in the legislature.

The lesson to be learned here is that when we speak of a "men's movement" we are NOT talking about a movement that is inclusive of the interests of all men. Nor is it exclusive of all women. Many women belong to and participate in the National Coalition of Free Men. FREE, which is a well known father's rights organization on the Internet was founded by and is led by a woman, Anne Mitchell.

A men's movement is one that emphasizes a study of the male and the articulation of problems and solutions that result from that study.

According to feminism women are "objects" without any responsibility for the past and men deserve whatever they get. Catherine Comins, Assistant Dean Of Student Life At Vassar has even gone so far a to extoll (unopposed and without any criticism) the virtues of making false accusations of rape (Time Magazine, June 3, 1991, page 52).

Male bashing today is as common as a Hall Mark greeting card. It is evident when politicians talk about "deadbeat dads" and give aid to ex-wives who would deny children contact with their fathers, it is evident in the feminist attitude that all men are potential rapists, it is evident when we see media continually characterize family violence as something only men commit and it is evident when we see all of the money, time and attention spent on catering to only the female half of the population. It has created an incredible and harmful imbalance that has not allowed for the proper framing of social issues and problems.

It may be true that women have unique issues related to their specialized role, but it is absurd to assert that they are a special class in need of compensation any more so than are men.

What we have just said may go against the grain of many who first read this file. NCFM is not part of "politically correct" culture in the U.S., especially on university campuses. Nevertheless, as different and as politically incorrect as many of our views are we hope that you will keep an open mind, and look at what we have to say. You are invited to browse through our files and to read our other publications.

We also want to make it plain that we are not engaging in the out right condemnation of socialism and all that it stands for. Social Security, unemployment insurance and trade unionism are examples where the influences of socialism have been successfully applied in "capitalist" America - and everybody likes it that way. Socialism becomes the bogeyman because radical feminism with all of its anti male and anti family positions, started as a subset within the larger concerns of socialism. From within socialism, feminism devised an oversimplistic view of the world that divided it into bad men and good women. Because of its commitment to ideology it never developed the capacity for consideration of the larger picture that includes men and women in a complementary struggle for survival. In fact some feminists reject altogether the well established scientific techniques for studying humankind. Science doesn't come to their conclusions and so the whole dynamic of how humans are interwoven has escaped them in view of the more pleasurable aspects of venting their anger.

Today in America and, indeed, throughout the world, feminism is more about venting anger, real and imagined, than it is about socialism. Socialism was the incubator for feminism and its path to wealth. Socialism is not something owed a formal allegiance. To be sure there are socialist strains in feminism. Their support for issues like comparative worth and affirmative action "for women" serve as examples. But feminism is also unique in the way that it champions individualism. Individualism becomes all important if it serves the power interests of women as defined, of course, by feminists. Examples are the way they promote the abortion issue, their opposition to mediation in divorce and their sloganeering for "women's choice". Men, if you haven't guessed it, have no choices.

We will end our discussion of the issues with this: For every women's issue there is a men's issue because of the historic nature of our complementary roles.

ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY:

ABOUT FREE MEN (NCFM) - Free Men, Inc. was founded in Columbia, MD, in February 1977. It adopted the name "Free Men" as a verb, i.e., free men "from" unfair divorce laws. A list of items was drawn up, but it soon became obvious that the issues were too numerous to be restricted to a set list. The vastness of the issues are better understood in terms of: For every women's issue there is a men's issue because of the historic nature of our complementary roles. For men the social issues can be broken down under three headings:

By 1977 Herb Goldberg, author of the Hazards of Being Male, had connected with the group and pursued selling it to a national audience while on book tours. Between 1977 and 1980 other chapters formed, but no national structure was devised. In 1981 the first national convention of Free Men chapters was called and a coalition was formed. Each chapter with ten or more members were/are permitted to elect two delegates to be members of the national board of directors. Some modification to this rule was made when it became evident that chapters made up of volunteers would go through cycles of interest and that there would be periods when the possibility of there being no formal chapters would exist. Free Men differed from other men's organizations in several ways. First, in 1977 the two dominate groups were Feminist Men and Father's Rights groups. Feminist Men are still with us today. Their primary base of power is on the university campus. Their essential belief is that the function of the men's movement is to assist men in unlearning their oppressor role. The underlying political force behind it is a socialist view of the world.

