Excellent article.

My main concern is how the negative portrayal of men affects boys. As adult men we can watch the first five minutes of a show like 'Everybody Loves Raymond', conclude that his character is the feminist ideal man (emasculated, fawning, and self-hating) and then change the channel. But what about boys who don’t have the maturity to see the political agenda behind a feminist dominated media? Who’s going to tell them that masculinity isn’t something that needs to be cured?

Unfortunately, schools are no better. The Australian Education Union (AEU) in its submission to the HR Enquiry into the Education of Boys 2000 (http://www.aeufederal.org.au/Publications/EducationofBoysSubmission.pdf) recommends strategies for:

“• the predominantly male issue of bullying and harassment in schools. An understanding of the harm boys and men inflict on themselves and on women and girls”

Teachers are important people in children’s lives and children believe what teachers tell them. So when boys are told that ‘maleness is a pathology’ or ‘all men are wife bashers’ from their teachers, they believe them. What hope do they have of growing up as well balanced confident young adults?

The AEU continues:

“It is timely to point out also that beyond the school years, females often proceed into a society which disadvantages them in terms of employment, training, remuneration, political power and career advancement.”

Leaving aside a crude assessment that fails to take into consideration what motivates women in the workforce; the astounding implication here is that it’s ok to sacrifice boys’ education because the social engineers are unhappy with the way girls are performing later. How many generations of boys’ education should we sabotage, one? two? Or simply until women live up to the feminist ideal of what a modern women should be?

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In fact, the AEU seems to still believe that girls are disadvantaged,

“The limited, existing resources and initiatives working to address girls’ disadvantages need to be maintained and, indeed, increased”

Unfortunately for our society schools and the media have a massive impact on our children, boys included. And when they receive constant negative assessments about masculinity then its no wonder boys struggle so much.

Can I mention the Best Bloke Joke Book, It is funny.The irish, blondes, wogs, gays, animal, god joke books out there are getting old.
What I think is the funniest is the bare foot and pregnant in the kitchen era, and how we are changing.
Let me put this another way without sounding like Germaine Greer who I have repeatedly said is just a bitter hateful woman.
How long have men been put into this new role that makes them feel insulted, degraded, demoralised, without rights or opinions and a victim? 1000 years,200, 50? After World War 2 Men came home and their wives had been doing well without them.Men and women tried to go back to the way it was but for women they had discovered a new life.
Can men be a little tolerant of the fact that women are still getting used to having their cake and eating it too after a few thousand years. It is still new and absorbing.
I wish I had seen the add with the man undressing, I get sick of seeing ads with females half dressed and little girls with makeup on and looking too gorgeous for my liking.
Robert you forgot the insurance ad where he hit a charter boat.
" Charter boat? What Charter boat." That is a pro male ad. He was driving the boat wasnt He?. lol
What about the hypochrondriac woman going on about her illnes and saying she only stayed with one chemist. That was a pro female ad. I think they make us laugh at ourselves.
Dont forget the tampon ad where they young lady is looking for a tampon and walks into the living room finding boyfriend and kitten playing with them. Ads are there to sell. Women are an important client, they are earning money and are single and out there.
Sex sells. There are still many ads depicting the woman as the mum and carer. Many half naked women in ads and unless men take a stand and say that they do not like seeing women naked then it wont stop.

Every mother in Australia should buy the book The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men by Christina Hoff Sommers and read it from cover to cover.

The author backs up with facts what we've known since our oldest son started kindergarten: boys are discriminated against in our schools and society.

To take an example, our local (public) primary school banned the fun game of Red Rover (a chasing game) because ‘it was played by the Boy Scout Movement’. It mattered nought to the Principal and her female deputies that both boys and girls had been enjoying the game at the school for decades, it was a BOY game and boys might prove unruly. In passing, it should be said that these senior women (all products of seventies feminism) were themselves unaware that the ‘boy’ Scouts had included girls for years.

In our case and like so many others, we removed our boys from public school education as soon as we could, which was Year 5. This was because we refused to have anything more to do with the second rate education given to all children but especially boys in the feminist controlled public education system. Similarly we moved our girl to the same private co-educational school as our boys because we didn’t want her to see herself as a ‘victim’ to be ‘rescued’ from an evil patriarchy.

Boys are continually being told, in everything from TV shows to movies to books, how stupid and brutish they are and how they need girls to ‘control’ their destructive urges and teach them how to be restrained, human and sensitive.

We need to focus on collaboration rather than gender identity politics. What is lacking in feminism is the lack of a positive program for males, especially boys. On top of this, what we really don’t need (but we have) is a public education system that treats boys as defective girls.

I suggest the real priority is to do something about the feminist senior managers in public education who are responsible for policy determined on outmoded fundamental feminist principles.

Not much has changed since the days of 'grrrls are sugar, spice everything nice' and "boys are frogs legs, snails and puppy dog tails."

Only difference now is that we drag that nonsense well into adulthood and dont even try to hide it. Sad.

In reference to comments made about Germaine Greer, I would like to read one person impartially criticising what she says rather than criticising her as a person.

As for men and the way that they are portrayed, it is about time people refused to accept negative media images of anyone, because whether we are aware of it or not, the media has an important role to play in everyone's life and is a very powerful tool in shaping society.