I tend to think that I
may be a bit of a Men's Activist, Yes I said it, should I be a ashamed of this fact?
As a father to a son and as a man myself shouldn't I be entitled to speak up
against the many important issues and injustices that go unseen or unheard that
continually affect the male community as a whole? Does this make me a Woman
hating misogynistic monster that has no sense of the feminized struggle and the
goals that they have reached in their own accomplishments? Why must I walk the line of political correctness and be concerned as to not be viewed as a insensitive villain based on my belief that I feel young men and men as a whole are in need. Real men are a dying breed. I see the decline and loss of manhood daily in our male community, from the way we are damaging our young men by not allowing their masculinity flourish, the lack of educational goals we set, to the way we are portrayed in media and the lack of legal rights we have as men as a whole.
Where did we men go wrong? Men get blame for being history’s conquerors and killers, but no credit for being its innovators and healers. We hear about how women “create life” while men only destroy it, but forgotten are the fruits of men’s labors through out history and in our communities. The seeds that have been planted from childhood of "boys being bad and girls being good', as simple as it may sound have had a tremendous affect on the male mind set. The past generations of single mothers and absent fathers has created a perfect storm of male destruction. Could all of this be why tests in 2009 by the Program for International Student Assessment showed that education is one of the many areas where young men are steadily falling behind, boys lagged a year behind girls at reading in every industrialized country in the world. Women now make up the large majority of undergraduates, young men are lacking at every level of schooling worse grades, lower college attendance than girls and are at a greater likelihood that they’ll be targeted to be diagnosed ADHD and given Ritalin. Males make up the largest group of high school drop outs and unemployed individuals world wide. 90% of people in prison are male. These are facts, not assumptions. These problems are reaching catastrophic levels, never a second thought is given to this decline nor whether men might be discriminated against or not at all.
Custody law is perhaps the best-known area of men's discrimination, in most parts of the world custody rights cases are stacked firmly against men. When the man is the primary care-giver his chances of winning custody are lower than when the woman is the primary care-giver. Even when the case is not contested by the mother, he's still not as likely to get custody as when the woman's claim is uncontested. Discrimination against women is rigorously challenged, no such protection is afforded to men in legal realms.
The media also allows women to objectify and ridicule men in a way that would be unthinkable if the gender roles were reversed. A study by the National Fatherhood Initiative found that fathers are eight times more likely than mothers to be portrayed negatively on network television.
Ward Cleaver and Bill Cosby have been replaced by an array of Dumb incompetent Dads.
Why this change? The most obvious reason is that the television audience has subscribed to passive gender discrimination, and sitcoms are now a female domain. Four out of five viewers of network sitcoms are women, and they apparently like to see Mom smarter than Dad. But where does that leave the the young man that has no father figure in his home and looks to media for a role model or some blue print of what a man is to be. Overall men have increased their share of the child care and housework while still working 14 hours longer outside the home than mothers do each week in the past 10 years (post absent daddy generation). Still, no matter how much Dads do in real life, television, will find a ways to make the female sitcom audience laugh at men's expense.
The problem here should be obvious ,the anti-male attitude in a highly-feminized society needs to be addressed. The mistake of feeding our young men the stereotype male figures and "you are not the father images" in the pro woman Oprah type media, becomes the mold that is set for an impressionable generation of boys. Boys have a tremendous amount of “creative energy.” This force is powerful, and it will either be focused constructively or destructively. Young men can become Einsteins or Cavemen, Men need to take a stand and make the difference, that will spark an effect in a young man from being a drug dealer to becoming a doctor. the tragedy of today is that in the success of feminism search to be equal, we have tipped the scales and have damaged the foundation for most young men that will inevitably fall through the cracks.
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When I say this, mind you, I mean it with neither a positive nor negative connotation towards woman, nor do I feel I must apologize for my thoughts on this matter,I'm just Identifying a problem that has gone on for too long. I feel MEN and WOMAN alike should do their best to meet this issue head on to save our young men that will one day become the pillar patriarchs of our communities and the fathers of our future.
