Talking derisively with respect to a man's family name...does that belong in "The Catalog of Anti-Male Shaming Tactics"? make him feel guilty once again, huh. Go to it fellas.

My apologies about all this cross-referencing stuff.
http://americanwomensuck.com/

Romany,

'I know for certain that there is a lot I would have done differently had I known more about women's history and place in the world.'

What a strange comment. What exactly would you have done in your day to day life based on a different understanding of history? I would think it better to place your decisions on the current times and your own reality of 'place' in the world rather than look to women of a different time and place.

pynchme,

Good to see your list of approved pynchme reading material. James, go and read what pynchme has set out for you, and don't go to those nasty mens rights sites. I remember one topic where you somehow decided for yourself the males were all visiting Mens rights sights.

You seem to have good points, but it looks as though when someone counters them you just ignore the counter punch. There's been a few times I've been looking forward to what you might have to say in response to someone and it gets side-stepped.

Here James talks of some kind of propper measure of feminist progress (and a naive assumption of an end-point), and you just rubbish the site he posted a link to, and then talk about chivalry.

Just to ruffle your feathers, I like the joke about black men being expected to stand up for whites to sit being evidence of subservience, but when men stand up for women it's chivalry.

A woman keeping her father's name, in preference to her husband's father's name, does nothing for the women of generations past that have conceived, birthed and raised her ancestors.
She simply shows a certain rigidity regarding the importance of her own self identity.
Who cares what her father was named? Or, indeed, what her husband's father was named?
For me, it came down to an insistence of having the same last name as my own kids! After all, I did all the pushing!
So I took my husband's name. Doesn't make a jot of difference to all the women of my history, or of my husband's history, who remain nameless regardless of my own small decision regarding family names.
Perhaps we should call ourselves by our grandmother's maiden name...hmmm, still doesn't really take the edge off the conundrum, does it?
Perhaps if we want to do something for the perception of women, we should go run a company instead.

Pynchme,

I do know Michael Flood, and when I first met him I was keen to hear what he had too say. Later my position on him has shifted. I have read many of the articles at his site and find most of them to verbally obtuse and contorted reasoning, and basically mimicing feminist discourse.

His site is promoted as being male friendly and positive, yet much of his material is anything but, unless one conforms to his version.

In one discussion I had with micheal about what is known as maternal gatekeeping, he believed that the incidence was very low, yet other research shows that up to 30% of mothers will be acting as maternal gatekeepers.

I think the concept of the Apex Fallacy is interesting and worth exploring.

So what, if you regard the writer as being poorly informed, he did however interview a woman who made these statments.

I have read Greer, Mackinnon, Fauldi and a few others whose names escape me at present. Have read David Thomas? Farrell? Melaine Phillips?

I am so over the hate speech bit that you accuse others of doing. Usually someone pulls this type of accusation out in an effort to discount what another is trying to say.

The big problem I have with judging or interpreting history, is that we are interpreting the past from our own present set of values, (surely you have heard of values conflict?) we can only interpet mostly the written word, which often sometimes leaves out a lot of information, plus one word will mean different things to different people.

Plus there can be overt meanings to what is written or said, and covert meanings that are hidden, and depending on ones own bias, or belief systems there can literally be thousands of hidden meanings.

Pynchme you talk about hate speech, yet Erin Pizzey, Suzanne Steinmetz, Murray Straus, Daphne Patai, etc have been subjected to some really vile, hateful material.

Read Neil Lyndons case
http://www.ukmm.org.uk/issues/suppression/nl.htm

Now what Neil was subjected too, that a real example of what is vile and hateful.

Houellebecq

Without departing from the thread to go into a full-scale autobiographical account –reflection, new knowledge and information has definitely shown me the how and why of various decisions and paths taken. I think that at some point or other most of us engage in a period of reflection. It’s not regret: - I don’t regret anything as each stone in the path has led me to where I am now. But at times our lives seem to be a huge, scattered jigsaw and until we put the pieces together we don’t see the whole picture.

For one thing I would have handled both the incidents I mentioned earlier in my career and the fall-out from both differently

I would not have let myself get expelled because I was abused by a Catholic priest, while he got off scott free. Although maybe that carries a little bit of regret as I found out on the News a couple of years ago that he went on to do shocking things to the kids in a nearby orphanage which maybe I could have prevented if I’d acted differently.

When I was raped I would have told my parents straight away instead of waiting ten years to do it. I would not have married the person I did. I would have got my kids out sooner. I would have known and fought for my rights instead of losing everything my kids and I owned. I would have changed my area of study and gone back to University long before I actually did.

You will just have to take my word for it that I meant what I said. I don’t think this is unusual: many people go the “Ah, if I’d known then what I know now” route. I think it’s all part of working out the meaning of one’s life and taking a grip on the present.

As I said, no regrets. The string of my Fate uncurled the way it did and that’s that. But surely one’s future depends on learning from – not uselessly brooding on – past mistakes?

James: Thanks for another link. Btw my comments were not in response to the link you provided to the 'he' but to the 'she'. Yes I believe that Michael Flood is a very approachable and helpful person though I don't know him personally. The one that I posted separately that time, however, was written by someone named Mandy Dunn (I think).

D:\Resources\Politics_of_Father_-WAV.doc

The thing that I find most problematic in the sites that you favour are that they pose men and women in adversarial roles that cast men in a position of hopelessness and play on their insecurities.

If these sites were genuinely interested in male wellbeing, they would be, with feminists, questioning the violence they experience (which is overwhelmingly done to them by other men); the exploitation by employers (who are overwhelmingly, other men) and seeking ways to reduce that. Holding women as the enemy, especially by using madeup statistics, does nothing to reduce the suffering of men.

When we have as many high powered female politicians, business leaders, high level public servants and others, as we do men, then women too can be said to be oppressing men wholesale.

As to the apex fallacy. That, as I understand it, has a mathematical basis. A fallacy only exists if one group as a whole outnumbers the other and population wise, that isn't the case between the sexes. I thought that was obvious therefore didn't bother. If you want to elaborate and explore it further ok we'll do that.

I think this quote from your recent link says a lot about why feminism (bear in mind that it's a philosphy for all people) needs to continue:

"Educated middle-class men soon learn the new verbal rules; we don't say chauvinistic things any more - openly. Feminism is merely frivolous wordplay. Journalistic fashion has favoured women over men for 30 years. Let them twitter. They're still frightened to go out at night."

J Luker London NW3

I don't know if you can grasp what a comment like that means; but it's significant to me.