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If you’re ever looking for a pretty much sure-fire way to get a Men’s Rights Activist to blow his top — not that this is a particularly difficult feat — just tell him to “man up.” Indeed, the phrase is so infuriating to some MRAs that it causes them to spew typos like a mad man. “Few phrases in the world make an MRAs [sic] want to rip our [sic] their spines and beat people to a bloody pulp with them,” writes TheZetaMale on his Zeta blog. “‘Man Up’ has to be one of them.” Meanwhile, on the Men’s Rights subreddit on Reddit, a fellow calling himself olythoreau seconds this emotion:
I noticed that people using the phrase “man up” or “be a man” really fucking pisses me off. A trigger of sorts. Fuck everyone who has any expectation that I or any other man perform masculinity to their liking. Yes, I’m a man, but I’m a fucking individual… and I’ll perform masculinity any way I fucking please!
Thing is, I completely agree with this sentiment: telling a guy to “man up” is an obnoxious thing to do. Oh, sure, I sometimes agree with the message people are trying to send by using this phrase: stop whining about trivial shit and get on with your life.
Indeed, no group of people I’ve ever run across is so expert in turning molehills into Mt. Everest than the MRA crowd; they put the whiniest of “victim feminists” to shame. Do you really need to boycott half the companies in the Fortune 500* because they ran “misandrist” ads featuring doofus husbands failing in their doofusy attempts to cook dinner? Does the fact that some random hot chick finds you repellent really mean that evil women rule the world? Does the fact that some anti-MRA blogger calls a dumb old sexist cartoon a dumb old sexist cartoon really mean that “feminists and manginas .. would love to enforce a world where the very thought that men experience problems with women in relationships is taboo[?]”
So I can certainly understand the exasperation so many people feel towards the MRM, as the very existence of this blog attests. But the phrase “man up” is absolutely the wrong way to make these points, for precisely the reasons olythoreau outlines. And I’d add: the phrase is sexist as hell, suggesting implicitly that non-men and non-manly men are a bunch of, well, pussies. (It’s telling that the most common alternate way to tell someone to “man up” is to tell him to “stop being a pussy.”)
I’m hardly the only feminist-ish person to dislike the phrase “man up”: Jezebel ran a story called “Stop Telling Men to ‘Man Up'” the other day, noting the sudden ubiquity of the phrase in the political world, and making the point that the phrase implies “that the worst thing to be is not-a-man — weak, lacking in courage.” (Of course, there are some MRAs who have no problem with the phrase “man up” for exactly this reason.)
But there is an irony to MRAs’ distaste with the phrase. No, scratch that, a HUMONGOUS GIGANTIC FUCKING IRONY. While they complain about the phrase “man up” being applied to them, they are the first to question the masculinity of anyone who disagrees with them or who displays their masculinity in any other way than they do — hence their almost ritualistic use of the gender-bending term “mangina” (NSFW link) to indicate anyone not-them. (For ample proof of this, just scroll down to the comments on virtually any post on this blog.) As cat points out in a comment on this very subject on this very blog:
The thing about MRA patriarchy foot soldiers is that they can’t seem to get the old slogan of “the patriarchy hurts men too”. First, they complain about not being able to express emotions and variety, then they turn around the first chance they get to bash the guys that do. You know, if you stopped doing all this gay-bashing gender shaming, you would be able to express your emotions verbally, dress in different colors, admit you enjoy musicals and baking, etc. You’re slitting your own damned throats and blaming it on everyone but yourselves.
I’d only add one little caveat to this: the people attacking “manginas” aren’t always the exact same people in the MRM who are complaining about being told to “man up.” Indeed, TheZetaMale — the first guy I quoted above — actually took his fellow MRAs to task in an earlier post for using “shaming language like ‘Faggot’ and ‘Emasculated Mangina.'” Unfortunately, his attitude is rarer than rare in the MRM.
