Tom Matlack replies to commenters on his own post, “The Feminist I Used to Know“
I realize that post-modern (for lack of a better term) feminists and the MRA’s hate each other with tons of venom. The stuff said on both side quite frankly is not civil. It’s personal and ugly. I feel like I have dipped my toe into the wrong pond only to find it charged with electricity.
The MRA guys I frankly write off for the most part because at their most extreme they are just insane. I didn’t even know what the MRA was until I pissed them off and the SpearHead took aim at me.
But the feminists, well I consider myself a feminist. I take very seriously how my daughter and wife get treated by me, others, and the world. I have thought long and hard what it means to love fully. To be a good man, just for me, with regard to women.
So it’s much more difficult to take the level of personal attack, and frankly organized piling on, by so-called feminists. Sure it hurts. It hurts a lot. But that really doesn’t matter in the end. What it really leaves me asking is, “Where is all this personal bashing getting us?”
One of the things I asked in my original piece which caused the world to turn upside down is why it is that women want to talk about manhood so much more than men do? We see it right on GMP with our evangelists. The most insanely dedicated are for the most part women. Our CEO, as much as I love and adore and respect and don’t ever want to lose her, is a woman.
So we hit this divide. What is the point of what we are doing here on GMP? Is it to debate feminism? Is it to allow women to talk about their experiences with men? Is it to try to fight off the MRA? It is to have these vicious rounds of name calling in the name of gender?
That’s not where we started and not where I think we have the widest appeal. Sure it drives a lot of traffic from those interested in gender but not traffic from those who are more interested in how the heck to get through the day.
In the beginning this was about first person story-telling. Men telling their truth in a way that inspired and opened up the conversation to others. It was an attempt to find common ground among men, and women if they were interested in listening to men’s stories. When a man talks about losing his job or his wife or his child or his arm in war, feminism and MRA are no longer even part of the conversation. It is about hearing some guy talk about what remarkable, challenging, courageous, painful, joyous thing has happened in his life. It is about making men feel less alone. It’s about getting away from sports and porn and digging deep into the heart of the matter. Something for which I think many men yearn.
To my mind we have lost that thread more than we should. I don’t want to fight with those who call themselves feminists and then throw hand grenades at me. They have proven that they really aren’t interested in what I am interested in: men’s stories and goodness.
As I told Amanda [Marcotte] directly on email before her last round of vicious attacks on me, you all are way too organized for me to mount a one man campaign to try to prove you wrong. I am not a debater. That was never my aspiration. My aspiration was to sit in Sing Sing and listen to a man tell me what happened. That brings tears to my eyes and moves my soul.
About the Editors
How long does it take to get a comment out of moderation? I have a comment with no profanity, no hyperbolic bs, and no web links which has been in moderation for 20 minutes.
Following is my 3part rambling monologue which details in explicit detail exactly the information (that I have to hand anyway, I’m sure there is much more) proving feminist activist organizations combat of fathers and men’s rights.
I posted this in a different article back in April.
Following are some of my wandering thoughts on why most of the fault of bad blood (between the two mentioned groups) lies with feminists. This is simply because the largest and most influential feminist organizations and the most active feminist members (i.e. those feminists most engaged and with clout to exert political will do so with the intent to) attack men’s equal rights.
One of the arguments in this article and MANY articles defending feminists is that feminism is a big ole umbrella, and MRA’s shouldn’t be attacking an entire movement based on the actions of a few radicals on the fringe.
The problem is that the feminists who are engaging in active hard-core fanatical to-the-death combat against men’s equal rights are not the radical fringe of the feminist movement, but rather it’s radical CORE.
Andrea Dworkin admitted she was raped by male family members. And yet this person was seen as a STALWART UNIMPEACHABLE GUARDIAN OF EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN AND ***MEN***???
Where was the out-cry when Germaine Greer said she liked looking at nude pictures of boys (roughly paraphrased)”Not shaved young men mind you but nude young boys”!
Besides, if the statement were correct that it is the radical fringe, then where is the outcries of the main-stream men-loving feminists when the feminist leaders frequently attack and disparage men, and men’s rights? How can a movement be about equality when it’s MOST ACTIVE members fight to keep an entire gender down?
