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Women are mad, and men know it. In the media, in books, on TV, from women at work, everywhere, we're repeatedly reminded of this. Where ever we turn, women are angry and the misandrist indictments seem inescapable -- "our society is more anti female now than it has ever been." (Body Hate, Heyn, Ms., July/August 1989, p 36 -- this comment was made the year before the 1990 Roper survey indicated American women's hostility toward men is at an all-time high.)
Men must be to blame for this because, according to pop-feminist dogma, men control everything: "Do most women feel some form of generalized anger at men, for being in control of the society, the home, their lives, everything -- having more power, more status, more influence?" (Women and Love, St. Martin's Press mass market edition, 1989, Shere Hite, p 639) But men are feeling angry, too. Many women take this for granted, and the assumption of equality implicit in its expression frightens them. (Why Men Are the Way They Are, Warren Farrell, Ph.D. p 346)
Pop-feminist pundits pounce on this, frequently and loudly asserting anger is the single emotion men express. Given the constancy of this anger, they tell women to oppose rather than fear it because anger is the tool by which mad men today have oppressed and victimized modern women throughout history: "Why shouldn't women be mad at all of history for keeping them out?" (Women and Love, St. Martin's Press mass market edition, 1989, Shere Hite, p 640)
Male anger, by pop-feminist logic, is the emotion of the oppressor (Why Men Are the Way They Are, Warren Farrell, Ph.D. p 334), and men are the specter against which society must defend women: unproductive and self-destructive, men assault and rape women, abuse children, pollute social values, corrupt morals and destroy the world. Hence, society must control men because they are dangerous.
To this end, boys are admonished not to hit girls because it is not okay to be angry at women. (What Do Men Really Want?, TIME, Fall 1990 Special Issue, Allis, p 80)
But suppressing anger is not a good thing. (Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them, Dr. Susan Forward and Joan Torres) So, many men try to sublimate their anger in work. There, however, they are hounded by the harpy voices of pop-feminists wailing their worn-out lament against Patriarchy. Or they're bounded by the oppressive demands of 60 hour work weeks in emasculating environments where Anita-Hill-attitudes toward male sexuality prevail.
In frustration, some men turn to athletics to release their pent-up passions on the field or in the weight room. But there again, they are targets of malevolent misandrists jeering them as "macho jocks."
Under such oppressive conditions, what are men supposed to do? What do women say men do? "They want to stay little boys and they want to fight with the little trucks and they want to do the little things that they do with the little Army men, but they don't want to have relationships." (Claudette Elaine Sims, author of Don't Weep for Me, speaking October 18, 1989 on Donahue)
Driven by the blame and shame pop-feminists use to control them, men withdraw, less willing and able to "relate in an intimate one-to-one, enduring way." (The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege, Herb Goldberg, p 52) This is making some women angry and many sad because they expect men to conform to the indestructible icons portrayed in female pornography -- the soaps and romances.
In response to these, many men deny their anger altogether, neither sublimating it nor suppressing it, but utterly disowning all their feelings in a vain attempt to become the granite-faced heroes or suavely sinister scoundrels of female fantasy. Despite the fact they fail, the attempt undermines their ability to deny the pop-feminists' spurious accusations, with the result that, "today one great difference between men and women is that woman at least know they are oppressed." (The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege, Herb Goldberg)
Oppressed Men: Casualties of War
How many men will die beneath the banner of pop-feminism? How many commit suicide as either a direct or indirect result of the maledictions against men? How many self-destruct -- dying of drink, drugs, poor diet or through self-neglect -- than would without the male-bashing of man-hating pop-feminists? To pop-feminists, these men are merely "casualties of war." (To feminists and pop-feminists alike, it is a war, as noted in a 1990 interview covering the Feminist Movement with Gloria Steinem: "By historical precedent, we have about seventy-five or eighty years to go in this war . . . but it's finally happening." Rick Bard, Cosmopolitan, July 1990, p 185) Unfortunate, but necessary to the greater good. But when men realize they are victims of an undeclared war, a backlash will follow.
How many more men will die before they recognize their own oppression and rebel?
When and if men ever get in touch with their feelings on a mass level, they will be venting anger and hurt both at their own socialization and at women who go for heroes while saying they want vulnerability. They will be asking, "Why are women threatened by unsuccessful men?" Women who accuse men of being wimps or worms will be seen with as much anger as men who call women dykes or ballbreakers. -- Why Men Are the Way They Are, Warren Farrell, Ph.D. p 351
The question is not "will this happen," but will women stop being a part of the problem and get involved in resolving the volatile situation between the genders before the powder-keg of accumulating male-anger explodes?
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