The Common Man

Join us in Reporting a Popular Feminist Facebook Page for Hate Speech

2012-03-09T15:31:00.004-08:00

Please join us in reporting the Facebook page: "A Girl's Guide to Taking over the World," which has over 62,000 likes.

Note: the name of the page is not about "sharing the world," but instead taking it over, which would inevitably mean expelling or marginalizing other groups (in this case men). Would "A white person's guide to taking over the world" fly as a Facebook page? It's amazing how these little things, which we all would recognize as racism/sexism/classism if others did them, are glossed over as everyday routine in the world of Feminism.

A better title would be "A Woman's Guide to Sharing the World." But apparently, sharing is just not good enough for a great many Feminists! Contrary to the claims of Feminists, it is misandry - not misogyny - which has become normalized in our culture, to the degree that we barely recognize it when it is right in front of us.

Please pass this on to any of your networks and ask them to report the page as hate speech! They must either change the name of their group or take it down.

Here is the page:

http://www.facebook.com/agirlsguidetotakingovertheworld

Addendum: I spoke with a girl who said "I think the title is meant to be tongue in cheek, to highlight an imbalance that favors males rather than to create one that favors females." My response:

"Is it? Even if it were tongue in cheek, many a truth is said in jest."I believe this is one such occasion.

"Perhaps I could agree with your suggestion, if Feminism did not agitate for privileges for women, especially in areas where women are already overrepresented. But this is exactly what Feminism does.

"For example, despite women being ~60% of college graduates, despite men having higher dropout rates and lower enrollment rates, despite men Feminism still lobbies for many female-only grants and scholarships, as well as sex-based discrimination against men in education in the form of euphemistically-phrased "affirmative action," when if it is anyone who needs affirmative action it is men. See the graph below for yourself:

"Thus I'm afraid I cannot regard it as 'tongue in cheek,' given the history of Feminism and what they lobby for, which coincides with the current disadvantaged state of men and boys in education. Also, let's consider that Feminism has often told men that, in order to be more gender-sensitive, they need to be concerned not only with what they say but also how it comes across. "Your intentions are irrelevant," many Feminists will say. "What matters is the effect of your message; how it was received." That's why, for example, sexual harassment isn't based on what is actually meant; the sole determinant of guilt is whether the woman 'felt uncomfortable.'

"Well, truth be told, I feel uncomfortable about Feminist statements of "women taking over the world," given that men and boys are currently both underrepresented and discriminated against in education, and knowing that Feminism has played a significant part in making this happen. At best, such speech is unnecessary."

On Kathleen DeVere's Penny Arcade Video "Foot X Mouth," Concerning Misogyny in the Gaming Community

2012-03-09T01:15:00.005-08:00

In the video "Foot X Mouth," Kathleen DeVere (I'm not sure if I'm capitalizing her last name correctly; it sounds Frenchy) states that the act of sexual harassment by a gamer named Bakhtanians is a de facto act of misogyny. You may see the video here:

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/foot-x-mouth

I'm not here to argue whether or not sexual harassment is not acceptable; on the contrary, I believe it is not. Instead, I would like to discuss is whether it was an act of misogyny instead of simply rude behavior that is often applied to both sexes. I'm going to ask you to hear me out on this one, and consider some ideas that may be new to some of us:

Consider the drill sergeant in the military movie Full Metal Jacket, who screams to his recruit (link below), "I bet you're the kind of guy who would f*ck a person in the *ss and not even have the godd*mn common courtesy to give him a reach-around." Male-on-male harassment of this type has occurred in the military to "break-in" new recruits for...well, forever. See the link here:

When women began to join the armed forces as actual fighters, they encountered this language and freaked. "It's an epidemic! Women are singled out for sexual harassment in the military!" they screamed. But they weren't complaining about something that specifically targeted women, as they claimed; they were complaining about something men had been going through all along. It was only when it began to target women that it was labeled as "sexism" and "unacceptable harassment."