Some general evidence of feminism’s active assaults upon men’s and father’s rights:
The founding mothers statements:
ht tp://www.fatherhoodcoalition.org/cpf/newreadings/2001/feminist_hate_speech.h tm
A quick perusal of some of the statements of the founding mothers will quickly open ones eyes. If you put the word black in front of male or man in these speeches and they would make a grand wizard at a kkk rally blush.
In the LaMusga vs LaMusga court case Gary LaMusga was fighting to keep his divorced wife from moving 1000’s of miles away with his kids. The trial court upheld the father’s wishes, the first district reversed, then the Cali supreme court upheld the original ruling. The previous precedent used in Cali law was the Burgess decision which basically stated that as long as the children’s environment was improving AND the move wasn’t done by the mother (ahem I meant custodial parent) in bad faith (as a punitive thing against the father—ahem NCP) then the move could go forward.
During the supreme court case dozens of feminist-indoctrinated DV centers from all over the country wrote or signed onto an amicus brief to the supreme court urging the judges to not overturn the Burgess decision. These DV centers should not be using tax dollars to turn around and lobby government for their anti-father, anti-child agenda.
ht tp://www.glennsacks.com/enewsletters/enews_10_9_07.h tm
10th paragraph or so.
In deciding LaMusga the supreme court stated that a likely deleterious impact (due to the move) on the child & NCP bond should be a strongly determining factor IN AND OF ITSELF, even so much as to change custody if necessary.
THIS DECISION would seem to be a win for everybody concerned about REAL justice and REAL parental rights for BOTH PARENTS having custody or not and REAL rights for the child to maintain a relationship with both parents.
What was feminist reaction to this news?
They tried to overturn a win for JUSTICE for EQUAL rights and rights of the child to have both parents in their life post-divorce by pushing for the bill SB730 to be passed allowing custodial parents to move anywhere in the country or out of the country (over-riding LaMusga’s decision that family courts must weigh likely destruction of the father-child bond, oops I meant NCP-child bond).
Luckily this heinous bill was defeated by Sacks.
Here are some instances of NOW and other organizations actively fighting against shared parenting (despite the overwhelming evidence which shows that post-divorce kids who have substantial time with both parents fare better in life):
ht tp://www.glennsacks.com/nysp/index.h tm
ht tp://www.glennsacks.com/north_dakota_shared.h tm
ht tp://www.glennsacks.com/enewsletters/enews_11_28_06.h tm
ht tp://www.michnow.org/files/jointmandatorycustody.pdf
Feminists state that fathers pushing for SHARED CUSTODY is about control, but mothers pushing for SOLE CUSTODY is *never* about control.
Another issue in regards to fathers is forced acquiescence. Feminists were all over the concept of forced acceptance when the discussion was women dropping allegations of rape due to fear or shame.
But, when it comes to father’s shared custody feminists put their fingers behind their back and cross them when they say that:”95% of fathers agree to the custody arrangement.”
Feminists know full well, that any father contemplating fighting for shared custody likely has been told by his attorney that he may pay many dozen’s of thousands of dollars only to achieve less custody/visitation than the standard alternating weekends. The “acceptance” of this custody arrangement isn’t at all indicative of what he wanted, but it is a barometer of how futile it is to fight for custody as a man. Mothers get sole custody 80% of the time and shared 14%. Fathers get shared 14% and sole 6%.
Next issue:
More father-hating feminists released a “journalistic report” on how abusive fathers were using false accusations of PAS to win custody of their kids. (PAS stands for parental alienation syndrome in which one parent, usually the custodial parent, engages in a campaign of trying to turn the children against the other parent often by coaching children to lie and say the other parent molested the children).
This report was published for PBS to air on all of their affiliates.
This “report” was Breaking The Silence. The poster-mother that they held up as a victim of an abusive father winning custody of his kids w/false accusations of PAS against the mother was Genia Shockome.
Only problem? The PBS ombudsman said that the report contained outright distortions and did not adhere to journalistic standards of integrity.
The program was removed from PBS. It turns out that Genia Shockome lost custody due to her fanatical campaign against the dad. It wasn’t just 1 disgruntled judge but dozens of therapists, guardian ad litmus for the children, custody evaluators (many of them feminists) who said the father should get custody.
Genia was caught on tape in a visitation center coaching her kids to make false statements of abuse.
