Houellebecq:"That's the kind of melodramatic hyperbole used all the time by the feminists."

Yep. Good, wasn't it?

Pynchme I doubt that I could make it any clearer than I have done in previous posts that rape and sexual abuse should never be condoned.

What I am saying is that if women have a problem with men’s behaviour there are respectful ways and disrespectful ways of trying to deal with it. When any group tries to solve their problem by abusing the norms of logic and reason to which we adhere as mature and equal adults they should not be listened to. If they have a reasonable argument they should present it in a reasonable way. When they don’t do that then it is natural to suspect they are trying push an agenda which is unreasonable. It is not what they say but the way that they say it.

The agenda here is to make most men feel bad and to take responsibility for the behaviour of some men. When you try and force guilt upon someone who has no reason to be guilty then you are acting aggressively. That is what these articles try and do because they cannot come up with a reasonable argument. Some men do behave badly that is a fact that no one can deny. That is the problem. The problem is not the attitudes of most men.

How will those some men change? Certainly not by women trying to force most men to feel guilty for something they have not done. Men do bad things and so do women. That is not news and it does not need to be debated. Nor will those some men change by being told to change by women or other men. They have to admit they have a problem first. You would not expect an alcoholic to stop drinking just because you tell him to. Those men know what they do is wrong because they have a conscience like everyone else. How do you stop men and women from doing the wrong thing in any situation – that is the issue.

Hi Phanto,

Just for now I'm offering some opinions from men on why they've chosen to adopt a pro feminist position.

http://www.xyonline.net/category/article-content/mens-fathers-rights

http://www.nomas.org/tenets

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/men-boys2003/Connell-bp.pdf

Thanks for your responses.

E.Sykes - Hiya. Do you have any other literature from fellas on the benefits for men of working with women on these issues ? I always enjoy seeing your posts too; but confess that I need you to elaborate your point so that I can try to understand what's involved.

Pynchme, most of what it demonstrated is how far some and especially Michael Flood go to demonise the fathers groups. You never see the same kind of material from him attacking the extremes of the mothers groups who have often pushed and dishonest and genderised view of child abuse for their own benefit.

Rather than paying attention to the vital role some fathers/mens groups go in helping men through an incredibly traumatic time Flood and others attack the groups ruthlessly. I had support from one through a period where I did not no where else to turn, when my ex was trying all sorts of stunts and manipulations to change child custody arrangements to suit her lifestyle and handout preferences regardless of the impact on myself or my son. At no stage did I recieve any encouragement to do wrong, to intimidate, to lie. Rather I got advice on what options I had, I got the reminder that countinuing to be the best I could be often pays out in the long run (kids grow up and often work out who played the nasty games). There were some pretty angry men around (and mostly with very good cause) but my impression was that the support they got helped them make better choices about how they dealt with terrible situations.

There are examples where some men assoiated with fathers groups have done extreme stuff, pushing people into blatently unfair no-win situations tends to do that to some. That does not make it OK but it should be cause to consider why it's happened.

I think a lot of the issues which men complain about in family law are paternalistic in nature (women are and should be the prime carers etc) but while all to often (but not always) feminists are seen as defenders of that system feminism is seen as sexist.

I'll take Flood and others like him seriously when I see them applying the same standards to mothers groups that they apply to fathers groups but I can't see that happening anytime soon.

R0bert

Pynchme,citing Michael Flood in any context is admitting you don't like facts. Yes, I realise he's pro-feminist, but sadly, he's far from pro-truth.

I did read the third link you gave, which is a report published on the UN site, but which the author is careful to state is his personal view, not an officially-sanctioned UN position.

He makes the following bald statement, which I'd like your comment on:"Even when they cannot see personal benefits, however, men and boys have a responsibility in this area. As long as any systematic gender inequalities persist, delivering advantage to men over women and promising future advantage to boys, the advantaged have an ethical responsibility to use their resources to change the system."

He offers no supporting argument and without it, his statement is nothing more than fluff. What behooves me to support a schema in which I will suffer disadvantage? Sure, if I want to make a personal decision to do so, that's fine, but if I don't, what is the basis on which I "have a responsibility" to those who would seek to their own advantage over mine?

I run a business, like many others. If I have a competitive advantage (better products, bettter service, larger capacity, better networks, whatever) do I also "have a responsibility" to my competitors who don't have that advantage to "use {my} resources (gained by my competitive advantage) to "change the system" to remove my own advantage?

A strictly utilitarian view may be that if I possess such an advantage, then my competitor should "use [his] resources" to adopt the superior system, thus leading to improvements all round, rather than the stutification and disincentive implied by the author of the report you like so much.

As Col Rouge pointed out, the UN is essentially a toothless tiger that has lost all purpose other than the employment of third-rate bureaucrats. Even they couldn't endorse this report.

The title 'Post feminist' or 'pro-rape' indicates that if a person does not support feminism, they then must be supportive of a pro-rape culture!

Nothing could be further from the truth!

It is a form of entrapment, one does not need to be supportive of feminism in order to show that they do not support rape or sexual assault.

Suzy and Sykes and others, take the view that if any men challange or do not agree with their ideas or opinions, that these men just have to be misogynistic.

So basically if Suzy, Sykes and co do not get their way, it must be because of misogyn. This is an attempt at guilt tripping and emotional blackmail, basically designed to get opponents to attempt to prove that they are not supportive of the alleged rape culture.

This is similar to a tactic used by a person who accuses another of not loving them, and it doesn't matter how hard the accused tries, they will never be able to prove to the accuser, how much they love that person.

Psychologist Toby Green pointed out that some people truly beleive that if their point of view is challanged, they then beleive that they are not loved or cared about and that they are being discounted or not valued as a person.

Various road blocks are put in the way of really and seriously exploring digging below the surface of serious issues.

Typically I seen written and also expressed verbally that there are women who truly beleive "Women are better people than men."

Yet there is, a not very well hidden tendency where it is common for some or a lot of women to " continually find fault" with others.