Men's rights advocacy: Yea or Nay?

Not exactly a dialogue --
The Spearhead: Dealing With The Reality On The Ground
In Mala Fide: Why Laura Wood and other conservatives and traditionalists just don’t get it
The Thinking Housewife:  Does Society Need Men’s Rights? (read Max's contribution) and The Liberation of Men and The Man-Hater and the Frigid White Housewife.

Dr. Fleming has dismissed men's rights advocacy, though he has not yet, as far as I know, written an article explaining in detail. First one needs to distinguish PUAs from those who supporters of Men's Rights. There may be some men who are in both groups, but this is not true of all MRAs. Dr. Fleming seems to believe that being a MRA is equivalent to playing the victim. Instead, men need to do what a man needs to do. What concrete actions does he suggest? iirc, exercising authority within the household and avoiding women who are not good for them. This is not dissimilar from what Laura Woods has written.

I believe Dr. Fleming's conclusion is based on his contempt of movements in general as a means to achieving political ends. He prefers a  more "natural" way of proceeding, which is grounded upon the individual reforming himself and being virtuous towards those around him. Building community from the ground, rather than imposing it from above using modern mass methods.

In view of the disadvantages to men offered by "Marriage 2.0" (the institution of marriage as it exists now--individual and social expectations, along with American divorce laws), some have suggested a marriage strike. Is this attitude absolute? For some, it is--they avoid marriage and maybe even women altogether, while others, those who are more inclined to the PUA lifestyle, are content with relationships with casual sex while avoiding any sort of commitment.

Do we want to claim that the men's rights movement is tainted by liberalism, and that those involved are only seeking radical autonomy? I think these are bad generalizations. Some participants at The Thinking Housewife, in their zeal to attack radical autonomy (or disordered self-love), have fallen into the error of mischaracterizing the motives of of MRAs (as can be evidenced by the responses of various people to the posts at THT). Some MRAs may follow or endorse a hedonistic lifestyle. But not all are--as far as I can tell, the movement as a whole does not seek specific ends other than to redress injustices. They seek seek reform of laws and courts--especially with respect to divorce, child custody, rape, sexual harassment, affirmative action and so on. Some may actually believe in radical equality, expecting men and women to share the same burdens. Others may be only using this as a rhetorical device against professed feminists to attack their consistency. We need to distinguish between means and ends -- what ends are MRAs seeking, and how do they wish to attain them? We should not be surprised if there is a wide range of ends. But MRAs appear to be united on addressing the injustices perpetuated against men by the system.

Still, it is not enough to "turn the laws back." I think the traditional conservatives and Christians are correct that long-lasting legal and social reform cannot be accomplished without a spiritual renewal. It may be that any men's rights movement is destined to be ineffective given the distribution of power in our society and the resulting resistance of the system to reform. (Power has never been in the hands of all men, but of the few.) But I can't fault these men for doing their best to educate other men about the bias of the system and seeking change, and despite the odds, they may be able to achieve some small victories, if they can find a few sympathetic judges and politicians.

(Idiocy and Hatred in the Men’s Rights Movement; Paul Elam, On Jury Nullification and Rape)
Male Authority and Domestic Violence

The Colonization of Male Space

Begun on December 15.

Items of Interest, 29 June 2010

Laura Wood, Twilight: Emotional Porn for Women
Wlmer, Women Leaving their Husbands for Vampires

Asia Times:
Petraeus circles two camps
With General Stanley McChrystal out of the picture in Afghanistan, pressure is growing on US President Barack Obama to move up his July 2011 troop withdrawal timetable and get behind a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. Voices calling for an open-ended military commitment are equally strident. Incoming General David Petraeus is soon to reveal how he will weave his way between the two camps. - Jim Lobe

Obama risks all on flip of a COIN
General David Petraeus, US President Barack Obama's new commander in Afghanistan, is the "guru" of the counter-insurgency (COIN) cult. Petraeus' policy demands a decade-long war, involving nation-building, waged village by village, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars and countless casualties. That simply doesn't square with troops supposedly due to start leaving Afghanistan next summer. - Robert Dreyfuss

Energy Bulletin:
Live dangerously: 10 easy steps (original)

Shannon Hayes, Yes! Magazine

When I first released Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, I was advised to make a list of “easy steps for becoming a radical homemaker” as part of my publicity outreach materials. My shoulders slumped at the very thought: Three years of research about the social, economic, and ecological significance of homemaking, and I had to reduce it to 10 easy tips? I didn’t see a to-do list as a viable route to a dramatic shift in thinking, beliefs, and behaviors.

