#MeToo is regarded so righteous Time magazine proclaimed it “Person of the Year.” All of maledom hangs its head in shame. But let’s consider the big picture here. Shoving #WeTwo right off the map, the central flaw in “#MeToo” is that it’s really #MeExclusively. Pain, powerlessness, insult, discomfort, disadvantage, bias . . . these experiences are human and they are universal. #MeToo say women everywhere. Yes, I’m sure that’s true. But, #MeExclusively would have you believe that the female experience of pain and powerlessness stands alone. And that’s not true.
Males don’t experience either pain or powerlessness in the sexual arena? Tell it to the male holding flowers and candy and shaking in his boots. If only men must initiate, only men can be judged to have done it “wrong”—and then there’s hell to pay. Tell it to the 14-year-old boy raped by a 40-year-old woman and told he “got lucky.” Tell him again when the court’s action in the matter is to order him to pay his rapist18 to 21 years child support.[1] Tell it to the husband whose wife aborted his child with no need to consider his feelings, but when he goes to have a vasectomy, he’s told he needs his wife’s written permission.[2] What’s his experience of pain, powerlessness, insult, discomfort, disadvantage, and bias?
The problem with #MeToo is that it’s Me, Me, Me . . . my pain, my discomfort, my experience of powerlessness stands alone. Focus all attention, all reparations, all cultural caring, concern and compassion on #MeExclusively . . . . me, me, me. For him there is blame and accusation, loss of career, public disgrace, and social destruction without a trial. But forget about him. Man up! Women aren’t interested in “victims,” so you’d best remain strong and silent. If he is pawed, grabbed, or forced, it’s not the same thing. Let us not be distracted, even for a moment, from the only experience of pain and powerlessness that matters . . . my female experience of pain and powerlessness! Shame on you for complaining. We must not be distracted from me!
Tell it to the multitudes of men dealt false paternity suits by women who choose sex with Mr. Exciting but name Mr. Reliable as the father. Consider the 1 in 5 fathers raising at least one child not their own and how it must feel to discover that your 12-year-old isn’t yours yet you may be forced to pay child support anyway.[3] No says feminism, we must NOT be distracted from me. Males comprise the vast majority of the war-torn, homeless, imprisoned, executed, addicted, murdered, socially isolated, parentally alienated, school dropouts, and at-work fatalities. Men are 16 times as likely to die on the job;[4] men are four and a half times as likely to commit suicide.[5]
Huh? What does any of this have to do with me? My moaning, my groaning, my whining, my kvetching, my complaining . . . me, me, I, me, me, I’m not happy! Look, I own pain. What does the pain of “over-empowered oppressor, victimizers” matter as compared with the pain of “innocent victims”? He is at fault and to blame for all things because he (not me) is sexist. Imagine, those men whom I hate with a passion have a negative bias toward me! There are troglodytes out there who actually accuse femininism of gender bias! Can you believe that? Let’s make alternate perspectives a hate crime. Let us rain hatred down on males; they’re misogynists!
If to “rape” is to devastate, then both sexes have many ways of “raping” the other. “I’m going to marry a really rich guy, then divorce him,” explains a young woman to a Toronto newspaper. “But first I’m going to have his kids, so I get child support.” [6] Even the most heinous bunko artist can’t steal someone’s children, yet, even if the man commits suicide, the law can’t touch her. Her actions are not defined as criminal. What would it be like to empathize with men . . . and what would it be like for men to express their inner vulnerability, pain and powerlessness thus giving the world something to empathize with? Yeah, I know, male complaint is met with derision or worse but even so, when only women complain, it sustains the illusion that only women have anything to complain about.
What? Check my own privilege, my own shadow, my own power, my own sexism? What the hell is “misandry”? That’s not even a word. Look, I am THE victim. Haven’t you ever heard “Don’t blame the victim?” Well, I’m the powerless victim in all things! I am righteous! I have no power. And don’t dare doubt it or I’ll lay waste to you; my accusation alone will destroy you! Just ask all those accused fathers who will never see their children again.
Consider all the men destroyed by false accusations. How painful and powerless does it feel to the multitude of men languishing in prison because a woman cried “rape” just to cover up an embarrassing pregnancy?[7] Spare a thought for the lonely middle-aged man when she enters his life and soon becomes something like his whole reason for living. Having worn his heart on his sleeve or done something impulsive she is now in a position to expose and destroy him. We assume that The Boss has The Power but, from a distance, we do not know that. Maybe she’s naive; he has his way with her and discards her. OR, maybe she’s WAY tougher than he is, she terrifies him with the threat of exposure/accusation, and exploits him every which way. Often, his status as The Boss is exactly what attracts her to him. You’d never know it, but there actually are two sides to every gender issue.
