Warren Farrell on Institutionalized Misandry and Additional Opinions Modern Feminism We hear much on the topic of discrimination against

women these days (glass ceilings, wage gaps, sexual harassment, spousal abuse, porn as objectification of women, double standards, the toll that disproportionately large family responsibilities take on women) and a lot about ways to stop it in its tracks but is much of this becoming reverse discrimination for men? Warren Farrell discusses some of the implications of reverse discrimination and some of the bear traps set for men either incidentally or purposely by way of a gender discourse hegemonized by feminism. He discusses the implications of increasing womens areas of influence without increasing their responsibilities as well. In Praise of Feminism Without feminism fewer companies would have experimented with part time workers, flexible schedules, childcare options and improved safety standards and few police forces would have discovered that 95 % of conflicts are not resolved by physical strength. Without feminism more women would have to marry for money than for love and women baseball teams would be few and far between as women would not venture to other arenas besides that of housework. Wage Gap Where the wage gap is concerned, Time magazine reported on Census Bureau findings for 2008 that women were still making 77 cents to the male dollar. This is almost 50 years after the passing of the Equal Pay Act which made illegal discrimination based on sex. As to how true this is depends on who you ask since the gap decreases when you take into account education and experience, whether the individuals in question belong to a union, and most importantly the field they are operating in. It appears the highest educated women gravitate towards fields like teaching and nursing instead of professions like law, medical doctors, business executives and scientists. Other statistics comparing the sexes working in the same fields like truck driving claim to have uncovered a wage gap as large as 23% between the sexes although it is questionable as to whether simple factors have been added like the average workweek of a male being in general 10 hours longer. 10 hours in 40 clearly denotes a 25% difference (a 23% difference would thus be an average of 2% higher pay in favor of females although it cannot be said if this is statistically significant). Housework As far a womens housework volume (like dishwashing and cooking etc.) in the home outweighing the tasks of men and becoming an extra burden, Warren Farrell tells us The Journal of Economic Literature in 1991 found that the average man worked 61 hours and the average woman 56 hours when including tasks around the house like gardening, mechanical work, mowing the lawn and other home fixes as well as their total hours at their job. Healthcare Funding

Also not much attention has been awarded to the huge chasm in funding between prostate cancer research and breast cancer research. Breast cancer kills about 15% more people per years but receives 600% more funding1. This is taxpayer money and if assuming both sexes are paying equally (Dont less expenditures translate to more earnings?! Could this be factored into census earnings reports?) only one sex is getting their moneys worth. Many areas of mens health continue to be neglected and money siphoned into other more important areas of health research. Neglected areas of mens health include: PTSD, criminal recidivism, testicular cancer, homelessness, steroid abuse, suicide, and mens bith control pill among others. It is claimed that the National Institutes of Health only spend 10% of their research budget on women, implying the rest goes to men. This does not elucidate that about 85% of the funding goes to health issues regarding both genders. And the remaining 5% goes to mens health. Another pay related gender inequality is the issue concerning pension plans as highlighted by Warren Farrell. With a retirement age of 67 in the US and the average life expectancy of females being 81 and the average life expectancy of men being 75, it would make women eligible for almost twice the amount of benefits as men3. Pension plans used to use mortality tables to rationalize paying women less per moth (the alternative would be to rise the retirement age for women if we arent to make men pay disproportionaly higher tax rates for lesser returns). The use of mortality tables is now a long gone practice in female healthcare since they were labeled discrimination against women2. But the mortality tables seem to have made a comeback. Insurance companies use the same mortality tables to charge men higher monthly premiums than women since men die sooner and thus make fewer total payments. Nice. When it comes to health care research and delivery, women can no longer be treated as second class citizens, said the President of the United States on October 18th, 1993. One of the best known cardiovascular studies (heart disease is #1 killer of men and women, second only to cancer) was initiated in the town of Framingham, Ma in 1948, went on for more than 45 years and included 2,336 men and 2,873 women, even though heart disease kills more men than women. Another major study conducted by Harvard and focusing on aspirins effect on preventing cardiovascular disease included 87,000 women and 22,000 men, followed the women for 6 years and the men for 5 years and reported the results. The results for men were reported in New England Journal of Medicine in July 1989 and prompted charges of sexism against women in research. The female results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1991 and largely ignored by non-medical press4. Lifespan In 1920 women lived 1 year longer than men now they live 6 years longer then men. How can there be female oppression when womens lives are being extended and mens shortened. Is it not a sign of power to have a longer life and a sign of powerlessness to have a shorter life? When blacks die 6 years sooner than whites do we see it as a form of black power? So why is it when men die 6 years sooner than women we still say men have the power?