And such, in my experience and analysis, is often the case in gaming. Especially high-end gaming, be it Quake III, Halo, WoW, Warcraft 3, or whatever. I can't count the number of times I've been called a "fag" or a "d*ckless [insert random insult here]" when I popped a grenade in someone, or capped the flag, or pulled off a deceitful move for the win. Everyone is sexually harassed in the gaming community. I don't believe this type of abuse is not female-centric; rather, I believe our recognition of it as abuse is female-centric.

Our society often reflexively thinks that if anything bad happens to a woman - acts which regularly happen to both sexes for all sorts of reasons - it must be misogyny. If a woman is hit, it must be misogyny. If a woman loses a job, it must be misogyny. If a woman is not respected, it must be misogyny. If a woman is sexually harassed, it must be misogyny. Let's reverse the sexes and see if it sounds plausible. If a man is hit, is it automatically sexism against men (misandry)? If a man loses a job, or is not respected, is it automatically misandry? If a man is sexually harassed, is it automatically misandry? No, of course not, because these are not "gender issues;" they happen to everyone, and for reasons unrelated to sex, all the time. I don't believe any form of abuse directed at women is automatically a form of sexism any more than it is when it is directed at men. Of course it very well could be the case; it is not, however, always the case. In the case of this PA video, I would likely be able to see how what Bakhtanians originally said (not his defense of what he said) was an act of misogyny, if we were supplied with the original quote. But we are not supplied with it, or at least not in the video by Kathleen DeVere. This is an intellectual fault in DeVere's presentation.

A friend of mine commented on Facebook that misogynists like Bakhtanians are what give male gamers a bad rap. I don't believe this to be primarily the case (although it may indeed be part of the reason). My reasoning is this: those who spend a lot of time talking about "misogyny" tend to read prejudice into male-only spaces where men are overwhelmingly represented. The military, the gaming community, certain areas of the workforce...all of them are looked upon as breeding grounds for misogyny not just because of what is said or done there, but sometimes simply because they are mostly men in those spaces. In reality, gaming communities often double as more or less emotional support groups for men, which has the inevitable effect of reducing men's emotional dependence on women (and hence, reducing women's power over men). And anything that gives men power is not something often trusted by those who dislike "systems of male power."

Thanks for your time.

Activism Opportunity: Call Your Reps about Upcoming VAWA and PVRA Vote!

2012-01-29T01:30:00.000-08:00

For too long, public on domestic violence has embraced the narrow-minded ideology that only women are victims, and only men are perpetrators. We need public policy that understands that both men and women can be, and often are, victims of intimate partner violence. That's why we have been calling members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging them to vote no on the upcoming re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and instead support the gender-neutral Partner Violence Reduction Act (PVRA), sponsored by SAVE Services. And we are asking for your help in calling our senators before the committee votes on Thursday, February 2nd. It's easy to make the call, and takes anywhere from 1-6 minutes, depending on how many of them you wish to contact.

I made the call two days ago. I was reluctant to do so at first and put it off for a few days, but I felt really good after I called, not only because it felt good to speak out on an issue I cared about, but also because I was surprised at how simple and easy it was to contact a representative. It took me six minutes to call all eight members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. If you are extremely busy, remember that you only need a small pocket of time. For example, I called them during my lunch break. This is how easy it was: I called the office of a particular senator, a secretary picked up the phone, and this is how the conversation went. I'll use Senator Grassley as an example.

“Senator Grassley's office. How can I help you?”

“Hello, my name is so-and-so, and I am a resident of Texas. I am calling to urge senator Grassley to vote NO on the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and YES on the gender-neutral Partner Violence Reduction Act.”

And the secretary responded:

“Alright, thank you, I'll make sure and pass that along to him.”

And that's how most of the calls were. It really took less than a minute for each call. Sometimes I would be greeted with an answering machine, in which case I left a slightly longer message explaining my reasons. It's important to remember that a lot of people call these offices for all sorts of things, and politicians in general can only process small soundbites of information. So if you are calling, and I ask that you do, you might want to consider being concise. But ultimately, all that matters is that you call.

