I am Dr. Carl Augustsson. I am the International Co-coordinator for the National Coalition For Men (NCFM), along with being the liaison contact for the Republic of Georgia. I am 44 years old. I have been a member of NCFM for over a decade now. However, my start in the Men’s Rights Movement goes back much further. Back in January of 1989 (a month before I turned 12), I single-handedly and without even the knowledge of my parents, took action against my school in the United States on the grounds of sexism against boys. For the record, the investigation proved I was right.
In one sense, my involvement goes back a bit further, when as a boy in the 1980s I already began to make a list in my mind of all the injustices suffered by males around the world. The list now has about 30 items on it. I have turned this list into an international effort to get a global treaty on Men’s Rights to complement, not replace, the already existing fabulous one on women’s rights, a Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Men (CEDAM).
Needless to say, at this point in my life, I’d thought I’d seen it all with regards to sexism against males. At a minimum, I thought I had reached a point where nothing could shock me anymore. After all, what have I seen (or more accurately, know about): sexist conscription polices, circumcision, higher retirement ages for men (more on that in a minute), paternity fraud, false accusations of rape and domestic violence, men being screwed by the family court system, sexist funeral traditions here in the Republic of Georgia (I plan to write and essay about that in the coming months), and sadly so much more.
However, the recent report about the reopening of train services to the suburbs of Chennai, India really shocked me. For those of you who do not know, an article has recently gone viral (albeit from January) about the resumption of train services to the suburbs of Chennai, India. The policy (I am not sure if it is still in affect) was to restrict the train rides during peak hours (7-9:30am and 4:30-7pm) to women only. That’s five hours out of the day. So if a man arrives at say, 4:45pm, he has to wait another 2 hours and 15 minutes in order to take a train. If he were a woman, he would not have to wait.
It astounds me that anyone could even dream up such a blatantly sexist policy. Worse yet, that it could be implemented. If you don’t have a problem with this, don’t even complain about sexism EVER AGAIN! Obviously, such discrimination against any other demographic would never be tolerated. If such discrimination against men is allowed to stand, then there is no limit to what sexism against men is possible. Indeed, there have even been calls for curfews against men in both Britain and Australia. Moreover, it is shocking that there was so little outrage a decade ago over the t-shirt that read “Boys are stupid; throw rocks at them”.
This brings up the biggest reason (and there are many!) as to why I got involved with Men’s Rights: even more than the many specific examples of sexism that I mentioned earlier, it’s the attitude of society. We would never tolerate such blatant discrimination against any other demographic. Indeed, in some countries, people have been brought up on charges of hate speech for so much less (For the record, I am against that, as I firmly believe in freedom of speech). The good news is that if society could just show a similar aversion to discrimination against males that it shows towards ever other demographic, most of these issues could be solved so quickly.
I mentioned the issue of higher retirement ages for men, in spite of the fact that men die younger. I am excited to announce that NCFM-Georgia will be filing a challenge with the Constitutional Court against the retirement age policy here in Georgia. For the record, it is 65 for men and 60 for women. A feminist here once told me that it is a matter of opinion as to whether that is sexism. No!!! It’s definitely sexism.
I still truly believe that an egalitarian world is possible and even within close reach, if we would just “go there”. I plan to write a follow up article about what we can do to get there…there are solutions.
Thanks for all your efforts Carl. And thanks for your equalist (balanced) approach in these matters.