What of the Glass Cellars? The glass ceiling is commonly discussed in the mainstream as a type of discrimination in our society, as a type of unequal opportunity - women not welcome in the higher rungs of society. On the other hand glass cellars are never discussed. Why is it that 24 of the 25 jobs listed as the most dangerous by the Jobs Rated Almanac are 85% male dominated? Jobs like roofing welding, taxi driving, trucking, fishing, logging, airline piloting, farming and mining are some examples. Are women incapable of functioning in these jobs? If affirmative action calls for equal employment opportunities in the higher rungs, what would happen if it also asked for equal employment in the lower rungs as well? Are we training men to be disposable and do we teach them to compete to be disposable so that they can provide for their families? These are interesting questions to ponder that would rarely gain any publicity in a gender discourse hegemonized by feminism. Historically men have been socialized to be disposable - either to die for their country or to die in pursuit of resources (either chasing quarry or mining quarries) and in turn they suffer harsher jail sentences than women if in the pursuit of resources they have been found to transgress in some way (highlighted in court section below). Popular Statistics on Rape and their Validity What about the especially heinous crime of rape? A study commissioned by Ms. magazine, a magazine by Gloria Steinem, made it out to be that of women in college have been the victims of rape or attempted rape. These sort of statistics entrench the female-as-victim view and act as a rallying signal for preemption rather than present any grounded truth. Gloria Steinems hand picked smut peddler Mary Koss subsequently acknowledged that 43% of the young women polled were dating the perpetrator of the act again and 73% of them were not aware they had been raped. If I am not aware that I ate a bad tasting burrito then whos to say it was bad tasting? This is not to say that rape does not happen or it should not be severely punished when it does but scare tactics and hyperbole are not the solution. They only foster anger resentment. Discourse on Pornography What can we say about pornography in this mix? Gloria Steinem and other hard-line feminists claim it is degrading to women and objectifies them even though it pays women on average about 3-4 times the amount that it pays men and it clearly discriminates against men in terms of pay. At the same time porn is not exactly an industry that one is forced into. It would be easier to be forced into prostitution then into porn for that matter since there is no application and rigorous screening process for that and you will not be denied based on STD status since you can decide to keep that confidential in traditional prostitution. Many women use the My body, my choice slogan for anything from abortions to suing for child support and that can be readily applied to pornography as well. Some women choose it as their form of freedom of speech, and some do want to be objectified. A person is not objectified by pornography but by his/her own choice. If she wears a short skirt and too much cleavage at a business meeting is the fashion and textiles industry objectifying her? We cannot swipe under the rug all forms of personal responsibility. If women have been objectified in the past as sex objects, men have been objectified as success objects: racing to climb to CEO level, thickening their wallets to provide for women, being viewed as units of production and having their self worth