So here’s a challenge for any MRM who hates being told to “man up”: take a stand against the term “mangina” and all the other obnoxious gender-questioning slurs that litter every message board or comment section populated by MRAs. Post a denunciation of this shit right here, in the comments to this post. Just human up, and do it.
NOTE TO EXTREMELY LITERAL READERS: *I realize that they’re not literally advocating boycotting half the companies in the Fortune 500. Sometimes I keed.
EDIT: Amanda Marcotte posted an excellent piece on how “man up” fucks stuff up for everybody. Check it out.
>"And as far as the shrillness of some of your opponents, isn't it your job to police your own forum? You do have the ban hammer, don't you? On MRA forums (at least on the major ones) there is order because moderation is applied by the admins in a judicious manner. But you attract the shrill voices, then purposefully keep them around because they are useful to you in the ugly picture that you wish to paint of a movement whose aims you disagree with. Rather than make your case against the MRM in a methodical and logical way, you use ad hominem attacks upon the MRM under the pretext that your shrillest opponents are representative of the whole men's rights movement."And this "conspiracy theory" occurs to you because that is a well-known tactic of MRAs and the MRM movement? Use a few oft-misquoted/taken out of context lines attributed to a few more radical and more vocal feminists and say that it is representative of all feminists and sometimes of women in general?I, too, wondered why David might not have comment moderation on or subject comments to approval before posting, but then I simply thought that perhaps he believes in freedom of speech and/or knew that he would be accused of not providing MRAs or members of the MRM their freedom of speech.
>@Dias, the very reason that selective service act only targets men is the stereotypes you yourself uphold " Male distinctiveness does include the ability to rescue the vulnerable from genuine threats," "Distinctiveness implies advantages, and the feminist simply cannot accept that there could ever be any role or a job in which men are better suited". Military service has always been coded as an intensely masculine activity in the US. In fact, it is gender roles that are given as this justification-women are seen as too unreliable and weak for the military, whereas men are seen as brave protectors. The top page of a google search for women in combat returns an article which says this "The strongest woman recruit, generally, is only as strong as the weakest man. Given that the services try to weed out the weakest men, it's counterproductive to recruit even the strongest women. And our volunteer military, remember, doesn't get the strongest women; it gets average women. " and "But the feminists won't quit until they get women into ground combat units. As recent events prove, no one seems to care what all this means not only culturally but also psychologically. It will require training men and women to regard the brutalization of women, and a woman's brutalization of others, as normal and acceptable. To train the men properly, a woman commissioner observed, we must erase everything their mothers taught them about chivalry; i.e., that a real man protects a woman from harm. " The arguments commonly presented against women serving in wars are precisely the sort of ideas you support. The reason the Supreme Court gives for allowing the laws to say that women are exempted from the draft is that the purpose of a draft is to provide combat troops and women are forbidden from combat (see Rostker v. Goldberg availble online http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=453&invol=57 ). It is worth noting that major feminist organization NOW wrote an amicus brief in this case supporting the notion that requiring only males to register was unconstitutional discrimination. It is, in fact, the very notions of male distinctiveness, strenth, and protectiveness which you so value that are the reason for males being allowed in combat and subject to draft, not feminism, particularly given the fact that feminist organizations have consistently challenged the military's policies excluding women from combat and have supported repeals of the sex based selective service policy*. This is exactly what I mean by slitting your own throats with your ridiculous stereotypes. It is your ideas about the 'natural' traits of males and females that results in these policies. Stop blaming others for the consequences of your own ideas and actions.(*I wanted to point out that many anti-war feminists will argue for abolishment of combat troops and the draft in general, which, while seeking to apply an equal standard wherein neither men nor women are drafted, can result in very different opinions on specific policy matters. For example, a pro-war/pro-military woman would likely voluntarily sign up for selective service while an anti-war one would not, whereas an anti-war woman would be likely to try to remove barriers to those who refuse selective service registration and a pro-war one would not.)
