The Backlash! - February 1996

Prostate cancer?

Editor: Although it's a serious issue that warrants attention, I've never published anything specific about it. I've coded his email address in so that any of our readers who can help with this can email him directly.

Kudos

Pornographic hypocrisy?

In truth, romance novels give the idea that it's possible to find men who not only respect women, but who are capable of kindness and heroic acts, large or small, and making sound moral choices. Sometimes a woman has to look carefully, sometimes it's apparent. Is this truly a fantasy? If this is what you think, then I feel sorry for you.

I, for one, have found such a man, and he's no Fabio (excuse me while I gag), thank God, but a kind, supportive, hardworking man, who is both a great husband and father. I am also a romance reader and writer, and understood if I looked hard enough I'd find one like him.

Most romance readers and writers are like myself. We wouldn't be reading and writing romances if we hadn't experienced what real men are like, and know how different each one is. There are good men and bad, gentle and abusive ones. We are not so stupid to think that fantasy is reality, any more than a mystery reader thinks that just because the crime is punished at the end of a mystery novel that it happens in real life as well. Believe me, it's not abused women who read romance novels.

And, what do you know, I'm a feminist, too.

Enough of stereotyping, please! I do not stereotype men, and I'd appreciate it if people would not stereotype romance novels, and by association, women.

Editor: You gave yourself away with the reference to Fabio. Most of us know of him precisely because his image is an icon of the romance novel genre. A fantasy. (Talk about objectifying a member of the opposite sex. Women do it, too, we just don't talk about that.)

Feminists like Naomi Wolf have asserted that unrealistically "perfect" icons of femininity have a detrimental affect on women. If this is true, then how can the other side of the coin -- that the male-equivalents have a detrmimental affect on men -- not be true?

Regardless of how you feel about that, there can be no doubt that romance novels are the primarily female equivalent of male pornography. Like most Americans, I don't give a rip what you or anyone else does in the bedroom so long as it is unforced, uncoerced, and doesn't involve asparagus (I hate asparagus). So, if women want to turn on to their form of pornography, you won't find me wagging the finger of shame in their faces. But you won't find me succumbing to the pressures of political correctness to say there is anything admirable or particularly salubrious about it.

Porno, to be very precise, is vulgar. Doesn't make it evil, just the opposite of uplifting (in a spiritual or psychological sense -- erectile tissues are not what I'm referring to, here). Nonetheless, whether it's for primarily male or female consumption, it's all the same. Celebrate one, celebrate both, celebrate neither, or admit to hypocrisy.

Kudos appreciated

By the way, personally, I use the term "Forelash" - since I don't think anything ever goes back or backwards. We can only evolve, or at least try to go forward from the current mess we have created for ourselves.

Editor: I appreciate the encouragement, but the hardcopy version doesn't exist, right now. I may resume printing it in the future, but for the time being this is the only place you can find it.

No backlash necessary?

Editor: Because Stefan raises several points, I will address them one at a time. I agree -- there is neither need nor justification for a “backlash” against women, just as there is neither need nor justification for a “lash” against men. The “masthead” for The Backlash reads “against negative male stereotypes.”

Sometimes we are critical of women. (And sometimes the authors of the “news and views” articles for the Organization News section are more critical of women than I believe they should be.) If it is underserved, prove it -- write an article, essay or email to the editor correcting the error, and we will "print" it.

Editor: Where to begin? In American society, most college graduates are women, most social programs are for women, most gender-specific medical research is for women, most of the homeless are men, most of the unemployed are men, most of the suicides are men, women live longer, most of the positive press (in the specific context of gender) is for women, most of the negative is for men, most of the “victim” icons are female and most of the “villain” icons are male.

When women accuse men of assault, battery, sex discrimination, sex harassment, dereliction, intimidation, grumpiness, insensitivity, arrogance, wrongfully being a victim, or any of a growing list of offenses, employers, law enforcement and human rights agencies, academic institutions and the mainstream media are almost unanimous in their instant condemnation of the male. In this country, when the plaintiff is a woman, the man is typically considered guilty until proven innocent, and even then he’s not really innocent, just not guilty enough of whatever crime he’s been accused of for the accusation to stick.

When men accuse women, on the other hand, everybody laughs derisively.

Yet, "men have all the power." Uh-huh. When good ol’ Ted Kennedy wields his penile power in the Senate or his favorite bar, you know he’s doing it to us all. Uh, I mean, for us all.

I don’t think so. More than 98 percent of American men do not have the power the victim feminists say we do. It’s a pop-feminist lie.

Editor: The Backlash is not, and has never been intended as a long-term project, but as a brief but aggressive response to the antimale propaganda of the misandrists. Ironically, when the mainstream media put The Backlash out of hardcopy publication (temporarily), we also had to (temporarily) suspend our sibling publication, The Equalitarian (promoting equal rights and responsibilities), which, ultimately, will replace The Backlash!

Editor: Actually, I do not agree with Egalitarianism. Modern dictionaries tend to confuse eGALitarianism (essentially, equality of results) and eQUALitarianism (essentially, equal rights and responsibilities). I am an eQUALitarian.

