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Throughout the men's and fathers' rights movement, men call for reason. Be nice and quiet, speak with the power of logic, be cool and calm. Reason will prevail.
What has the "nice guy" approach netted us, save further abuse?
People react emotionally to our stance. When they see fathers cogitating rather than taking effective action, their gut reaction is to see fathers as featherweights. We are, after all, not talking about borrowing barbecues without permission. We're talking about losing kids, assets, etc. The public sees men endlessly deliberating. Therefore, they don't take our issues seriously.
It's like Dukakis being asked what he'd do if someone raped his wife. He hesitated. People thought him weak. He probably wasn't, but that doesn't matter. The impression he created cost him the presidency.
So it is with men. They still don't get the power of media. Pictures (and word-pictures) stir the public. Not charts and facts and long-winded testimony. Yet time and again men do what never works. They "lobby" politicians who "listen," then get ignore because men only apply "paper pressure."
Getting rowdy
Gay groups make noise. They are not "nice." They have over 18,000 private fundraising groups (in addition to government funds). They hold bike-a-thons, quilt-makings, etc. They don't just talk. They do things. Things that capture the public/reporters' interest.
It's not that fathers don't know what to do. They just refuse to do what's necessary. They're people in war who fight the fact that war began. They "argue" long after bullets wing their way.
Men should have attacked each and every falsehood feminism uttered as it was said! But no. Guys didn't take "words" and "demonstrations" seriously. Repeated lies, they were sure, would never be believed. So most of those men lost their kids. And still they don't think feminism has any power!
Like him or not, Clinton knows how to fight. He never lets an attack go unanswered for more than 24 hours. His people never let up. They all read from the same page, all repeat (ad nauseum) the same script.
Why?
Because it works! So what to men's groups do? They let each and every lie about manhood go unaddressed. Or say something once and expect it to stick. The "word," they say, "is out there, my work is done."
Famous last words.
Sad, but true, the men who lost their kids are not the ones to lead us. It's not knights in shining armor we need. It's dads with dents and scuff marks and their kids. They've fought and survived and won.
Positive political action
Many advocate taking positive political action. But "positive" usually means passive. Men's groups gauge their activity to their most conservative, fear-filled member. They're easy pickings for pop feminists who take no prisoners.
The problem is such men thinking they're "noble." Well, that kind of morality costs believers pain, and brings pain to everyone they know and love. We have refused to be political, and instead let others make laws.
What we need is coordinated action. Name one men's/fathers' group that regularly takes effective action! If any group was active it'd wow America, standing out like an oak tree in the Mojave.
Instead, we act separately against a collective threat. Pop feminists attack all men collectively, and this requires a collective response. You don't respond to Milosevic by forming a local men's club. You act collectively when someone attacks collectively. The law does not deal with men on a case-by-case basis. It uses a pop feminist cookie-cutter.
Men's groups are country mice in the big city. A slick cat comes up, sees the mouse who's nice and polite. Easy pickings. It's the "earnest" guy who gets punched by bullies. The bully tests everyone, looking for someone who talks instead of fighting back.
The time to study, plan, and analyze is before pop feminists march. The instant they attack "manhood," all bets should be off. But even now, males are terrified to "throw down" with pop feminists. The military most of all. E.g., Tail hook.
This is war
Certainly, we need our rescue organizations, like DADS and UFA. There's always need for medics and nurses in the military. Still, you don't win wars with them. You need soldiers willing to give and take hits.
And how reluctant men are to use the word "war" when it comes to gender! Women's groups have no such qualms. They write about the "war on women" (Susan Faludi, Marilyn French, etc.). It's only guys, the gender actually suffering, who can't even bear to use the word "war."
How seriously do politicians take men when we won't even get angry enough to talk hard?
When pop feminists want something they take to the streets. They attract media. What do men do? We mumble encouragement to anyone who speaks up, but duck for cover the instant pop feminists retaliate, stand by and shake our heads whenever one of the few men's activists goes down in flames. "Oh dear, oh my, too bad how sad, my oh my."
Hand wringing wimps solve nothing!
We'll never affect law unless we have bodies/members/voters politicians can see/read about. And we'll never get enough members unless we do things (effective things!) to attract attention.
But who has the time?
Oh, please! Men created huge organizations and armies. Now we can't figure out how to stop forces decimating their gender?
If an entrepreneur named Pepsi says he wants to take on Coca Cola, do you take him seriously if he says he'd "like" to be bigger...but must spend all his time bottling a dozen sodas in his basement?
How serious are you about protecting kids, yourselves, your families? The collective ennui and lack of savvy says men are more serious about sports than stopping pop feminists.
There are many fathers' organizations dedicated to helping fathers pick up the pieces, but no matter how great the field hospital, unless soldiers fight the enemy all you'll get are defeat and plenty of wounded.
Recruiting an army
You can't run a company when you have neither workers, capital, inventory nor the machinery. Legislators won't take men's issues seriously when so few men are in those groups.
We have to recruit activists. We waste time talking with legislators when we lack muscle. Pols sniff to see who can hurt/support them. You can talk...and they'll listen...but things will worsen unless and we can apply pressure.
