Good point Tboy at the top of this page. You reduced the main reason why we demonize men to a few easily understood words. Good effort.

<You’ve caught on that it’s tricky for men to figure out how to deliver both of these things you need, that you don’t have a lot of good direction to give to fellas about it, and that neither does anyone else.”>

<How can men be supportive and non-oppressive while remaining overtly masculine?>

<“Lots of heteronormative men know something is wrong with the way we think about sex and gender. I can see them struggling with it when we talk. They can’t put their finger on it; they have a hard time engaging it.>

I must say I rather like the material that Hugh wrote.

In Manliness and Feminism 2 Judgment day some of the comments make for an interesting read, particularly HughRistik who wrote a response to her creep article.

http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2010/10/15/creep-noh/
1. <Lesbian journalist Norah Vincent dressed up and lived as a man for 6 months for her book Self-Made Man. She tried dating, and got a horrible shock. She discovered that the heterosexual male initiator role is much harder than she ever imagined as a woman:
We don’t have to do the part where you cross the room and you go up to a stranger that you’ve never met in the middle of a room full of people and say the first words. And those first words are so hard to say without sounding like a cheeseball or sounding like a jerk<
Cheeseball, jerk, or perhaps… creep?>

Clarrisse wrote and I tend to agree with her.

<Sometimes there is an objective truth, and sometimes if someone gets uncomfortable due to something I’ve done, it’s not actually my fault. (And sometimes it is my fault, too, of course).

And I get the strong impression that this is something that mainstream feminism doesn’t want to touch even with a ten-foot pole. And I really wonder if that’s most of why no acceptable behavior is defined: mainstream feminism is afraid of invalidating any woman’s experience, even if that experience might be problematic, so any behavior by a man is reserved as potentially inappropriate.>

You must be joking JamesH surely?

You believe that a lesbian dressing up as a heterosexual male going out and trying to chat up heterosexual females is a true demonstration of how men are 'demonised' if they try to chat up a woman?

Lol!
No wonder the poor women she/he spoke to ran a mile!

For goodness sake, the dating world is a nasty place at times and we will all have experienced rejection at least once in our adult lives.

Women can and do show men they are interested in them, only to be shot down and devastated by their rejection, just as badly as happens to men when they are rejected.

Rejection is not the exclusive domain of men JamesH, so by your reckoning both men and women in our society are 'demonised' by each other?

JamesH, some very interesting links. I think the reason that Pelican has trouble grasping the problem is that she actually LIKES men, but she also has had 40 years of "all men are bastards" through official channels and via her experience in the public service. She has trouble reconciling what she knows viscerally - that men are no more or less decent people than women - with the propaganda that tugs at her female instinct to support other women.

Suzeonline, of course, dpoesn't like men at all. She's thoroughly convimcved that all the ills of the world would disappear if men were simply magicked away. She's a bit squeamish about actually doing anything to bring this about, but she'd be standing safely in the second row, watching with avaricious glee, all the while bemoaning the fate of owmen in Afghanistan or Whocareswhereistan while making sure she keeps her own hand out.

The feminist movement, which contains a large number of Suzeonlines, albeit usually better educated thanks to male-generated tax dollars, has very cleverly manipulated the positive emotional drive of women like Pelicab over a very long time. Hardly surprising - who better to understand how to manipulate women than women? It's clear that men don't.

In the meantime, the women of Afghanistan are being "rescued" by a large group of men, quite a lot of whom have died in the process. 'twere ever thus...

Anti
I do like men, most women do including Suzeonline who is married to a man if I remember correctly.

And while you may see me as one of the great manipulated, you devalue my personal experiences and general character by casting me as just another of the great manipulated. That is fine we are all shaped by conditioning to some extent, some more able to look outside those constraints than others. I probably fail on being able to do this on some fronts as I suspect we all do.

It is pertinent to look critically at what is presented enmasse and separate truth from fiction or facts from spin.

One comment you make I freely acknowledge that 'tug' at the female instinct to support other women. It is not propoganda that tugs that instinct it is because I am a woman and have empathy and for the growing tendency for men to see themselves as the great oppressed without opening their eyes and minds to a more even-handed reality.

Some of the pro-men movements go too far and if you can't see that then you also need to examine your ability to see through some pretty vitriolic propaganda where women are painted quite severely as the oppressors in black and white terms. I am also not going to bow to anti-women propogranda that diminishes the impact of violence by victim blaming. This in no way diminishes male sexuality only a plea for gentlemanly behaviour.

There is no recognition of the fact that women when abused, are largely abused by men and need support. This does not mean that men who are abused should be forgotten where have I ever argued that. I can't make a valid comment on the prevalence of DV on men and I can see it is a sensitive area as men have the pressure of 'manning up' and being disbelieved in cases of female violence. I don't know the statistics but men have been able to access DV services for a long time, and they do.