Free Men differed from this in at least two ways: 1)- Free Men believed that men had unique problems of discrimination operating against them. Gender discrimination was not a problem unique to women. 2)- Free Men was founded by middle class men employed by government and the corporation who supported the capitalist system as practiced in the United States. Free Men rejected the notion that men were a special oppressor class and that women were a special oppressed class.

Father's rights groups are also with us today. They form the largest contingency of the men's movement. Free Men supports the father's rights movement, but sees its focus on divorce as too narrow. For example, what is called the father's rights movement is not inclusive of all fathers. It is more representative of a divorce reform movement. Father's rights people have been very slow to embrace a broader more general approach to men's issues. Their suspicion germinates from several assumptions:

They are afraid that the broader approach will encompass a tacit approval of the homosexual orientation (which has been true for some broad based organizations), they are afraid of the avant guard nature of some of the issues raised by broader based groups and they feel that to broaden the issues beyond divorce will weaken their "focus" and, hence, their ability to effect legal reform. The problem with this has been the fathers right's movement's inability to form alliances and to articulate the big picture.

WHAT IS THE BIG PICTURE? - After some 20 years in both the men's and women's movement, Warren Farrell, in his book, The Myth Of Male Power concludes that for men, the central issue is disposability. Men account for more than 95% of work place fatalities, they can be denied access to their children after divorce and there is the issue of military obligation, which can be lethal. Beyond these and other issues, there is very little in our society that is male affirming. In fact the endeavor of social reform over the past 30 years has been the deliberate degradation and dis-empowerment of men economically, legally and socially. By contrast the central theme of social reform over the past 30 years has been the empowerment of women and not gender equality.

Quite apart from Farrell's analysis there are other profound issues that go to the heart of the question about gender relationships. For example, what is human nature? Feminism is a rebuttal to almost 2,000 years of Judeo-Christian thinking that teaches that the genders are interrelated and interdependent. Marriage, for example, brings together two people as one flesh. In terms of more recent thinking, such as with Sociology, we would articulate this as the nature of complementary relatonships. By contrast, feminism and its Socialist ideology is committed to the idea of the autonomous nature of each individual, as in the idea that each person is an island unto themselves. The resultant teaching is that we have no right to have expectations of other people and that if we indulge in this we are setting ourselves up for a fall. To be sure, this subject is more involved than what we have covered here, but we have, at least, raised a core area of contention. And, we hope, demonstrated that the issues and social policies raised by feminism are not shallow topics. They are complicated.

What you need to grasp is that since feminism denies the existence of complementary role behavior that was functional and had aspects that were mutually beneficial to both sexes, they are then able to construct a social model whereby a ruling gender autonomously oppressed a subservient gender. It is this view that is being played out in our legislatures and courts. It is played out when we hear that women don't need men. It is played out when hear the argument made for fatherless families, which can happen when women use sperm banks to impregnate themselves, etc. These ideas and actions have been aided by men (some of whom are very powerful) who are hopelessly alienated from their fathers.

Since its founding in 1960, the father's rights movement has brought about very little reform - although in recent years father's rights groups have exerted influence in selected states (Texas and Iowa are two examples). To their credit, father's rights groups have done a marvelous job counselling men on a one- to-one basis. The need for this service has led some men in NCFM to help create and maintain local father's rights groups.

Finally, a source of strength for the father's rights movement has come from men in crisis. While this helps to inflate membership in father's rights groups, this has not provided them with a stable membership. People in crisis, male or female, are usually in a period of instability in their lives. These people often appear angry and there is nothing like the expression of anger to make everybody looking on afraid. The broader based groups tend to prefer men who are not experiencing crisis and who are more concerned with the shape of society.
 

TO READ ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE MEN'S MOVEMENT, see Men Freeing Men on our reading list.
 

WHAT WE ARE NOT:

We are not a gay rights organization. Gay rights involves two sexes who argue for a particular orientation. That orientation is beyond our mandate. We are upset over instances where gay men do not enjoy the same rights as gay women. That is a sex discrimination issue.
 

WHAT WE ARE:

We are an educational organization. The nature of our activities arise solely out of the interests and abilities of our volunteer membership.