determined solely through that. Men have always been socialized to be success objects (not just vocation wise but even if you look at sports and armed conflict), so even in terms of objectification, women currently have more options: the success object path, the sex object path, the traditional nurturer path. And just like homelessness for men5 is the dark side of the success object status they are socialized into chasing, objectification for women is the dark side of the sex object status they are socialized into chasing. Being a sex object or success object is not for everyone but being a firefighter is also not for everyone along with being a research scientist. If pornography commodifies the sexuality of women and nothing else, do research positions commodify someones intelligence for public consumption and relegate them to the realm of data processing units or external hard drives? Is this type of objectification (in terms of nothing but one single organ) also not degrading? The point is that there is a dark side to every type of power exerted. If women want to exert dominance through self-eroticization they will pay a price just like the man who wants to exert dominance through becoming a success object pays a price (maybe less family time, cold father syndrome, higher death rates for males from every major disease many of which are stress influenced). Nina Hartley, a veteran of the adult industry and classical liberal feminist, claims Whether of not we agree with or disapprove of them, the choices made by young women are theirs. She cites the focus of feminism should be equality in terms of equal pay for equal work, single payer health coverage, equal opportunity through skills instead of gender, general maternity AND (emphasis added) paternity leave. I believe that men and women are both victimized by patriarchal culture just in different ways, by different means6 So if porn isnt degrading is prostitution? Women pushed to sell their bodies to make ends meet... men have been selling their bodies to the armed forces for ages. Contemporary Media What about the portrayal of both sexes in contemporary culture and media? What can we say when we learn that the Shoe Box division of Hallmark which produces the most male bashing cards is the companys highest profiting division, TV ads that portray only one sex as jerks choose men almost 100 percent of time? When a woman criticizes a guy its called insight but when a guy criticizes a woman its sexism. When we see higher female college graduation rates we attribute them to female aptitude but when we see higher rates of male executives we dont attribute it to male aptitude but sexism again. When recent studies found that inflation adjusted median earning for men fell by 6% during the recession and womens median earnings fell by 0.9% we just sigh and move on. When studies find any gender pay gap disadvantaging women, immediate research is put under way and corrective actions sought. When Hanna Rosins articles and public speeches reinforce the media image of the battered male with portrayals like lazy, beer drinking couch potatoes, are these accurate reflections of the cultural restructuring underway or institutionalized misandry? What we need is a gender transition movement not a smear campaign and finger pointing. If we want to move past the old gender roles of male providers/women dependents we need to move ahead and foster the roles we desire.

Why does media cater to women? In malls 7 times as much space is devoted to womens personal items then mens and women watch more TV in general. TV needs sponsors/advertisers who in turn compete for womens attention. Half of the 250 made for TV movies in 1991 depicted women as victims. In general there are more male firefighters who die saving womens lives than male criminals jeopardizing womens lives. During the Mike Tyson rape trial the hotel where jury resides went ablaze and 2 male firefighters died trying to save the lives of dozens of people. In the end more attention was paid to one womans physical harm by one male than dozens of male firefighters endangering their lives and 2 of them dying in the process of saving possibly dozens of lives. Special Treatment in Court The female only defenses in court are worth a mention. The Battered Woman Syndrome defense appeared in the Los Angeles Times7 when an instance of premeditated murder by wife on husband was labeled self defense because of the learned helplessness of the victim. Since when do we teach our citizens that premeditated murder is preferable to leaving a dysfunctional relationship? The depressed-mother defense: When Sheryl Lynn Massip crushed her 6 month old son with her car8, her sentence was treatment. The children-need-their-mother defense: Lory Fosters husband had abused her after returning from Vietnam and suffering PTSD and diabetes induced mood swings. Her response was to murder him instead of leave him and a jail term wasnt even sought in her trial for breaking the law since kids need their mother. One hundred percent of juveniles on death row are boys even though juvenile girls are more likely to kill their children. And as far as date rape, DNA evidence has exposed many false accusations of it but it is rare for women to receive punishment for it even if it results in the man being incarcerated and raped in jail. The protective instinct for women operates for everyone. In the case of juries judging the prosecution of women for their crimes the protective instinct operates more strongly for older jurors (they grew up during more chivalrous times) so defense lawyers try to hand pick their juror audience in accordance with this known fact, says attorney Frank Luciana. This translates in turn into a type of court chivalry for women. The court itself attempts to open the exit door for women before focusing on the facts. In addition media reportage of violence against women has been increasing even though violence itself has been declining. Violence has been deceasing on the society level as well with non-gender specific violence being much lower in todays society compared to older societies according to Steven Pinker, an experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist at Harvard. His research sheds light on how highly violent societies of the past contrast sharply with todays society. If we can offer a hormonal defense for women in cases of postpartum depression can we offer a hormonal defense of men because of the correlation between testosterone levels and violent crime? In a situation like this we could get into a correlation is not causation type argument. An analogous example would be the relation between tides and gravity. It is not accurate to say that gravity causes tides because there are no pulls that precede