“Sexual Harassment,” “Rape Culture,” “#MeToo” would appear to uncover only the male shadow. But, look more deeply. In characterizing gender reality exclusively in terms of MalePower and FemaleVictimization, ManBad (over-empowered oppressor-victimizer) and WomanGood (“innocent” victim), female shadow is also revealed. Along with abuse of male power, peeking through the cracks, we can also see abuse of female powers.
I don’t mean to shut down legitimate female complaint. I get it that women suffer. I get it that women suffer. I get it that women suffer. I get it that women suffer. Okay? Now, can we devote a nanosecond to the other half of gender reality? And I apologize to any female readers who get it and empathize, but what I mean to do here is raise awareness of the immense power Woman wields, which includes the power to shut down legitimate male complaint. In monopolizing “victim,” the feminine abuses her greater power to elicit empathy, leaving men bereft of empathy. What worse thing could one faction of humanity do to another than to cut them off from empathy?
In abusing her greater power to inflict shame, all of maledom might be brought down by sex scandal shaming—masculinity feminist redefined as “toxic.” Given the staggering rates of male suicide, it would seem that female-ism would shame men to death. In shaming Man into pouring from his glass half “full” into Woman’s glass half “empty,” feminism, in league with chivalry, would fashion a world made perfect for females; males be damned. But you know what? Neither sex “wins” when both sexes lose!
Yeah, I’m angry. The society wide belief that men have the power and women are the victims gets me so worked up because it is so one-sided, which is why it’s false, which is why it’s poisonous—all around. It’s tearing us apart. As an equalist I know that in the end it all balances out. Gender reality is mirrored. The current gender-political fiasco is created by Man and Woman together in co-equal unconscious complicity. Feminine and masculine are equal partners in the vast gender dance that molds our human world, equally responsible for outcomes. Male shadow is matched by female shadow. There’s plenty of victim to go around; neither sex is ennobled to take ownership. I’m angry because feminism’s ideological dictatorship renders utterance of these sensible truths social and political suicide.
If we absolutely will not be moved by empathy toward men, then, to validate an issue, we must do what we always do; we must show how the issue adversely affects women. So . . . suppose the true victimization of women is a withhold of accountability, which is infantilizing; drowning women in sympathy, which is disempowering; telling women that they are the powerless victims in all things, which is emotionally self-fulfilling; telling women that a Boogey Man hides behind every bush, which is terrifying; and telling women that their biology only betrays them, limiting women’s immersion within roles and realms in which many are at their happiest. No wonder every measure of female happiness has plummeted in recent decades[8] and worldwide the most feminist cultures produce the least happy women.[9]
Perhaps what women most need rescuing from is the feminist delusion that only women suffer and only men have power. Yes, the chivalrous male will adamantly reject his own victim while defending hers to the death. Even so, in a world in which both sexes suffer, what is to be revered and respected in Woman’s insistence that she is the victim? How does it serve Woman to enable selfish, self-absorbed, self-serving, self-indulgent, self-righteous, self-proclaimed victimhood? Yes, Woman is all-powerful, untouchable, non-criticizable, non-accountable, even so, in proclaiming herself the victim in all things, what if Woman is really just making a complete ass of herself?
If this truth is beyond our grasp, then consider the paranoia, the Moral Panic, the devastation to inter-sex unity, romance, marriage, family, social fabric, fairness and forgiveness. Nearly half the children born are born to single mothers and virtually all those school shooters were raised without fathers. The diminishment of fathers is the rise in social pathologies. Is this male-hating hysteria with all its poisonous fallout really the best gender reality we can aspire to? As equalists we believe that there’s a better way. In place of one vast Vagina Monologue,[10] as equalists we enter into dialogue. As equalists we take turns. As equalists we believe in #WeTwo.
Tim Goldich
Author of – Loving Men, Respecting Women: The Future of Gender Politics
[1] Baskerville, Stephen, Ph.D., “Boy Victim of Statutory Rape Forced to Pay Child Support to Adult Woman Rapist,” March 11, 2003, http://www.fact.on.ca/news/news0303/mnd030311.htm, “Children often pay child support to grown-ups. In California and Kansas, minor boys statutorily raped by adult women must pay child support to the criminals who raped him. In one case, the boy was drugged before sex.”
See also: Jones, Ruth, “Inequality from Gender-Neutral Laws: Why Must Male Victims of Statutory Rape Pay Child Support for Children Resulting from Their Victimization?” https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=
DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=36+Ga.+L.+
Rev.+411&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=740f075ecfed12a99ce6dd3dabf383c9
In County of San Luis Obispo v. Nathaniel J., a thirty-four-year-old woman had sex with a fifteen-year-old boy and became pregnant. The woman was convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. . . . In holding Nathaniel J., a statutory rape victim, financially liable for child support, the California Court of Appeal joined other courts across the country that have held that a male victim of statutory rape can be forced to pay child support for a child resulting from his victimization. Without exception, appellate courts have held that while the criminal law deems minors incapable of consenting to sexual intercourse, family law can hold victims financially liable for children conceived during a criminal act. [Source: 36 Georgia Law Review, 411 (Winter 2002)].
