‘Coo’ is pretty much my response on reading the 255 record number of comments on my blog urging men to stand up to feminists rather than turn their backs on women in general.
I now feel some sympathy for that P. G. Wodehouse character, the irritating Edwin, (Florence Craye’s younger brother in Joy in the Morning, for the non-Wodehouse fans among the readers). He is the boy scout hell bent on doing a daily act of kindness only to find it erupt in his face each time. ‘Coo’, he says, as the cottage burns down when he attempts to clean the chimney using gunpowder and paraffin. Mine was, unintentionally, a gunpowder and paraffin blog.
Talk about a fusillade of return fire. Coo indeed. If I had set out to annoy ‘sexodus’ men (which I didn’t, needless to say) I could not have succeeded better. There were two common themes to the comments, which can pretty much summed up as, ‘how dare you’ and too late. MGTOW (men are going their own way – and not coming back) so put that in your pipe and smoke it (that, at least, is my polite interpretation).
How about you do that (stand up to feminists), and stop expecting men to do the work for you. YOU sat back and enjoyed the benefits of feminism. YOU said nothing while feminists increasingly grew more and more vitriolic towards men. YOU said nothing about alimony and women winning custody in 80 per cent plus of cases while men go to jail for missing payments they can’t afford.
So now that men are finally fed up of all this nonsense and leaving, now suddenly “WE” need to stand up and say something?
Anger and disgust is palpable in the stream. There are so many quotes it is impossible to chose. The same writer pretty much sums them up:
First it’s “men need to shut up and stop whining”, which we see in this doozy of a line you wrote: ‘That’s why men playing victim, however badly they have been treated, is no answer.’ Then it’s ‘No, you’re not allowed to leave, you have to fix this!’
And very soon it will be: ‘But where did all the men go? I think I need more cats.’
I am done being used by women like you. Fix the problem yourself, and let me know when it’s safe to come back.
My ‘coo’ response, however, is not altogether one of surprise – even at the vitriol and abuse we moderated out. Men have much to be furious about. But anger directed at us is a bit rich given a key reason we set up The Conservative Woman was exactly to challenge feminism. Vive la difference! remember? If this is not apparent from our blogs (Laura Perrins, Belinda Brown, Kimberly Ross and Caroline Farrow all regularly expose its flaws and dangers as have I done too) please turn to our mission statement:
Forty years of feminism has brought with it as many problems as it has solutions.
… It means advocating values and approaches marginalised in a media dominated by feminist orthodoxies.
TCW will challenge and question these received wisdoms and such politically correct thinking.
So to find yourself target number one for the ire of the men of the ‘sexodus’ is somewhat ironic.
Not all of the commentators tarred us with the same brush, however, or were so unremittingly negative about our motives or about the value of fighting this battle against feminism.
Some like politicalcynic (presumably an American) pointed out reasonably and understandably that:
The dangers in “challenging” feminism are simply too great for men. It is far too easy, for instance, for a man to have his life destroyed with a false allegation combined with “listen and believe”. It is far too easy for a man to get married and lose far more than half of everything in a divorce. It is far, far too easy for men to be accused of sexual harassment, bias and privilege and silenced. Today there is already one college requiring an “ideologically approved feminist re-education” for mere ADMISSION to their programs.
From a cost/risk analysis-nope-it is far better for men to simply walk away. Period.
It is hard to disagree with him – except his last sentence. His deduction from this cost/risk analysis is a counsel of despair if there was one. What then of the future for children, family and society – or does he think a Brave New World of test-tube genderless babies is fine?
This is exactly why right minded men and women must fight the battle against feminism together. Men and women enacted the Equality Act, not just women – men have gone along with this agenda.
But the good news is that contrary to the negativity of the MGTOW isolationists there are people out there very bravely fighting for change – at this election no less. Justice for Men and Boys (and the women who love them) – a recently formed political party – is not walking away into the twilight of a defensive sex segregation dystopia.
They are fighting on the doorsteps, if not yet on the beaches – campaigning for ‘the human rights of men and boys (including the unborn) who have been increasingly assaulted by the State’s actions and inactions for over 30 years, usually to advantage women and/or girls.’
And where are they courageously fielding their two candidates but in seats defended by two unreconstructed feminists. Mike Buchanan (their party leader) is standing in Ashfield, a traditionally safe Labour seat which Gloria De Piero (who was selected from an all-women shortlist) retained for Labour with a majority of just 192 votes in 2010. Ray Barry (leader of Real Fathers for Justice) is challenging Anna Soubry, a Conservative MP and minister, in Broxtowe – another highly marginal seat.
They are to be congratulated and have our best wishes for their democratic challenge. Because, as these comments to my blog show, if feminism is not challenged democratically, this Pandora’s box of male anger it has created could burst open of its own accord. That would not be a good thing for male – female harmony, which is necessary both for children’s wellbeing and a happy, healthy society.
