Fathers, the Left and Spitting in the Wind

“You’re all just pissin’ in the wind/You don’t know it but you are. And there ain’t nothin’ like a friend/Who can tell you you’re just pissin’ in the wind.”–Neil Young, from “Ambulance Blues”

Because feminism is such a driving force in the political left, it is very difficult to get liberals and leftists to listen to our issues. When you say “fathers’ rights” they hear “male patriarchy,” even though “fathers’ rights” is simply an attempt to protect children’s relationships with their fathers and to bring some equity to the system.

Much of the left’s political strength comes from the labor unions and the African-American community. Yet the left is schizophrenic here, contending that blue collar men and black men are victims of rapacious capitalism, etc., until the moment that they have a child support obligation, upon which time they immediately morph into highflying “deadbeat dads” who stiff their kids and shaft their oppressed ex-wives.

The left wrings its hands–appropriately–over layoffs, givebacks and wage cuts, but completely forgets this when it comes to the financial obligations courts place upon fathers. The working man and the black man are oppressed, they note, yet at the same time are part of the privileged male class which rules over the oppressed female class.

One can often find this schizophrenia in Michael Moore. In my column Michael Moore, You Used to Be My Hero (Cybercast News Service, 2/17/04) I wrote:

“While you have so often emphasized a class based analysis of society, you seem happy to chuck all that stuff overboard when speaking about men. In your words and writing the men who run a Fortune 500 company are indistinguishable from the common blue collar worker. They’re all men, so they’re all ‘in control,’ have all the power, and are united in one large, extremely profitable conspiracy against women. Michael, you’re the socialist, not me, but even I know that Marx, Lenin, Trotsky & Co. always held social class to be a vastly greater determinant of privilege in capitalist society than gender.” 

I agree with some but not all traditionally ‘left’ views. As a general rule, I’m more or less with the left on issues such as labor unions, race, climate change/global warming, gay rights, and others. But trying to talk sense into the left on gender issues is often like spitting in the wind. I was reminded of this recently when one of my readers–who understands my work far better than most–wrote a letter to the leftwing web publication Salon asking them to take a hard, fair look at fathers’ issues. 

His letter comes in the context of the controversy over feminist blogger Amanda Marcotte. To learn more about that controversy, click here.

Salon: Write about the Fathers’ Rights Movement. Write about Glenn Sacks

One of Amanda’s favorite whipping boys is the Fathers’ Rights Movement.

Amanda says the people in this movement are out for one thing: to reduce their child support. She says they are batterers. She says they abandoned their families. She says they are misogynists. She says they are liars. She says they are bitter used up men. (more…)

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