Then there is VAWA which actively states (unconstitutionally) that no grants may be awarded from vawa funds to any DV center that admits men.
Marc Angelucci won a case in California which overturned the way grants are awarded in California. This case centered around David Woods who could not find a safe haven for himself and his daughter due to the misandry of various DV centers. David’s daughter Megan is only alive because when her mother tried to shoot her with a shotgun it wasn’t loaded. What feminists don’t realize is that by committing a gender war, you also hurt women.
ht tp://www.glennsacks.com/blog/?page_id=1784
In this story is detailed how sheriffs were going to arrest David for punching his wife, but when finding out that he did it to save his life when his wife tried to stab him, the cops refuse to arrest her stating that David should make an appointment for her with a mental doctor. W. T. F?
ht tp://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=4037
If feminism is truly the movement that is the UNIMPEACHABLE GUARDIAN OF EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN, AAAAND ***MEN*** then how come grants from Vawa are reserved for only shelters that house all women (even 1 male client kills the grant).
If feminism is here to help men, then why do no feminist organizations ever attend “From Ideology to Inclusion”
ht tp://www.conferencealerts.com/seeconf.mv?q=ca1m0033
If feminism is here to help men why did the leading feminist organization reaction to the boy crisis break-down as follows?
Denial, ok minority boys have an issue, we’re not going to discuss the boy crisis because there is still a wage gap, ok boys have an issue—but it’s their fault, we have the solution we need to remake boys like girls.
If feminism is here to help men, then why did not one major feminist organization join as a signatory in the 1999 STOP PRISON RAPE NOW bill?
If feminism is here to help men, then why did NOW have a closed door session with Obama to re-direct the stimulus? NOW stated that the stimulus shouldn’t be given to “sweaty men” and 41% of the stimulus (for “shovel ready jobs”) was instead given to female dominated fields in education and medicine which HADN’T been hit with the huge wave of layoffs that construction and manufacturing had? In other words, in the worst recession for men since the great depression feminists demanded (and got!) much more money to make the already comparatively better job prespects for women even a larger disparity against mens.
If feminism is here to help men, then why is it that disparity = discrimination except when feminists say so? Feminists point to wage disparities and shortage of women in STEM fields, and women in tenured positions, CEO’s, judges as DE FACTO discrimination.
But, when concerned people point to the fact that only 35% of college graduates are men, suddenly it’s not indicative of anything it’s just people making private decisions with their lives.
If feminism is here to help men, then why do men like Marv Alberts, Kobe Bryant, and the duke 3 keep getting caught up in the rape bruehaha that feminists (and their today prosecutors) use as a way to shame male sexuality? Surely these women must be aware that those most hurt by prosecutorial misconduct are poor black males?
If feminism is here to help men, then why do they keep (seemingly deliberately) conflating dysfunctionality with masculinity? Why do feminists keep pointing to men who commit acts of violence as evidence of the need for better men? These aren’t average samples of men. I could just as easily point to the 1million volunteer fire-fighters across the USA who are 99% men (strangely women don’t want to join unpaid firefighter teams) and say men don’t need to change. Or, I could point to the fact that mothers commit 70% of all parental child abuse (even when you include sexual) and we need a better breed of women.
If feminism is here to help men, then why do they constantly attack male sports and scholarships with title ix? If a university cannot find enough interested women to field a golf team, or volleyball team then they must kill male positions/scholarships or the women can sue, even though the only issue going on is that men & women have different levels of interest in sports. This has lead to 12,000 athletic scholarships for men being eliminated—coincidentally most are poor black and Hispanics.
The ultimate tell-tale sign that feminists are scared and are ACTIVELY trying to control the conversation about MRA issues is this web page, but also that they constantly try to delude people into thinking that any critique of feminism is an attack upon women, or misogynistic behavior.
The simple fact is that feminism by the facts of its activists deeds and the majority of feminists (of whatever break-off denomination) who say nothing (about feminist activists war on fathers) has morphed into nothing but a blatantly evil, lying movement for female supremacy. Feminists advocate for what benefits women (even when it is UNequal or Unjust) just as big tobacco advocates for itself, just as big pharma advocates for what benefits itself, and just as big oil advocates for what benefits itself.
The ultimate irony is that the #1 victim in this gender war on fathers is the children who grow up without 1 parent.