“In the past quarter century, we exposed biases against other races and called it racism, and we exposed biases against women and called it sexism. Biases against men we call humor.”

—Warren Farrell, Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say

A few years back I began to articulate something that had been growing behind everything I felt and believed.  At the time it was very difficult.  When you feel something yet can’t explain it or suspect something and can’t verbalize it, speaking about it doesn’t always help.  I felt an imbalance…a sense of unfairness and after some time I found the word to describe it.  Misandry.  I discovered that the older I became and the more I began to reason, the more I was faced with a lack of reason. 

An example:  A man walks into a room and calls a woman a bitch.  What’s the reaction. What do you think in this situation.  Dude’s foul, what the hell is wrong with him? Why would he disrespect her like that?

A woman walks into a room and calls a man a dog.  What did he do? Great another man making us all look bad.

Alot of you will say, “That’s not what I would think…but I’m speaking in generalizations, as one must do in any conversation about society.

Then I started noticing sitcom patterns: Beautiful intelligent woman is married to overweight, bumbling idiot…hilarity ensues.

As I was sitting around wondering how the hell these dudes on T.V. were getting these women, I also started thinking about the effect.  Do women see this and think settling for the cute chubby guy results in a safer marriage…as long as you watch him like a child.  Do cute chubby men see this and think they’ll be o.k. even if women around them don’t seem to go for them now?  Perhaps it was just a general statement about the average married couple.  Perhaps I should watch the History channel more.  I let it go, but then I started working on projects that involved fatherhood and I started reading statistics.  At the same time I was on the internet alot and I started going to forums.  I still do, it’s just that the more mature the forums get the less I seem to be able to participate.  I mean (as simple as your answer might be), how many men want to post in topics like:

“Why do men lie?”

“What to do about so many no good men?”

“Why are men so afraid of commitment?”

“Why do I put up with his mess?”

“When a womans fed up”

I think the majority of dudes keep on scrolling…or go to ESPN.com.  Then on the otherside we have this dude…I like to call him…an asshole really but anyway, you usually see him at open mics and he always has poems with these themes:

“Fellas, we gotta do better”

“BlackGoddessQueenMotheroftheEarthBeautifulEverything…you are perfect”

“You Don’t Need Him”

“I love your mind…but listen to what I’d do to your body“

I’d actually like to make it legal to beat this dude with a bag of nickels.  He’s most likely to have the least talent and get the strongest round of applause that night.  He’s also most likely to run through half of the women on the scene, thereby increasing animosity towards the rest of the men around.

 What really bothered me is the acceptance.  The idea that men have a lot of flaws and we all need to work on ourselves and that’s just the way it is seems to be out there.  I can’t really get with that though.  I mean who doesn’t have flaws?  How many of us know perfect people?  A better question would be…if this is the natural state of men…when did women as a whole become perfect?  I have to bite my tongue from asking…who said all of these women were actually good women?  But really, what is going on?  When did these ideas become accepted? When did fathers become deadbeat dads? When did the first suggestion to new mothers become go to child support?  Remember those statistics I mentioned…let me share some.

79.6% of custodial mothers receive a support award
29.9% of custodial fathers receive a support award46.9% of non-custodial mothers totally default on support
26.9% of non-custodial fathers totally default on support20.0% of non-custodial mothers pay support at some level
61.0% of non-custodial fathers pay support at some level66.2% of single custodial mothers work less than full-time
10.2% of single custodial fathers work less than full-time
Statistical Source: Technical Analysis Paper No. 42 - U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services - Office of Income Security PolicySo does this line up with the general sentiment? If not then how do we get this sentiment?  Here is my theory:

Feminisim has no counter-balance.  Mind you, every generation we need a push inorder to grow.  Feminisim is one of those pushes.  Like all movements you have ends of the spectrum.  On one end is “Equal pay for equal work” on the other is “To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he’s a machine, a walking dildo.“  Most women I know who identify as a feminist don’t fall on the men = dildo end of the spectrum.  I would actually say that most women fall into an area where alot of other groups are: “Treat everyone the same”.  That’s basically where most of us are…if you’re speaking from the perspective of race, gender, economic status or whatever…most people just want equality.   So while this movement was going on what happened to men.  Really…nothing.  Women in general moved ahead…some of them moved “out there” (I mean walking dildos..really?).  In the meantime…men just went about business as usual while everything changed around them.  Just to prove my point: find 10 people and ask them what misandry and misogny are.  I bet I know which is more recognized.  So I want to start a men’s movement…No.  I really don’t think that’s quite the ticket.  I don’t want a rehash of the last few decades:  Is God a man or a woman and all that jazz…which I always thought was a stupid question.  I mean it’s bad enough that people fight over custody of children…but custody of God?  Let us not drag everything down into our personal squabbles.  I propose a family movement.  I’d be ignoring history if I said that men hadn’t dominated.  I think we’d all be ignoring facts if we didn’t acknowledge that misandry is just as prevelant as misogny (if not more socially accepted).  So the answer can’t be in focusing on one at a time, it has to be focusing on the whole.  The reality of it can be seen in any (functioning) couple with a child you know.  Both parents probably work, both play their role in raising the children.  Not….so…hard…right?  Well here’s the thing: it also has to focus on families where the parent’s aren’t together.  That’s where the real issues lie.  A majority of men won’t get custody of their children and a majority of people don’t see a man’s role in the situation as anything but financial…so if a man doesn’t have money his whole existense is invalid.  Many time when a man can provide financial support time becomes an issue.  If your child doesn’t live with you then both of you start to miss out.  Really, for how many people is life restricted solely to the weekend?  How many people wait until weekends to engage in activities with their children?  Now take two  seperated people working full time, one has majority custody and the other gets the weekends.  Seems like either both will lose out unless eventually one is pushed or steps aside. I won’t even get into once the kid is a teenager.  Seems to me the key is being able to identify the value of all parties involved even when they aren’t.  What will become of a world of devalued men…and how will they react?