>I don't understand why David feels so uncomfortable about the MRM. What is disturbing him so much?MRAs are supposed to be 'non-representative nobodies' by his own definition, but his problem is maybe that this movement is strongly growing worldwide.Why should men not talk to each other about their experiences and problems and create their own forums, trying to organize themselves?Many versions of masculinity do in fact suggest that violence is a justified way to keep others in line.Research data show us that women are violent too.This fact cannot be denied.In some sectors women are even more violent than men…I recommend David to read the daily news carefully. There are plenty of articles regarding false rape allegations, child mistreatment, robbery and theft, paternity fraud, female pedophiles and many other crimes.Criminality is an important issues for MRAs, as most females are getting away with remarkable lenient sentences. Do the crime and serve the time – regardless your gender. Yohan
>Dias,Are you fucking nuts? I never said any of what youre referring to! You seriously have a mental disorder! And yes there are versions of unhealthy masculine constructs that are about violence and oppression. One needs only look at Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia to see that. Not to mention but how can I say any of what youre syaing when I dont even believe in inherent masculine/feminine dichotomies (ooooh, dichotomies big word for you). Even biologically a "man" can have a XY chromosome and look identical to a woman because he has no androgen-it is simply pure testosterone. The lack of adrogen makes the individual look exactly like a woman. So much for your inherent crap! No one fits into these myopic gender categories!
>@David Futrelle:"John, "masculinity" isn't one universally accepted way of being. It's an ideological construct which has some roots in biology but isn't completely determined by it."Masculinity has some roots in nurture (which you call "ideology"), and also some roots in nature (contrary to the ideology of radical feminists)."Many versions of masculinity do in fact suggest that violence is a justified way to keep others in line."The State also uses the same approach to achieve order. I ask you, what alternative is there to achieve order apart from violence? That is not a rhetorical question; if you have an answer, please provide it."How do you explain the fact that men are, on average, more violent than women — the ratio of male to female violent crimes is roughly ten to one."I would attribute that to mental and/or spiritual illness, coupled with relatively greater physical potency compared to women. Unlike radical feminists, I don't explain the higher rates of male-perpetrated violence with the one-size-fits-all dogmatic view that "too much masculinity made them do it."
>@Anonymous 8:36 PMI'm sure Dias is well aware that you never said any of what he has attributed to you. He was waiting for a reaction to toy with it. Note how he responds when David calls him on his projecting all sorts of ideas onto your comments:"I'll take that as a concession from you that it is misandrist to criticize masculinity as the cause of violence, terror, and injustice."What David said doesn't give any indication either way of whether or not he believes that it is misandrist to criticize masculinity as the cause of violence, terror, and injustice. It looks to me like he's trying to pull the old "So, when DID you stop beating your wife?" routine.
>PAM: I, too, wondered why David might not have comment moderation on or subject comments to approval before posting Forums which are open for discussion about feminism and accept opposite view are usually MRM-related. MRAs are willing to listen to both sides of the story.Feminists, regardless if male or female, are well-known to edit or delete comments and ban members, who do not share exactly their party-line.I don't know, but maybe David wants to create the first feminist forum introducing a new moderation policy.Good luck to him. Not an easy way to go, as the truth hurts.
>cat, your comment was caught in the spam filter; it's now posted above.I hope everyone who's following/participating in the debate will scroll back up and read it.
>@David"cat, your comment was caught in the spam filter; it's now posted above.I hope everyone who's following/participating in the debate will scroll back up and read it."Thanks for that, as otherwise I may have missed it while scrolling down to where I had last finished reading comments.@Yohan"Forums which are open for discussion about feminism and accept opposite view are usually MRM-related. MRAs are willing to listen to both sides of the story."No, they don't actually listen to both sides of the story. If someone posts something, such as what cat posted here on October 30 @ 7:30pm, it is usually highlighted as an example of 'typical feminist drivel' or 'typical feminist shaming language'. I do know this because I and others have posted similar items on MRA/MRM blogs and those were the types of responses that were received, and the statistics about war deaths as evidence of misandry continues to march on.Similarly, part of the reason that Family Court tends to award custody of children to the Mother is because of the "natural" gender role stereotypes that men like to uphold (not saying that there are not some women who uphold it, also, but they don't tend to be feminists).You like to hold fast to your "natural" gender stereotypes, but when that works against you, it's someone else's fault.