Unfortunately, few men care until the pop feminist pigeons come home to roost in their back yard. By then it's usually too late. That's human nature. Unless and until "enough" men are in "enough" pain, they won't do what's necessary. It's natural, especially in war, to not want to fight. Sooner or later, though, you either move on, fight, or surrender. If you surrender, you still might be harmed, enslaved, or killed.
So we need to demonstrate the threat, make men know the world of hurt waiting for them. That means making noise. That means, when you get a chance to make a stink in Washington, do it.
Deliberate, thoughtful, reasonable, these are not words we should use. Warren Farrell, Fred Hayward, Rich Doyle and others have been sounding the alarm for decades. Decades! Time and again, "leaders" of men's groups refused to listen and change tactics. Year after year they submitted bills that went nowhere.
Not one men's group in this country uses media effectively.
What about the changes in Washington, D.C.? In October, 1993, Bill Harrington, of the American Fathers Alliance, staged the first ever meeting fathers had at the national level on a policy agenda. Broadcast on C-SPAN, one after another Fathers' leaders spoke. Calmly, reasonably, citing statistics, studies, imploring, pleading, solemnly asking for support from fathers and families everywhere.
To what end? Those who wanted to ignore fathers - and did - could say they had "listened."
How much money was allocated? How much was spent? What's been the practical result? None. Men are easily duped. We think words on paper matter more than how laws are actually enforced.
Oh, but it takes time, we say. The women's movement, after all, took 20 years just to get started.
Not true. There've been many stages in the women's movement, the latest beginning in the mid-1960s. By the 1970s everyone knew about them. And what have we done?
Almost every male institution is gone or savaged. True, some fathers are beginning to organize for political action, but, sadly, even that's less fact than fantasy. Every men's group I know has, for years, been saying they're "just beginning." It's like a mantra uttered to cover inertia. After all, you can't judge a group if it's only "beginning." The truth is, though, the men's movement is a 50-year old man who's yet to start crawling.
Why?
Why is it taking so long for men to mobilize? Are the pop feminists right? Is it because men are too left-brained and so emotionally unaware that women's groups can say and do just about anything and, for 30 years, guys won't notice?
Not really. Several fathers have organized and the only place they are really missing in action is in the political arena. But that's like saying the "only thing" starving people miss is food. Politics is the meat and potatoes of making things happen. Stay away from that table, you go hungry.
We've got to get politically active. But we're not. Why? What goon squads keep us from appearing? When women are excluded from things, they raise hell. What do men do? Shrug and walk away? Pop feminists learned they could keep men away simply by saying "Boo!"
This men's group announces "fathers and their families will celebrate Father's Day." The media ignores them until the pop feminists stage a rally protesting the celebration. Boo!
That men's group publicly denounces the pop feminist assertion all men are rapists. Pop feminists scream to the media those men are perpetuating a rape culture. Boo!
Warren Farrell writes a book that makes a compelling case the pop feminist crusade against men is tantamount to a holocaust, the men at his publisher who pushed the book through "retire" and the pop feminist who replaces them cancels plans to publish his next book. Boo!
Pick up a newspaper. Boo! Pick up a magazine. Boo! Turn on the radio, TV, walk out your door - boo, boo and hiss!
How do we respond? What are we doing to recruit members? Our actions speak volumes: "See what happens to the men who did stand up, see how we failed to rally to their aid? See how we tucked tail and hid? You want to be next?"
Men may be mice, but they're no fools. So they turn a blind eye. With such allies, better a blind mouse than an immolated fool.
Alphabet soup?
Not all men are mice, but what choices do they have? Join an organization? There are some to choose from: AFA, ACFC, NCFM, NOM, MI, NCFC, UFA, NCM, and several other "abbreviations." What's the difference? Judging by results, not much.
Do any of them work together? Yes? Then where's their political clout? Like high school kids working on science projects, they work on these White House issues, those Congressional issues, HHS issues, and accomplish what? The creation of another ineffective coalition that churns out reports on issues, such as the one on welfare, that are road maps to nowhere? Welfare reform cracked down on "deadbeat dads" and made welfare queens into "transitional aid recipients." The words shows just how much contempt the public has for men after pop feminists demonized us...while men's groups "pondered."
One group has filed an Amicus Brief on the Violence Against Women Act. Good work, and ineffective. The Citadel fought in court, too. It lost. It didn't "get" that the real trial is in the public's mind. We have to become publicly active. The pop feminists are.
Every Spring, pop feminists march to "take back the streets." "What do we want? Safe streets! When do we want them? Now!!!!" Their statistics may be cooked, their numbers raw, but turn on the toob and see the media frenzy over women wailing how men done them wrong and...there oughtta be a law doin' something about it!
Laws are passed after the public has warmed to an idea. Why try to do things top down? It never works. First we have to convince the public a law is unfair. We do that by using media. And doing things to attract media attention. That's how the new rage women got VAWA.
Over and over, men walk into legislatures and get their heads handed to them. Meanwhile, women's groups never, ever give up. If a law doesn't go their way the first time, they hit the streets, papers, TV until they prevail.
When's the last time a men's rights spokesman was on Nightline? What are we doing to point out the sexism of Take Our Daughters To Work Day? What do we do on the anniversary of the Titanic's sinking a disaster where most of the dead were male? How many people know about the VAWA's negative effects?
If we aren't hammering home the misery misandry brings, we'll miss the boat. Again.
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