[2] Silvers, Ann, M.A., Abuse of Men by Women: It Happens, It Hurts, and It’s Time to Get Real About It (Gig Harbor, WA: Silvers Publishing, 2014) p.242. “My wife knew I didn’t want any more children after the first two. She decided to get pregnant anyway and just tell me after the fact. I decided to get a vasectomy . . . I had to get written permission from my wife before he would do the surgery.” Says Silvers, “It seems in the U.S. and Canada, laws don’t mandate a wife’s consent for a husband’s vasectomy, but many doctors require it as a way to ensure that they won’t be sued by a patient’s irate wife after the procedure is done.”
You can do most anything to men; they rarely complain. But women do and women sue and women are backed up by feminism; and everyone knows it and everyone fears it. A doctor would have to be a fool to do anything that might anger a wife; there’d be hell to pay, which is also why no doctor would require a wife to get written permission from her husband before performing a tubal ligation or even an abortion. Again, there’d be hell to pay. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court found that the father does not even have a legal right to be notified of an abortion. (Note: last year (2017), Arkansas became the first and only state in which the father’s consent must be obtained prior to abortion.)
[3] Farrell, Warren, Ph.D., Father and Child Reunion: How to Bring the Dads We Need to the Children We Love (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2001) p.145. “[W]hen random DNA tests are taken of babies, about 10 percent turn out not to be the child of the father the mother declared. Since one father often has two or three children, this implies that about 15 to 20 percent of all fathers are spending their lives supporting at least one child they were deceived into thinking was theirs.”
Tresniowski, Alex, “Dads By Default,” (2002), https://people.com/archive/dads-by-default-vol-58-no-22/ “Almost all states require nonbiological fathers to keep paying child support even if they were deceived by their spouses.”
[4] Farrell, Warren, Ph.D., The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex (New York: Berkley Books, 1993), p.106. Men comprise 94% of all work-related fatalities due to on-the-job injury (disease-related deaths caused by on-the-job exposure are not included in this figure). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health NIOSH, (Morgantown, West. Va.), on-line database titled “Basic Information on Workplace Safety and Health in the U.S.”
[5] Ibid., The USDH & HS?NCHS, Center for Disease Control, Statistical Resources, Vital Statistics of the United States (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1991) vol. 2, part A, Mortality, p. 51, tables 1-9.
[6] “I’m going to marry a really rich guy, then divorce him.”, http://www.fact.on.ca/news/news0303/mnd030311.htm, March 11, 2003.
[7] James, Thomas B., Domestic Violence: The 12 Things You Aren’t Supposed to Know (Chula Vista, CA: Aventine Press, 2003) p..86. “In a forensic study of 556 investigations of rape allegations, 33% were proven (by DNA and other evidence) to be false. In another 27% of the cases, the woman either failed a lie-detector test or admitted having lied when faced with the prospect of submitting to a lie-detector test. In other words, it was found that at least 60% of rape allegations are probably false. Even the liberal Washington Post has admitted that at least 30% of rape accusations are false. In a review of 350 criminal cases in which a person who had been convicted was later proven (by DNA evidence) to have been innocent, it was found that 23 had already been executed and 8 had already died in prison. 100% of them were male.”
See also: Farrell, Warren, Ph.D., Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say: Destroying Myths, Creating Love (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1999) p.241. “With these admitted false accusations [Dr. Charles McDowell, formerly of the U.S. Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations] was able to develop thirty-five criteria distinguishing false accusations and those known to be genuine. Three independent judges then examined the remainder of the cases. Only if all three reviewers independently concluded the original rape allegations were false did they rank them as “false.” The total of false allegations became 60 percent. Rather than publicize the study as an antidote to the Tailhook scandal, the study was buried. Dr. Charles McDowell was ostracized and moved—the Air Force equivalent of being sent to Siberia.
[8] “Global Gender Gaps: Women Like Their Lives Better,” Pew Research Center, http://www.pewglobal.org/2003/10/29/global-gender-gaps/, October 29, 2003.
Women are somewhat happier than men with their lives overall, according to 38,000 interviews in 44 countries conducted by the Pew Research Center for the Pew Global Attitudes Survey . . . Women’s greater satisfaction with life is pervasive in many of the less-developed regions of the world: in 7 of the 8 countries surveyed in Asia, 6 of the 8 nations in Latin America and all 5 nations in east and southern Africa. In particular, women are much happier than men in Japan, India, the Philippines, Pakistan and Argentina.
[9] Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2009. “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 190-225, August.
By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have im-proved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women’s happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women’s declining relative well-being is found across various data-sets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men.
[10] The name of a famous one-woman show authored by Eve Ensler and regularly performed by many different performers in theaters and on college campuses everywhere.