A reader writes to the Thinking Housewife about President Obama proclamation for Father's Day: I Proclaim All Fathers to Be Milquetoast. Why does he denigrate traditional fatherhood? Is it because he is a cultural Marxist? Or because of his childhood? (Or something else?)

Laura Wood takes a critical look at John Paul II's writings on women

John Paul II and The Phony Feminine Genius

Related:
Oz Conservative: A generation of women living blind to the future

More from the Thinking Housewife to infuriate the feminists

‘Women Are Not Angelic’ and Songs for Girls (see Songs of Marriage and Blue Skies)

No authority before the Fall, except that of God?

The Thinking Housewife makes the following claims in On Equality and Chastity:

Let’s start with revealed truth. Here we know that God sees men and women as absolutely equal in dignity. They are both made in His image and have free will. This is what makes human nature partly divine, what distinguishes a human being from the rest of creation: the human soul and free will. Genesis makes this equality unshakably clear from the beginning of our sacred history, which is why the Judeo-Christian view is so momentous and superior to that of cultures that do not explicitly define male and female or that view either women or men as spiritually inferior.

Some argue that the symbolism of Genesis implies male superiority. There is no basis for this claim. It is feminist gobbledy-gook. The fact that Eve was made last could more reasonably indicate her superiority than her inferiority (in light of the whole, it obviously indicates neither). After all, Adam was made after lower forms of creation. That Eve was made from Adam’s rib could also point to her superiority; after all, Adam was made from the dust of the earth. That she is a “help meet” does not signify servitude but worthiness. No, in the most important sense they are the same, of equal status, created to love and to know God, to rule over the rest of creation, to choose obedience to God or rebellion.

Eve’s rebellion is not less significant than Adam’s; it is more. Look at this. See what it says of the power of women, about the implications of their freedom. She succumbed to evil first and must take on a heavy share of suffering, more so than man:

”I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

God did not make Eve to be ruled. It is only when we grasp this essential idea, that the necessary submission of women to men is not what God intended and not what He wished, nor is it in accord with their ultimate destiny, that we can make sense of human history.

The first claim is that Eve's rebellion is more significant because she suffers more as a result of her disobedience. But Adam's rebellion is more significant because he is the head of the human race, and as a result of his disobedience, all are deprived of the gift of original justice.

As for the second claim, some may interpret Pope John Paul II as supporting this position, that Adam had no authority over Eve before the Fall, or that she was not subordinate to his authority. I do not think this is a tenable understanding of John Paul II's writings: see The Authority of the Husband according to the Magisterium, by Paul N. Check. It may be that some Christian personalists make this claim, however. Just as St. Augustine argued that government was an artifact of the Fall and not an institution that existed before it, so some would claim that the authority of the husband over the wife is a result of the Fall, and is not ordained by God through the very nature of things.

However, if we follow St. Thomas's reasoning, then just as government is natural to man living in a group with other men, since there must be some principle which directs them to the common good, so there must be some authority which directs the family to its proper good.

Since Genesis does not speak of civil government, it could be argued that there is a greater scriptural foundation for the claim that the husband has no authority over the wife in the Garden of Eden: Genesis 3. But what is translated by the English "rule" is dominare, not imperare or regere, and we see that various authorities, including Pope John Paul II (see Fr. Check's essay), have understood this to mean "dominate," not "rule." As a result of sin, the husband is prone to lording his authority over the wife, just as the Gentiles lord their authority over others (in this passage dominare is used once again).

A more feasible claim might be that this authority was shared equally between husband and wife, but there is nothing within Tradition to indicate that this is the case, and I do not believe that any Church Father ever supported this position.

In a response to her original post, the Thinking Housewife adds: "The temptation of Eve, this legendary event that symbolizes a real moment in history, does speak of the greater impulsiveness of women as well as their immense influence over men. Face it. Men are less often taken in. Women tend to be more trusting."

But Eve's problem wasn't that she was trusting or impulsive -- rather, it was the sin of pride. Concupiscence was not a factor since this was before the Fall, not after. From the Genesis account we do read that Eve sought the forbidden fruit not for herself, but also for her husband, sharing it with him, thus acting as the helpmate and wife, even if in a disordered and sinful way.

Latin Dictionary
Verbix

Laura Wood on selecting a wife

Questions a man should ask when evaluating women:

1. Does she talk about herself obsessively?

2. Does she veer between exuberance and tears?

3. Does she believe in homosexual “marriage” (a tip off that she has no idea what marriage is)?

4. Does her father seem indifferent to what she does?

5. Does she have children?

6. Is she aggressively pretty?

7. Does she have a group of friends who exult in girly togetherness?

8. Does she have a career instead of a job?

9. Does she lift weights and pursue an exhausting exercise regimen?

10. Is she incapable of reading a book by a man?

11. Does she disbelieve in the existence of God?

12. [See Kristor's comment below]

The sinking of the US Navy.