Here are the phone numbers of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Chuck Grassley (202) 224-3744
Orrin G. Hatch (202) 224-5251
Jon Kyl (202) 224-4521
Jeff Sessions (202) 224-4124
Lindsey Graham (202) 224-5972
John Cornyn (202) 224-2934
Michael S. Lee (202) 224-5444
Tom Coburn (202) 224-5754

Now some of you might not know what the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, is. Well, it is a law designed to combat domestic violence against women. Note that it does not say violence against people, nor does it use any other gender-neutral term. And just as it excludes men as a group in the name of the law, so too does it exclude men in the protections and provisions outlined in the law. And that is no accident. The law itself is born out of the Feminist presumption that when it comes to domestic violence only women are victims, and only men are perpetrators.

VAWA distributes grants to state legislatures, education facilities, and law enforcement. I'll take law enforcement for example. In order to qualify for a certain grant that VAWA provides, law enforcement agencies must adopt a certain policy. Roughly half of US states have what are called Primary Aggressor policies, which means that police must determine who is the primary aggressor and arrest that person.

The criteria for who must be arrested under these policies is in most cases biased against men. Some primary aggressor policies instruct the police to arrest the person with “the greater size and strength,” which is almost always the male, or to arrest the partner if the other partner displays a greater amount of fear.

But wait, there's more!

Next are the Mandatory Arrest policies – if a state adopts these policies, when they respond to a domestic violence house call, they must make an arrest. And if they do not make an arrest, they have to fill out a form explaining why they did not.

But wait, there's more!

States may also adopt No-Drop Prosecution Policies, which mandate that states are not allowed to drop a charge once it has been entered. It doesn't matter if they find out they have charged the wrong person, it doesn't matter if the person who makes the charges recants, they can't throw the case out of court, they have to follow through with the entire legal circus until either an acquittal or judgment is rendered.

Now whenever states COMBINE these policies, it gets interesting. In such states, all a vindictive or spiteful woman has to do to harm an innocent man is call the police, falsely claim that she is a victim of domestic violence, and act afraid of her partner when they show up. And they will determine that the male is the source of the conflict – because primary aggressor laws say they have to - they will arrest him and take him to court because mandatory arrest policies say they, and even if there is an overwhelming amount of evidence in his favor, they can never drop the case, because No-Drop prosecution policies say they cannot. It really is that simple. And in many cases, the man who is falsely accused may simply plead “no contest” to the charges, simply to avoid dragging out the case.

Now wait, you may say. Don't these policies violate the Constitution? Why yes – in particular, the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th amendment to the Constitution, and the Due Process Clause under the 5th amendment to the Constitution.

Remember, for each of these VAWA policies that a state adopts, the state gets a hefty chunk of money. Essentially, the Violence Against Women Act allows Feminists to buy their own justice, or more accurately, their own injustice, using of course your tax dollars.

In addition, these funds go toward domestic violence shelters which bar men and boys over age 12 from receiving service.

The Senate Judiciary Committee can either vote to reauthorize this bill, which is sponsored by organizations like The National Organization for Women, or it can vote on the Partner Violence Reduction Act, which is sponsored by SAVE Services. SAVE stands for “Stop Abusive and Violent Environments.”

The first thing you will notice about the Partner Violence Reduction Act is that the name of the bill is gender-neutral. And that, too, is no accident! And just as it includes both sexes in the name of the bill, so too does it include both in the protections and provisions outlined in the bill. But if you remain unconvinced, feel free to peruse the literature of the bill itself:

http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/Partner-Violence-Reduction-Act1.pdf

But if you don't feel like reading the entirety of it, here is what it does in a nutshell, as posted on the SAVE services website:

http://www.saveservices.org/pvra/overview/

The Partner Violence Reduction Act:

“Removes provisions that violate the Constitution and restores civil rights to the accused.
1. Gives first priority to real victims and reduces false allegations by constraining definitions and distinguishing between “alleged” victims and “adjudicated” victims.
2. Seeks to protect and restore families when the abuse is minor.
3. Removes harmful mandatory arrest, predominant aggressor, and no-drop prosecution policies, thus helping to restore due process.
4. Allows legal assistance to be provided both to the alleged victim and alleged offender, thus affirming the Constitutional guarantee of “equal protection of the laws.”
5. Requires third-party accreditation of domestic violence training, education, and public awareness programs to assure the accuracy and balance of the information presented.
6. Makes the law gender-inclusive and removes discriminatory policies.
7. Funds major studies designed to:
research the effectiveness of restraining orders
replicate and evaluate innovative counseling interventions
assess the costs of intimate partner violence
8. Evaluates the feasibility of faith-based counseling programs.
9. Improves the accountability of domestic violence organizations.
10. Corrects misleading and outdated Findings.
11. Curbs immigration fraud.”