>PAM:If someone posts something, such as what cat posted here on October 30 @ 7:30pm, it is usually highlighted as an example of 'typical feminist drivel' or 'typical feminist shaming language'. @PamOctober 30 @ 7:30pm? Must be a typing mistake.Which one you mean? There are several comments of CAT in this thread.Anyway, I see nothing wrong with those postings of CAT and in any MRM forum they will be accepted and their text will not be changed by moderators.I say it again, MRAs are willing to accept comments in their forums from everybody, including those of clearly opposite opinion. We do not edit, delete and ban.MRM moderation policy is clearly different from feminist moderation where deleting and banning is daily routine.Of course, response to your feminist comments in an MRA-forum might not be what you expect to hear – because it's an MRM-Forum and not a feminist forum and many men among our members were badly treated by women in the past. MRM forums have also some female posters, some of them stay with us over years.MRM forums are not directed against women in general, but against feminism, this is not the same.—–If I comment in any feminist forum as an MRA telling the other side of the story, my postings, even written in a polite form with sources included, will be deleted within a few hours.—–Maybe you should read some threads in MRM forums, which are usually sorted into various sections.Men have also their problems and there is no reason why they should not exchange their experiences among themselves over the internet and organize their own advocacy groups.
>Cat, I was impressed by your comment. Thank you for that. Most of the time that I debate an opponent of the MRM, the criticisms seem juvenile, almost the equivalent of sniping. But let me address your point. If male distinctiveness justifies the military draft for males only, then follow that to its logical conclusion (a conclusion that NOW would oppose, in light of their amicus brief opposing the male-only draft): uniqueness in male competence justifies male authority over females. That is a message that NOW opposes, because they believe that females are just as capable as males, with no substantial distinction between the sexes. That is the central point that I have been making all along. If male uniqueness exists, then it implies advantages, and if male military obligations exist with the intendant authority of males stripped from them, then an injustice has occurred in my view. However, if males are not substantially distinct from females in their competence, then how is the draft justified? You can't have it both ways.
>Yohan, a post of yours was caught in the spam filter. It's up now.
>David Futrelle said… "cat, your comment was caught in the spam filter; it's now posted above. I hope everyone who's following/participating in the debate will scroll back up and read it."But she's using big words and saying things that disprove my worldview 🙁
>@John "if males are not substantially distinct from females in their competence, then how is the draft justified?" It isn't, which is why major feminist organizations (like NOW, mentioned above) oppose sex exclusive drafts. The only feminist argument I have seen that even came close to supporting a sex selective draft was one that used the high rates of rape of women in the military as a reason that women should not be forced in until the high rates of violence done within the military are corrected for (under the logic that forcing someone into an institution where they have a high chance of being the victim of a rape by fellow soldiers is cruel, not that women should not otherwise be drafted). This is what you said about the draft: "But the agenda of the men's rights movement is to dismantle the illegitimate forms of that coercion, and thereafter to live free of coercion. …And forcing males to register for the selective service, while making military service optional for females, is an example of the coercion of public policy." The harm done to men by the draft (and, as a person who is anti-militarism, I concede readily that a draft is harmful and actively oppose it politically) is harm done by your movement and your views, not by ours. You do not get to blame us for what you are doing to yourself and then use it as your excuse to demonize us. I wanted to make another point too. You say this " I ask you, what alternative is there to achieve order apart from violence?" while admitting men commit higher rates of crime. But you complained about police violence in this very thread. You are being incredibly inconsistent hear. You think violence is an appropriate way to enforce order, you admit that males are committing a huge majority of violent crimes (violent crime detracts from social order), so, under your scheme, it follows that the police should be targeting men for violence as a means of producing order. Your assertion that mental illness causes high crime rates is factually inaccurate. The mentally ill, contrary to popular belief, are not more likely to commit violence when substance abuse rates are controlled for, account for only a small percentage of violent crimes, but are far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes (http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/40/17/16.full ; http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/43/3/1.1.full; http://psychcentral.com/archives/violence.htm; http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4345/is_8_34/ai_n29287865/). This is a common stereotype of the mentally ill, not an informative position about the causes of violent crime. I am not sure if you are expounding the notion of 'natural' or innate male violence, but, if you are, the natural consequence of such an idea would not be to give the out of control homocidal folks control of any important government or social structure or position, rather the opposite. If it was true, then the reasonable policy outcome would be intense scrutiny of males and removal of males from power. (I reject it, what I am pointing out here is that your desired results do not follow from this premise).