Navy Times: Cruiser CO relieved for ‘cruelty’

The Thinking Housewife: The Holly and the Navy. I first learned about Capt. Holly Graf through The Spearhead. Sage McLaughlin writes in response to the Thinking Housewife:

This women in the military business is a difficult subject. I obviously have strong opinions-and yes, strong feelings-about it. What I hate most, though, is that it makes me feel ungentlemanly. This is just one more way in which feminism tears down what is good and honorable in both sexes. Faced with such absurdities and outrages, men are forced to argue vehemently for women’s unfitness for certain positions. We are forced to bang on about women’s lack of physical prowess, to assert women’s inherent inferiority in certain spheres, and contrary to liberal belief, decent Christian men hate doing that. I hate being forced to play the part of the chauvinist, to gripe about women’s inability to do this or that thing as well as a man.

It’s possible to make the same points in a genteel way in discreet circumstances, and where the problems are not so radical in scope. But feminist society is passing a certain line of egregiousness, such that a chivalrous attitude is no longer possible. Pointing out female inadequacies, in short, is a thoroughly unpleasant and increasingly necessary business. Quite apart from the concrete issues at stake, we are all poorer for this coarsening of men’s verbal handling of women. (Relatedly, it never occurs to feminists that in order to show super heroines like Buffy the Vampire Slayer triumphing over her male adversaries, they first must show her being savagely punched and kicked by a man, as though this were normal. But such really is the price of “equality.”)

I only wonder what protection feminists will flee to when they’ve finally crushed the last vestiges of Christian chivalry under heel?

Laura Wood responds with a comment about "white-knighting":

As I said in the previous post on patriarchy, deference to feminism is the modern equivalent of chivalry. Men are naturally inclined to some form of deference to women and this instinctive tendency was gradually perverted into what we have today. While men once flung their cloaks on puddles as women walked the street, they now grant them admiralties and warships.

Greed, materialism and just plain ungodliness are part of male capitulation to feminism. But there is also this unspoken code of honor, the natural expression of male competition for female attention and of masculine protectiveness. This does make it hard for men to stand up and complain about these outrages and about the greedy takeover of traditionally male fields.

It has taken an amazingly long time for men in any significant numbers to begin to speak out, rather than simply grumble to themselves.

Of course criticism is not the only way to skin this cat. It’s also possible to praise and defend the feminine ideal.

There are plenty of men out there who are quite willing to criticize women -- anger and hate, by their very nature, are strong motivators.


More links:
Susan Katz Keating
Military Corruption

Someone, ex-Navy, who defends women being put in command of combat vessels: WOMEN ARE 100% CAPABLE OF SERVING IN COMMAND OF NAVY COMBATANT SHIPS!! DO NOT DOUBT THAT FOR A MILLISECOND.

An example of how military officers feel compelled to defend the presence of women in the military based on a modern egalitarian notion of "merit." Small wonder that there is such little resistance within the military to the trends. With the possible opening of positions on US submarines to women (and hence command positions), how much more can the Navy tolerate? It is fortunate that it, like the Air Force, doesn't have to be tested by an equal enemy.

Drs. Fleming and Wilson are correct -- if men had not supported Feminism, would it have gotten anywhere?

Typical establishment talk, even if muted: Could women sink U.S. submarines?

And the feminist argument.
By Tracy Moran, USATODAY.com

The Thinking Housewife: Therapeutic Tears

Dr. Fleming criticizes that sort of sentimentalism that passes for morality and obliterates all distinctions between social relations. Sentimentalism seems to be part and parcel of Uhmerican narcissism. It is much easier to feel good and to show emotion then it is to be virtuous and act accordingly. Character is reduced to thinking correctly and feeling correctly, and since the barriers to these are relatively low, many Uhmericans believe that they themselves are good, even if they fail greater tests. (I'll grant that they also need to follow the more fundamental precepts of justice, i.e. do not murder or steal, but what of other sins against justice, like verbal sins against one's neighbor?)

What do those gathered do the next day, in order to revivify their communities and to stall their decline? Probably not much. The murder of a young person is an evil and a cause of sadness, but is anything being done to prevent this from happening again? As Laura Wood and others have pointed out, the feminist indoctrination of young women, that they are invincible and can do anything, continues.

More by The Thinking Housewife:
The Safety of Women in an Uncivilized World
The Evil Called Illness

The Thinking Housewife recommends What Women Never Hear.

The Thinking Housewife: Women, Men and Stress: Why Sex Differences Matter