Today, I hand over most of my blog page to Richard F Doyle.

You might have noticed him at the bottom right side of the ‘Front Page’.

This Eminent Gentleman is the repository of knowledge about the men’s movement.

The MRM has moved in its time. A long, long time, from foot to foot, marching on the spot.

I make no excuses for myself being largely thick when it comes to detailed history of the MRM., especially in that far off and strange land, America. There are huge swathes of even today’s efforts which go unnoticed even on MND.  The world out there beyond America’s shores have well over 3 billion men and many are MRAs.

Richard says – and from here on it is he speaking, not me : -

http://mensdefense.org/MensMovement.htm

For decades, legal and social discrimination against men has been growing exponentially. In modern times, men have become feminized to the point of ridiculousness; often termed “metrosexuals.”

Fathers and divorcés are probably the most discriminated against subgroup. Innumerable undesirable consequences follow.

Writer Mark Steyn said, “When the family dies, the nation follows.” The prevailing level of discourse on the subject of gender-based social problems is comparable to that of illiterate 14th century peasants speculating on the cause of plague.

To overcome problems, we must first understand them (See the big picture), and then act upon those understandings.  That is the purpose of the book “Save the Males” and of this thesis.

Organizations; History and Philosophy

Many attempts at improving the status of men have developed over the years. Organized divorce reform began in 1906 when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle founded the Divorce Law Reform Union in England. It is still in existence.

Even then, Doyle and others evidently considered women to be more oppressed than men; and in some respects they probably were.

In America, reform favoring men began in the 1800s with small groups scattered about. The National Sociological League was perhaps the earliest large organization. In 1931 its Executive Director, Dr. Alexander Dallek, claimed 25,000 members, from every state in the union. They attacked shotgun marriages and unreasonable child support.

In 1932 an organization called The Family Protection League lobbied state legislatures. No details of its demise are recorded.

More recently, “Divorce Racket Busters” was formed in Sacramento, California in 1960. After coming to national prominence in 1961, the name changed to United States Divorce Reform Inc. (U.S.D.R.).  By 1963, USDR’s active membership roster had grown to 2,000 members. USDR’s prime focus was modernization of California state divorce laws by replacing divorce courts with “Family Arbitration Centers.”

The effort was entitled the “Sitton-Winterfield Initiative.”

It never obtained the necessary signatures to qualify on the ballot for the November 1966 elections, and slowly withered away.

Although the concentration on California’s laws may have been practical, a “shake-down cruise” to prepare for taking on all states’ laws, non-Californians became restless, and began falling away.

Parochial interests developed. Themselves seemingly afflicted with the divorce syndrome, various factions began feuding and broke off to form their own splinter groups. ‘

Summer soldier’ drop outs drained membership and talent when their personal problems were resolved. That situation remains.

Like Burke’s “Little Platoons,” rival organizations came and went throughout the ?70’s and ?80s. A veritable alphabet soup of acronyms was spawned, theoretically all on the same side in the struggle against injustice, many of them just one man, a typewriter and maybe some followers.

Meetings were, and still are, held across the country which may accomplish little more than venting wrath at ex-wives, judges and lawyers ? mutual commiseration societies.

Unfortunately, communication was practically non-existent. Each new group tried to reinvent the wheel. They rediscovered the same issues, gave the same speeches spoken decades before by their predecessors, all the time imagining they were boldly going where no man had gone before.

The new guard became the old guard, and the cycle began over and over again, an inefficient waste of talent and experience.

Coalition Attempts

The Coalition of American Divorce Reform Elements (CADRE) was the first attempt at unifying the movement in the early ?70s in Elgin, Illinois. After its failure, several other ecumenical-minded activists and this writer met in Los Angeles in early 1977, first at the home of Professor Amneus and next day in a conference room at his University (USC, LA).

There we formed a new coalition called Men’s Equality Now International, its acronym M.E.N. International. The foundational philosophy recognized the entire range of anti-male discrimination. It was to function as a forum of information exchange, with a Board composed of the heads of major organizations.

Predictably, rivals formed, occasionally with talented people. The problems mentioned above besetting the organizations also affected all coalitions. Some remain active and do good work, but none are large or influential enough to be effective.

The competition, as well as an internal palace revolt, caused M.E.N. International to slowly slip into dormancy, where it remains to this day.

