International Men's March

by Brian O'Higgins

Peter Zohrab's proposal and Richard Doyle's reply raise a crucial question that I for one would like to see debated to a wider audience with a view to arriving at a concrete strategy for bringing the men's movement to the attention of society at large.

At The Men's Internetwork (TMI) Web site I have created a private, password- protected Conference Center where we can post the propositions, arguments and counter-arguments of this matter as the debate develops, providing a neutral forum for various groups and individuals to work through matters of common interest to us all.

An email distribution list (something like "listserv") has been set up to accommodate round-table discussions concerning the men's movement, without pesky male feminists and other nuisances butting in. Put the word "subscribe" on a line of its own in an email message to the address to be included. On separate lines put your choice of user ID and password, in that order, so I can set you up for access to the Conference Center ("Lynx" users are limited to 8 characters).

For example:

subscribe
joesoap
tx4&cpZ

(the first line puts you on the email list, the second is your user ID for the Conference Center and the third is your password. If you don't intend accessing the Conference Center, you only need "subscribe").

You can unsubscribe at any time by emailing "unsubscribe" to the above address.

I propose to make all email postings available, by topic, at this Center for new subscribers to catch up on the state of play in any discussion.

My personal reaction to an International Men's March is that it would be a humiliating flop, a boon for feminists who would have a field day cackling about the lamentably poor support for the non-existent men's movement (and they would be nearly right). If we got two dozen men to march in Dublin I would be astonished - and we would need two thousand times that to make any impact.

That is not to be negative: I am keen, very keen, to come up with some method of making our presence felt, but mass demonstrations are out of our reach at the moment, in my opinion.

I feel we need to look at this more daringly. What resources do we have? How could we score a victory that would make people sit up and serve notice on the feminists that we are a force to be reckoned with? Whatever we do should be tailored to the reality of our small numbers. I'm sure something is possible, sure of it.

Peter has, basically, proposed an intriguing idea whose time is long overdue, namely that the men's movement, internationally, should announce itself in a way that sends the clearest possible signal to feminists that they have a real war on their hands. But to be effective, it has to hurt.

Richard's reply addresses a major problem, the question of co-operation between "competing" men's groups. I believe we can overcome that. If we don't, we're history.

[ NOVEMBER ] [ BACK ]

The Backlash! is a feature of New Chivalry Press

Email to the Editor