>@YohanOctober 30 @ 7:30pm? Must be a typing mistake. Which one you mean? There are several comments of CAT in this thread." Yes, it was a typo, sorry, I must have hit the 3 instead of the 2. I was referring to cat's posting on October 20 @7:30pm in this thread.I'm not doubting that MRA/MRM forums/blogs accept comments from everyone and don't alter them, I'll take you at your word for that. I'll also take you at your word for the fact that deleting and banning is a daily routine at feminist blogs/forums. I honestly don't know the veracity of either of those claims, so I won't disagree at this point."Of course, response to your feminist comments in an MRA-forum might not be what you expect to hear"Actually, it is exactly what I expect to hear, which still doesn't mean that MRA/MRM are willing to listen to both sides. I have no doubts that many men among your members were badly treated by women, just as I have no doubts that there are many women who have been badly treated by men (thought I've read that that doesn't EVER happen, which is BS). But sometimes what is considered "bad treatment" is a result of a worldview that ends up shooting us in the foot, so to speak, and we cast the blame outside of ourselves rather than looking inwards for a potential solution (I say "we" here because I don't want to give the impression that I think women are totally blameless in everything). One of the more common ones is the sex exclusive draft, as cat is pointing out. Cat states it again in her posting in this thread on October 21 @ 2:42 pm, "The harm done to men by the draft (and, as a person who is anti-militarism, I concede readily that a draft is harmful and actively oppose it politically) is harm done by your movement and your views, not by ours." You (not meaning you personally) are opposed to sex selective draft, but yet want to hold onto a worldview that sustains it and blame feminists for it, although they are not the ones that are clinging tightly to the worldview that sustains it. The females who DO favour sex selective draft tend to be non-feminist, "traditional" women, like some who stay with the MRM forums for years.
>We haven't had a draft in about 40 years and MRAs are still whining about it.Man up, MRAs!
>@Cat:You really did a sniper's job on my comments. My earlier praise seems to have been premature.Here's what I actually wrote, which was in response to a statement that David Futrelle had made:Quoted from David Futrelle: "Many versions of masculinity do in fact suggest that violence is a justified way to keep others in line."My response: "The State also uses the same approach to achieve order. I ask you, what alternative is there to achieve order apart from violence? That is not a rhetorical question; if you have an answer, please provide it."Now here's what you wrote about the above exchange, Cat:"I wanted to make another point too. You say this 'I ask you, what alternative is there to achieve order apart from violence?' while admitting men commit higher rates of crime. But you complained about police violence in this very thread. You are being incredibly inconsistent hear. You think violence is an appropriate way to enforce order, you admit that males are committing a huge majority of violent crimes (violent crime detracts from social order), so, under your scheme, it follows that the police should be targeting men for violence as a means of producing order."Cat, do you understand that "not a rhetorical question" means? That means a question that truly does seek information. It means a question that does not imply a statement. Apparently, you deliberately omitted my statement, "that is not a rhetorical question; if you have an answer, please provide it." You have not debated honestly.Most of the violent crime that the criminals commit victimizes non-criminal males, not females. It also is no coincidence that the most violent communities are fatherless communities, and it's also no coincidence that many of the fathers who sired children in those communities have been incarcerated (through State-imposed coercion, which is based on violence) for non-violent offenses. So obviously, the solution is not more prisons, not more military conscription, and not more fatherlessness. The coercive power of the State is the problem, and the men's rights movement stands squarely opposed to the excesses of such power, because it only diminishes the legitimacy of the State's monopoly on violence. Violence is legitimate when it is used as a protective tool, to preserve lives and safety. When communities are oppressed by excessive State coercion, whether through unjust incarceration (including incarceration for not registering in peacetime for the Selective Service) or through military conscription, then the State has grown too powerful and must be challenged. The MRM is growing, and offers such a challenge.