Modern day Forefathers

The original USDR’s Board of Directors was composed of the late Reuben Kidd, George Partis, Jay Burchett, Dr. Winterfield, and John Cooper. (Reuben Kidd died 2/26/07 at age 94). In the late 1960’s, as USDR was losing national influence, Charlie Metz formed America’s $ociety of Divorced Men (A$DM) in Minnesota, pioneering the concept of individual divorce counseling.

After winning a landmark custody battle in the early ‘70s Charlie moved A$DM to Elgin Illinois and wrote “Divorce and Custody for Men” (Doubleday). He died in 1971.

With the exception of some founders of USDR, no others in the movement could rival Charlie intellectually until Professor Amneus came on the scene in the late 1970s. Charlie was the practical expert, Amneus the theoretician.

Today’s activists have forgotten, actually few ever knew, whose shoulders they’re standing upon.

Inherent problems

Reform of the injustices afflicting men could have and should have taken place long ago, but for several inherent problems throughout the entire movement structure.  Despite external enemies of men and fathers, official and social, failure to effect reform exists more within the movement than without. Many tunnel vision reformers concentrate on a favorite aspect of reform, one that may have personal significance to them.

Most movements have differing factions, and disputes over means to the same end can render them largely ineffective. So too with this one; common enemies ground out destruction with pitifully little opposition.

However, the philosophical differences are not nearly as great as the personal ones. Ego and ambition have been the largest problems. Some activists have egos the size of the Hindenburg, without the intelligence to match. This type pursues private fantasies of being the Messiah who will bring men out of the wilderness (“Every rooster is king on his own dung heap”).

The attendant ego blast overrules the greater good. Few are immune to these problems, be they newcomers, officials, blogmeisters, writers, whatever.

These continuing problems are not confined to the U.S. Every country has experienced the same fractiousness. This suicidal self-castration is indefensible. The men’s/fathers’ movement will remain in the shadow of feminists unless and until it overcomes these problems.

Well-meaning, Passive or Unhelpful Colleagues

Activists have been dismissed as a “bunch of angry men.” Of course they were and are angry ? justifiably so. Many men don’t consider they have a dog in this fight, or don’t want to get involved; preferring to keep their heads down in hopes injustices will go away.

The buffalo comes to mind; these magnificent animals almost became extinct, because they stood around eating grass and nosing their freshly killed as tongue-hunters picked them off one by one.

Victims of the ‘rape of the male’ cry out only when their ox is being gored, almost never before or after.

Muttering to each other on poker night is insufficient. Barstool philosophy is rampant, but ineffective. Reform sympathizers exist, but are relatively silent.

Edmund Burke, an 18th century Irish philosopher and statesman said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Quixotic individuals have fruitlessly dashed themselves against the unyielding rocks of misandry. Some have had excellent ideas for reform; several have even run for president or state governor on men’s rights platforms. Many fathers and several grandfathers have gone on hunger strike in many countries protesting inability to see their children or grandchildren. None, to my knowledge, have died.

These endeavors have been and still are like farting in the wind because the reform “movement” has always been too disorganized to implement or back them.

The still-emerging internet is a potentially powerful resource, a high tech forum for communication and ecumenism. However, there is danger the forums could become nothing more than fancy Towers of Babel, befogged with tangential issues, as seems to be happening.

Bloggers tend to endlessly banter about this and that, seldom getting to the basics. The sight of the forest is lost while examining individual trees.

 Anti-male Males

In the last few decades, a faux “men’s movement” has come into existence masquerading as representative of the men’s movement. Many of its adherents, sponsored by NOW, bleat the feminist party line.

Made up of pop sociologists, sex-melders and reluctant males of mixed sexual persuasion with a hair shirt agenda, they are thoroughly domesticated, housebroken creatures who hold their manhood cheap—apologetically in fact.

This element denounces masculinity, convinced there is something wrong with the traditional male image, which they derisively term “macho.” Sometimes referred to as SNAGs (sensitive, new age guys), they often seek salvation in male bonding, navel-gazing introspection, drumming and mythopoetry.

They tend to cry a lot and grope at each other in “consciousness raising” sessions, presided over by charlatans selling paraphernalia, conducting seminars, giving ‘massages,’ reading poetry, doing their schtick. Their philosophical gurus spout naïve, platitudinous blatherings, imagining them to be of utmost importance or relevance to all men.

A purported history of the men’s/fathers’ movement was recently published by a representative of this philosophy, one professor Gambill, who has a decidedly leftist, pro-feminist, pro-gay orientation.