the occurrence of the tide. Rather the gravitational field is always there not a precedent or antecedent to a body of water. The tide is the manifestation of the gravitational field in water. A revealing or unmasking of an otherwise invisible force. And if physical aggression can be seen in part as the revealing or unmasking of the invisible force of testosterone it does not have to be a causal agent but rather the manifestation of that potential field of aggression whose isomorphism at the cellular level is testosterone levels. Biological Predispositions There has been demonstrated a link by various studies between testosterone levels and aggression in both sexes. The opposite (low testosterone) does not necessarily indicate kindness and amicability but in adverse conditions might allow for sneaky treachery instead of direct physical violence10 (up to 80% women serial killers poison their victims and some hire killers instead of choosing direct physical violence which has higher visibility). This hints that both sexes or people of all testosterone levels can be aggressive in their own way but when looking at crime through the lens of testosterone it selects the course of physical force instead of quiet treachery. It is also estimated that 75% of female serial killers kill for profit. Hired hit woman/serial killer Madame Popova hired herself out to women to kill their abusive husbands and is estimated to have killed over 300 men. Anna Marie Hahn conned 25 elderly men under her care out of their savings before killing them11. Gendercide Maternal mortality is the cause of death of 585,000 women worldwide according to UNICEF12, female infanticide in select countries and witch-hunts in early modern Europe are also contenders for the female aspect of gendercide; the raping of Nanjing also comes to mind to most people. These are unfortunate events and have received widespread publicity as they rightfully should have. Less reported is gendercide of non-combatant battle aged men. The Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict in which the Serbian military systematically executed non-combatant men is a clear reminder of the toll of gender specific genocide14. Even though the conflict was said to be religious in nature the primary casualties were non-combatant men. The conflict ridden Indian states of Cashmir and Punjab15 have seen heavily gendercidal activities mostly aimed at young men in the regions. The conflicts in Colombia have heavily gendercidal tendencies overwhelmingly targeting males13. There is also the more obscure male gendercide by the Nazis of 2.8 million Soviet prisoners of war - all done in a period of about 8 months. Last but not least are Stalins purges of over 10 million people (mainly men) who were killed or imprisoned for political purposes. Many were Communists, secret police, army personnel, scientists, engineers16. As we can clearly see, women are not the sole bearers of the hardships of society and the victimized masses that feminism sometimes claims they are. The burden is held by both sexes equally but in different ways. If there was ever a division of labor with women primarily being concerned with matters of the home and men concerned with matters of the workplace, it was never some sort of secret machination to enslave one half of the citizens of the world but an innocent agreement to have different but equal

responsibilities and different but equal burdens. Even though the male burden expressed itself in terms of sacrificial service to the country or their women, womens burden of dealing with the matters of home and being restricted from gaining popper education and voting freedoms must not be understated. If we need to move past the traditional gender roles we need a gender transition movement and not a gender discourse swayed by only one sex. Bibliography 1. Farrell, Warren. The Myth of Male Power. Berkley Publishing Group, 1993. Pg 193. 2. Farrell, Warren. The Myth of Male Power. Berkley Publishing Group, 1993. Pg 350. 3. Wolfram Alpha. <http://www.wolframalpha.com/> 4. The Atlantic Online. August 1994. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96jun/cancer/kadar.htm 5. Approx 70% of homeless are single males as reported by The National Coalition for the Homeless. 6. The Humanist. September 2010 http://thehumanist.org/humanist/10_sept_oct/Shaffer.html 7. Nancy Ray, Judge Allows Battered Woman Defense, Los Angeles Times, September 21, 1982. 8. Maria Ganga. Mother Held in Death of Baby Found in Trash. April 30, 1987. http://articles.latimes.com/1987-04-30/news/mn-2899_1_baby-found-death 9. Bruce Langer, Ward Woman Gets Probation for Killing Abusive Husband, Daily Camera, December 15, 1989. 10. James M. Dabbs, Jr., and Marian F. Hargrove Age, testosterone, and behavior among female prison inmates. Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol. 59, 1997, pp. 477-480. 11.Beatrice Croft Yonker. The Legal Side: Nurses Accused of murder. American Journal of Nursing. 1988 Wolters Kluwer Health. 12. Adam Jones. Gendercide Watch. 1999 http://www.gendercide.org/case_maternal.html 13. Adam Jones. Gendercide Watch. 1999 http://www.gendercide.org/case_colombia.html 14.Adam Jones. Gendercide Watch. 1999 http://www.gendercide.org/case_bosnia.html 15.Adam Jones. Gendercide Watch. 1999 http://www.gendercide.org/case_kashmir_punjab.html 16. Adam Jones. Gendercide Watch. 1999 http://www.gendercide.org/case_stalin.html