Now some people may say, “Aren't politicians going to do what they have always done anyway? Is calling our representatives really that effective? Honestly, I donno. But I do know this: doing something when an opportunity presents itself, especially when it is easy to do, is better than doing nothing. And also, there is the satisfaction of preventing certain narrow-minded Feminists from being the only voices our Senators hear.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Thursday, February 2nd. We have until their offices close on Wednesday, which is usually around 4:30 PM, to get our calls in.

The men - past, present, and future - who are victims of domestic violence need our support.

Who among us will speak in their defense?

Dating - Overprotective Fathers

2012-01-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

Due to the multitude of imported videos used in this particular argument, I will refrain from making a blog post and simply link to the video. At issue:

"As young men we are often threatened with violence by the fathers of our girlfriends as a warning against our prospective misconduct, for no other reason than because we are the boyfriend. Consider: if our own parents had threatened our girlfriends with violence, and at times perpetrated that violence upon them, would society find it acceptable? Why are so many young men injured and killed by overprotective fathers for trivial and non-violent offenses? And how does this tradition of chivalry jive with the Feminist idea that in the traditional family women were oppressed by men, rather than protected by them?"

YouTube Videos

2012-01-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

Below are a few of my YouTube videos prior to the creation of this blog, many of which make thorough source citations.

Family Court: The Source of the Corruption

The federal law Title IV-D of the Social Security Act was established in the late 1980's. Designed to encourage the collection of support payments for the public welfare, as well as reimburse the court for potential collection expenditures, it grants family court judges, the court system, and the state extra funds and wages for the federal government for each dollar the court extracts from a non-custodial parent in the form of child support.

Mostly impervious to the eyes of scholars and journalists, family courts are cloaked in secrecy: they are held without jury trials, little is recorded of the proceedings, and many issue orders against discussing the terms of the case in public - ostensibly to protect the privacy of the family. Recent journalism and research, however, as well as moral activism on the part of whistleblowers, has revealed that family courts have been increasingly, over the last two decades, operating outside the original intent of Title IV-D. The result is the corruption of the judiciary.

The Horrors of Divorce

The horrors of divorce for men: from the kidnapping of their children, to financial enslavement by a corrupt judiciary, to the suicidal despair of fathers denied access to their children by spiteful and vindictive spouses. Men of all ages should wake up to the fact that the modern marriage contract is not what it used to be, and that no group of citizens - with the exception of convicted felons - has fewer rights in society than fathers.

The Rise of Feminist Jurisprudence, Parts I & II

Feminism claims to be a movement that aims for equality between the sexes. Yet reading texts which are highly representative of Feminist legal theory, the truth appears to be exactly the opposite: that numerous schools of Feminism advocates discrimination and "asymmetric treatment" between the sexes, and that such ideologies are having an impact on law.

Feminist Jurisprudence is composed of three primary schools: Radical Feminism, Marxist/Socialist Feminism, and Cultural/Relational Feminism. Here is a condensed 2-part video series with some general information about Feminist Jurisprudence, quoted from various sources, including books I checked out on interlibrary loan at my local university.

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Declaration of Independence from Feminism: Please Sign and Pass Along
While men and women both deserve gender equality, that does not automatically mean Feminism is the right entity to lead us there. Feminism has for too long only recognized the needs of only one half of the world, and its narrow-mindedness has damaged women, men, and children. It's time to say declare our independence from Feminism by saying "I'm not a Feminist, but I believe in equality." Please sign and pass along.

Children Belong with Mothers
In an attempt to deny men equal rights to parent their children (equal custody) post-divorce, a YouTube user has attempted to argue that giving women automatic sole custody is the correct path because it more closely follows nature. I make a video in response.