>@Cat:"The harm done to men by the draft (and, as a person who is anti-militarism, I concede readily that a draft is harmful and actively oppose it politically) is harm done by your movement and your views, not by ours. You do not get to blame us for what you are doing to yourself and then use it as your excuse to demonize us."How can you justify blaming the selective service on the men's rights movement? Are you serious? Are you saying that MRAs elected a bunch of congressional representatives, and a president, and all of them together — the whole MRA lot of them — signed military conscription into law? Are you saying that somehow there even was an MRM when the mandatory registration for the selective service became a law? Our whole movement stands utterly opposed to military conscription. You've flown off the deep end with that one! Just because we want men to have options and not be constrained by unjust laws does not mean that we have invited the constraint of men's options by government coercion. You are writing incoherently, Cat.@Anonymous:"We haven't had a draft in about 40 years and MRAs are still whining about it."I had to sign up for the Selective Service when I was 18, and that's still happening today. Women are exempt from that requirement.
>And you still weren't drafted. So kwitcherbitchin.
>@Cat:Let me clarify one more thing. Men were forced to register for the draft because their uniqueness made them useful for that purpose. But if the draft were abolished (meaning both the draft and the Selective Service), rather than retained and just made gender neutral, that would not negate the fact that men were always biologically unique for their protective qualities compared to women. No matter what changes are made to public policy, male uniqueness will remain. Our greater physical stature makes us more competent to mete out protective violence — and yes, this ability is probably going to be needed to defend our families and communities against a minority of males who would threaten them. Did you know that married women are less likely than single women to experience violence from outside threats? That is because of the protective nature of their husbands, and the willingness of those husbands to use violent force to defend their families. Don't liken such men to violent criminals.
>@Anonymous:"And you still weren't drafted. So kwitcherbitchin."Men have been put in prison for failing to register for the Selective Service, regardless of whether they were drafted or might have been drafted. Women are exempt from this fate, because they're not required to register.
>So what. All you have to do is sign a form. There is no draft and there hasn't been a draft in a long long looooooong time.