Editor: Ironic, isn't it, how no one calls it “dangerous” when feminatics misuse statistics by, for example, producing surveys based on vague definitions that “prove” one in three women will be raped or sexually assaulted, or by stereotyping all men on the basis of the criminal behaviors of a very small minority of men. When they use these to influence political policy and legal decisions to destroy the lives of innocent men, nobody calls it dangerous. Maybe we should.

Stamp out violence, kill men

Editor: 61 percent of confirmed child abuse cases in the US are perpetrated by women.

Editor: By the same definition used in Mary Koss's rape on campus survey (the one Ms magazine used to establish that between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 women will be raped or sexually assaulted during their life time) I have been raped, on three separate ocassions, by three different women.

The feminist response to raped males, however, is as derisive as the worst stereotype of the most insensitive male chauvinist pig police officer interrogating a female rape victim:

Men can never be raped by a woman in the same way a woman can be raped by a man -- or a man can be by another man -- since cultural symbols do not allow female sexual aggression to be humiliating to a man. -- The Hite Report on Male Sexuality, Ballantine Books Edition, Sixth Printing, 1989, Shere Hite, p 794

As far as they're concerned, the rape of a man is anything but serious, and they want to keep it that way for a very significant reason -- by feminist definition, feminists are raping millions of men daily:

On another level, it is important to point out that there are many kinds of rape -- not only forced penetration of a woman's vagina, but also a kind of daily attempt to remind women of their place, a daily attempt to force penetration of a woman's self-respect and status as a fully respected member of the community, with rights equal to those of men. -- The Hite Report on Male Sexuality, Ballantine Books Edition, Sixth Printing, 1989, Shere Hite, p 771

If, being pro-equality, we extend this definition to include men, then we have made, are making, and will continue to make the very strong case that, by this definition, the feminist movement is directly responsible for the ongoing rape of millions of men.

Editor: A while back I read the story of a female stalker. Ironically, the press didn't even realize she was a stalker. What they were reporting was what a victim she was because, while stalking an ex-boyfriend, she died of exposure outside the heartless cad's window because he, brute that he was, kept telling her to go away and wouldn't let her in. (The police had warned her to stay away, but wouldn't come out and do anything when she violated the court order.) When women are stalkers, they are, more often than not, celebrated as victims.

There are no statistics available on how many women hire, entice, coerce or cajole men to murder for them. Yet. (The crime is called conspiracy to commit murder. I call it "agency violence" or "third party violence.") Moreover, our legislators, courts and the media ignore how, just as "battered women" can sometimes be pushed over the edge to commit what, on the surface appears like murder, so battered men can be, too. When an emotionally or physically abused woman murders, she is said to be a victim of the "battered woman syndrome," but we have, as yet, no legally accepted "battered man syndrome" because of the pervasive anti-male bias.

Editor: In other words, you have become your own worst nightmare. As Eric Hoffer noted in The True Believer," hate is a more powerful motivator than love, and a movement can exist without a god, but never without a devil.

Editor: As criminologists have long known, men with above average blood serum testosterone levels are more likely to be gregarious, spirited, enthusiastic, hardworking and fun. Men with below normal or with hypernormal testosterone levels are the ones most inclined to violence.

Editor: What would you propose we do with husband-batterers? All studies that do not rely on self-selecting populations indicate women initiate spouse abuse as frequently as men.

The profemale bias frequently excuses women who murder. Confessed murderer Susan Smith received national headlines for various other reasons, and the prosecutor asked for the death penalty because of the national headlines and because he knew there was almost no chance he would get it, and that if he didn't, she would probably have received a light sentence. When women kill, they are, as often as not, celebrated as victims.

Editor: Well, having been the subject of more than a few headlines, I have to side with Gloria Steinem on this one -- the headlines are biased, the media focuses on sensationalizing rather than reporting the facts, and are not to be trusted. But, don't let that stop you.

The antimale bias in the media ignores not only the crimes of women, but also that not a day goes by that more men commit suicide in response to the despair, depression and desperation they have been reduced to by some women's emotional violence. (And people wonder why the suicide rate among teenage boys is so high.)

Oppress oppressors?

Editor: Personally, I like most of the women I know, and, at the risk of making a funny, some of my best friends are feminists (although the more prominent among them prefer not to admit in public that they know me...gee, I wonder why ;-).

In my view, women in general are not the source of the problem but, like most men, are more or less passive victims of the pop-feminists' big lie. But that's just me. Maybe you and Patricia R. should get together and start a "down with the opposite sex" club.

Bioenergetics Press

Bioenergetics Press sells often hard-to-find books and audiotapes about men's issues, father's issues, and gender issues. The web site has also grown to include quotes from books the press sells, opinion pieces, links,and more.

Roy Schenk, PhD., the owner of Bioenergetics Press, has been involved with the men's movement since the 1960s, when he first began writing and speaking about the shame our society encourages men to feel about their gender. He has written The Other Side of the Coin: The Causes and Consequences of Men's Oppression (editor's note: I have a copy, and strongly recommend it), and On Sex and Gender: Thoughts of Dr. Schenk (excerpts of the best of his writing from the last 25 years). He is also editor of a new book, Men Healing Shame, with chapters contributed by such men as Robert Bly and Gershen Kaufman.

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