Comment by John Sctoll on the post Mars Isn’t Such a Nice Place.
♦◊♦
Whenever I read articles about how men are protrayed in the media I always think of the phrase.
“Including women and children”
This phrase is usually seen in a story about some disaster where 100s (or more) of people are killed. When you read the story or do some digging, you find out that a large portion of the people killed are men and for some reason usually it is a couple of women and perhaps a couple of children.
The male victims are usually referred by gender neutral terms just as ‘victim’, ‘worker’, ‘labourer”. IOW, men are made to be invisible and are rarely if ever counted. When a mine disaster happens 99.999% of the victims will be men but no one ever mentions gender unless a woman happens to die. Or look at the war in Iraq, when a pretty , young, white female soldier was captured, the world literally lost their mind and were tripping over themselves to make her a ‘hero’. Turns out of course she wasn’t a hero, she didnt kill a whole bunch of the enemy as was reported initially. She was captured and from her own story treated very well by her captors.
Remember, good men are invisible because they don’t stand up and demand to be counted.
—
photo by chucksimmins / flickr
Great article! Yes, I definitely agree that men need to stand up and be counted. The days of the Lone Ranger and Superman winging it alone to save humanity have been replaced with too many extremely well-organized and financed victim groups who all compete to get media attention, political power and taxpayer money. Guys – if you want a fair shake in family court, equal access for prostate cancer research, and a good education for your son – you DO need to stand up and be counted. This doesn’t mean, of course, play vicitim politics, but advocate for yourself, and… Read more »
I was referring in this comment to the ‘general mainstream media’. And I am not talking about a byline here or there, I am talking about a story that runs for days or weeks. As I posted on another story here, there is a saying/syndrome known on the net as MWWS, or Missing White Woman Syndrome. Most stats I have read regarding missing persons indicate that there are just as missing men as women. Yet, hardly a day goes by on the mainstream media where you don’t see a story about a missing woman or missing little girl and almost… Read more »
I find the comments here funny and ironic is so many ways. The Good Men Project has so many guys standing up via this media, and then it’s all no use because it’s the wrong media?
So good men are invisible, but to whom? I see many good men wherever go. The media does not care about truth, it only cares about sensationalism. Media has just become a copycat of Hollywood where drama takes precedence over factual accuracy. They don’t let truth get in the way of good story. BTW, which organization is doing a census of good men and who shall we go and contact to get ourselves counted.
Who selects these “comments of the day?”
The real hero’s in the Iraqi war story were the male Iraqi doctors whom saved Jessica’s life with emergency surgery,and whom also sought out US forces to return her to safety.
This was NOT the message the media wanted out.
Complete silence,crickets chirping.
SO the story was spread that the forces who showed up to collect her had done so at risk..
Always remember that demonization of the target group proceeds military action,this is why institutionalized misandry is so horrendous.
They are invisible because the media enforces feminism’s propaganda about the relation between the sexes. The way you put it you kind of blamed the men for being invisible but it is policy. Of course everyone should try to address the imbalance whether men or women, victims or no.
It works the other way too. In the Egyptian uprising we got told about how much the women were doing when in fact very few women took part. But if a group is doing something bad… well then any women among them don’t get highlighted the same way.
Friends Roman’s Country Men, lend me your fingers and toes.
I have ten fingers and toes. I tried to use them to count the number of good men about – but soon realised I need about 342,025,350 other people with spare fingers and toes to join in on a global scale!
Come on – Pull Your Fingers Out!
The only criticism I have of this comment is your argument that men are invisible because they don’t speak up to be counted. There are, and have been, men speaking out. The problem is society doesn’t care. They’d prefer focusing on the concerns of women as a priority. There are even special interest groups and lobbyists whom this model is their bread and butter and are doing whatever it takes to maintain this status quo. When there’s contarian writing on the wall, they have the funding to employ any tool they can get their hands on to chip it away… Read more »