Overemphasizing at length the importance of such groups, his book?“The Uneasy Male: The American Men’s Movement, 1970-2000” published in 2005, claims to be an overview of the movement during that period.

The writer’s only knowledge of it at the times he writes about is largely misinformation he gleaned from studying University of Michigan archives consisting mostly of writings from the aforesaid faux men’s movement.

True masculinists reject this element as a body rejects transplants.

Surrender of manhood is too high a price to pay for equality.

Future of the Movement

The legitimate men’s movement has several different wings – worldwide – with plenty of talent and resources to achieve success, if they can be marshaled properly.

If those elements on the fringes – the introspective types – would focus upon the more important issues confronting men and fathers, great strides could be taken. It would be better to have them on the inside peeing out than on the outside peeing in.

Reformers must agree on a common philosophy, define who are legitimate members (and who aren’t) and cooperate with allies within existing structures.

Until then, achieving equality is impossible.

We must confront inherent egotistical organization problems, and discourage defections from existing organizations and formation of new ones. Reform requires developing mutual respect, restoring fathers and fatherhood to their proper position, respecting manhood and fatherhood ? and being deserving of that respect.

For the sake of unity and continuity, it is imperative that the movement honor the founding fathers and theoreticians, most of whom are deceased.

 If buffalo, in the analogy above, had a brain large enough for self-preservation instincts, they could have herded up and stampeded the poachers; even if it meant not personally leading the charge or that several of them might get shot; so too with male victims.

Today’s leaders must realize that majors in a large organization are more important than generals in an unnoticed outfit.

Those in large groups must be persuaded to drop militant independence and commence a policy of intra-movement cooperation.

Anti-male elements in society can be defeated by only one thing: political clout on a national – indeed international – level.

Reform must be more than a notion; a modern crusade against the anti-male jihad must be mounted. The huge feminist swamp must be drained.

Hear Frederick Douglass: “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are people who want crops without plowing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”

From a perspective of over 40 years in these trenches, I submit that ultimately the only way to ‘Save the Males’ is to form a united front of the many disparate reform organizations and supporters against the various enemies of men and fathers (many listed in “Save the Males”).

Unity, though the ideal approach, is outside the realm of possibility at present, but a cooperative approach may be possible. There is enough talent and manpower dispersed throughout the men’s/fathers’ movement, internationally, to successfully confront the enemies of justice if that talent and manpower were properly coordinated.

Such a force would be overwhelming and could garner the political strength to rival, if not surpass, the feminist juggernaught. That would be an enormous achievement and the most fitting memorial that can be erected to the masses of victims of misandry.

Of course, an agreement like this is more easily conceived than constructed. Requisite to any form of cooperation or unity are a common philosophy and means of communication.

The common philosophy must be broad enough to include all reasonable approaches and narrow enough to exclude those approaches that are actually harmful to that philosophy. We have long suggested a philosophy meeting that criterion:

 “To preserve the traditional nuclear family through restoration of equal dignity and equal (not identical) rights under the law for all male persons across a broad spectrum of life, including divorce, employment, health and crime punishment.”

Anything essentially similar to this will do.

Samuel Adams said “It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

Margaret Mead said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”

What reformers need is more of what Tom Wolfe called “The Brotherhood of the Right Stuff,” men with cajones. Remember the great old song?: “Give me 10 who are stout-hearted men, and I’ll soon give you 10,000 more. Shoulder to shoulder, bolder and bolder they grow as they go to the fore.”

Thank you Richard. 

Mensnewdaily.com is the MRMs Premier site. It is evolving as we read Richard’s words. It has the ability to reach those billions of men out there in the world and let them see what is being done. We may not be in the business of organising those men but as Richard points out we need to get the men into the tent and piss outward.

As Mike LaSalle has said before, MND is a community; the Men of Men’s News daily.

So, let us make the Tent bigger.

Let us stop Marching on the Spot.

I am calling upon men; Good men; Stout-hearted men.

Tell ME of your vision.

The small space for comments  below may be insufficient for some contributors and commnters to express themselves fully. Make a comment anyway and email me with your vast and superb thoughts. I have some realy good ones of my own too.

amfortas@mensnewsdaily.com

Let me end with the Poem of the Men’s Rights Movement.

 

Say not the Struggle Naught availeth

By Arthur Hugh Clough

1819-1861

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SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
         The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
         And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
         It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
         And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
         Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
         Comes silent, flooding in, the Main.

And not by eastern windows only,
         When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
         But westward, look, the land is bright!