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A Famous Feminist Fraud
Feminists are famous for creating "studies" with nebulous, exaggerated, and intellectually fraudulent methodologies to "prove" that we live in a world where all men are out to harm all women. In this video we dissect one of their most slanderous lies of Feminism concerning sexual assault on college campuses.

Introducing The Common Man [TCM]

2011-12-31T01:13:00.000-08:00

Ah, yes: the common man. I like that phrase! It’s got a nice ring to it. I adopt this phrase as the name of this blog, the name of my YouTube program, and the name of myself. It is my belief that this phrase and all of its implications is sorely lacking in public discourse on gender issues. And here on YouTube, on blogs, and even within the nooks and crannies of a few of our institutions, you will find those who agree. We call ourselves “advocates for men.”

In my perspective, what makes the phrase the common man particularly delectable for our brand of discourse is that empowers the speaker with a variety of handy-dandy rhetorical devices. For it is clear when I say the common man that I do not refer to one singular man; nor do I speak solely of those in privileged positions at the top of society, with whom all men are often compared; no, when I say the common man I speak of the archetypal “everyman;” I refer to men as a group. And of the common man I ask an uncommon question: who will speak in their defense?

That question is the central theme of this blog. It is a question I ask myself daily, and often find occasion to ask of others. But why ask this? Some may say. Why speak for men, who may so easily speak for themselves? Men – who are surely better off than women in virtually every way? I will answer these questions in detail in future entries. For now, suffice it to say that appearances are deceiving, and things are not always what they seem. If you are well seasoned in our cause, here you will find affirmation of the truth you already know. But if you are new to the party, I invite you invite you to consider some of our perspectives. If you find them to your taste, and would like a more firm understanding of where we come from, I suggest reading The Myth of Male Power, by Dr. Warren Farrell, viewing the YouTube documentary by Manwomanmyth, reading Who Stole Feminism by Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers, or visiting high-profile men’s websites, like A Voice for Men, or The FalseRape Society.

Every now and them, some people ask me, “What got you into this kind of thing?” So I figured this is as good a time as any to briefly summarize. While growing up I saw a million little occasions where men were treated very different from the women, and sometimes to the detriment of men. And while these things were often (though not always) small annoyances, I for long simply shrugged them off.

It wasn’t until 2009 that I became interested in the deliberate study of male issues. I was a masters student, working in the academy as a tutor of remedial reading and writing for at-risk students, as well as an instructor of freshman composition and argumentation. During that time I experienced, discovered and bore witness to what can only be called a bias against men and boys in public education; a bias that I later found was not isolated within any particular sector, but had spread across the entire system.

I was surprised at how often many within the academic community - whether teachers or students - would stand up for the dignity and rights of particular groups, be it be those of blacks, or of women, or the disabled - but those same people would make all kinds of rhetorical swipes and insults, not about individual men, but about men as a group, that they would never make about any other. And as I saw them defending everyone else, I asked myself the question: who will speak in defense of men?

This double-standard piqued my intrigue, and out of curiosity I ran a Google search on gender issues. As I began to read a few of the hundreds of thousands of informative links, I soon discovered a wide area of study previously unknown to me; and the depth of my ignorance of that field of study beckoned to me like the unfathomable depths of a bottomless chasm. And so I began researching, compiling data, listening to the voices of others, and reflecting on my own experiences and looking at them in a different light. I began asking questions that others had not been asking, and more revealingly, I began to ask those who called themselves "the gender experts" why they had not been asking them. And out of all of this, I came to the conclusion that there exists bias and discrimination against men in society that negatively affects the well-being of millions of ordinary men, and that while very few were talking about it, even less were taking action against it. And while I often found that the most immediate cause of this bias and discrimination against the common man was Feminism, I eventually came to the conclusion that the underlying, or root cause, was something called Chivalry.

Now of course I’m being vague. I need to define my research, data, and experiences – in short, the issues - more clearly. And there is always the question of “so what.” “So a problem exists,” someone may say, “What do you plan to do about it?” As with any sociopolitical issue, we may raise awareness about the issues, but if we lack action, we aren’t really helping. To that end I have some fun activities planned. But that will be the subject of future entries.

Thank you for reading, and welcome to TCM.