>@dias, the 'you' I was referring to in the draft section was people who held notions of gender distinctiveness and traditional gender roles (of which MRAs are a subset). This group does have massive social and political power and had even more when the initial selective service act was passed in 1917 (before women could vote). You said this: "I have been saying that feminism uses the coercive power of social and political coercion in order to implement its agenda… And forcing males to register for the selective service, while making military service optional for females, is an example of the coercion of public policy." This is, quite simply, utter bullshit (as demonstrated above). It is the fault of people such as yourself who believe in gender distinctiveness that such laws exists. You do not get to place the blame on feminists when anti-feminists harm you using anti-feminist views you also hold. Stop trying to use the selective service in your arguments, because you are whining about something that is your group's(anti-feminist gender distinctiveness believers) fault, not feminism's. Don't complain to me when you slit your own throats. On the issue of state violence, you are technically correct that I read beyond the literal wording. However, I assumed that the context meant you held position X and you admitted you hold position X in your attempt to rebut me, so stop pretending like I have radically deviated in interpretation or that I did not attack the position you in fact hold. You hold the position that the state can use violence for protective means. Presumably, preventing and punishing violent crime falls under protection. You admit that men commit violent crimes at much higher rates. Therefore, it follows that in a system such as the one you propose, the police and state would use more violence against males than females. The reason I only discuss violent crime is because your allusions to domestic violence and the fact that non-violent drug convictions (or other non-violent convinctiosn) do not seem at all related to possible use of the state by women in particular against men, which was the topic of discussion. If you are trying to claim that drug laws and laws regarding things like theft are feminist conspiracies, you are going to need some extraordinary evidence for those extraordinary claims. Unless you can show that non-violent convictions are a feminist conspiracy, then non-violent convinctions give you no grounds to attack feminism at all (neither does domestic violence-a violent crime, really, but that is a whole seperate argument). You want to try to battle the drug laws because you think they hurt men? Go for it. Most feminists don't even support those laws in the first place, we certainly aren't stopping you. I suggest you look at the comments from the 'bitching about Ken' thread for more on this notion. @anonymous, I take the draft and selective service very seriously, (and I do personally know people who were affected by the Nam draft, they are still around), which is why I have educated myself about it, something that the MRAs who claim it as a priority seem completely lacking in motivation to do. I am unconvinced that most of this concern about the draft is genuine rather than an attempt to grasp at straws in order to claim that men are more oppressed than women and that feminists rule the world. Most MRAs do not care about the draft as anything other than a rhetorical tool to try to use to lob (poor) attacks at feminism.
>@Cat:"You [Dias] hold the position that the state can use violence for protective means."Again a misquote by you, and again you have quoted me dishonestly. Following this comment, I will no longer debate with you, Cat, because it seems to me that you are intellectually dishonest. I have stated from the beginning that the agenda of the men's rights movement is to dismantle the illegitimate forms of State coercion. To whatever degree the State perpetrates an injustice, for example getting someone caught up in the legal meat grinder of the courts and/or that of the prisons, then the authority which enabled the State to inflict that injustice must be scaled back, meaning that the laws that enable the State to inflict injustice must be changed or overturned.Just because I acknowledge that the State can be a legitimate dispenser of justice doesn't mean that it necessarily does. And just because the State can protect doesn't mean that it necessarily does. Personally, I think that most of the time fathers can do a more effective job than the State in protecting their households. In terms of protection, fatherless communities are the most vulnerable to being victimized by violence compared to communities with intact 2-parent nuclear families where the father is present. Women benefit in their safety from intact families under the protection — and authority — of fathers. But if the State drives fathers away from the family, and if the misandrist culture derides fathers as bumbling fools, then fathers can't be effective in providing that protection.In short, in my personal opinion the State needs to ease off a bit with its authority and let fathers exercise protective authority over their families, and the way that is done by changing the laws. Women will benefit from this. But you may ask, what if a minority of those fathers perpetrates an injustice (either through abusing members of his family, or through the depraved indifference of failing to challenge external threats)? Who is to hold him accountable? How can we trust men with greater authority within the family sphere if justice does not always result, you may ask? Well, apply that same question to the State. How can we trust the State with its current level of authority over the family sphere, if public policy drives innocent men out of their homes without jury trials? How can the State justify putting a man in jail for 8 years for selling narcotics, while women who murder their husbands get light sentences on the pretext that their supposed victimization justifies a lighter sentence?
>In case you might feel tempted to point out that I didn't answer my (this time rhetorical) question above ("what if a minority of those fathers perpetrates an injustice? … who is to hold him accountable?"), follow the logic. The typical reaction of people who have confidence in the authority of the State to dispense justice, is to shore up its deficiencies by with even more authority. Apply that standard to fathers (whose protective impulse for their family's safety is stronger than that of the State, specifically because of the fathers' biological connection to their family), and you'll understand my hope for the future well-being of my culture.