Mike Foster (Opinion Editor)
Want to cause a rouse? Headline a poster with “Men’s Rights?!” and follow it by explicitly claiming to be a “non-feminist” community. And photoshop flames on a man’s fists.
The above description is of the posters that have hung in the Student Center since the beginning of the fall semester, representing KSU Men, an organization that, according to ksumen.wordpress.com, exists to address “men’s issues on Kennesaw State University.”
Last week, The Sentinel published a story by Sierra Hubbard that outlined the three goals of KSU Men, which are also listed on its website: They want to denounce men’s “responsibility” to engage in physical altercations, create an interpersonal violence prevention center that doesn’t specifically cater to females, and would like the gender studies program on campus to be more inclusive of discussion regarding men.
To be completely honest, I think all of these objectives are very fair and even relevant to me. Hi, I’m Michael. I hate fighting, know a few girls who could beat me up pretty good, and I, like many, want to see egalitarian principles find footing as our society continues to progress.
The flaw with this new organization is, in fact, its brand. Despite the goals listed on its website, the images on the poster and statement of being non-feminist ultimately infect any logical approach to organizing a group that wants to bring men’s issues to light. KSU Men has stated multiple times that its goal is to simply address issues “affecting men and boys,” but they can’t take back claiming to be “non-feminist.”
Why? Because the flame war that followed Hubbard’s article, as well as our opinion section writer Ashli Howell’s article titled “The Problem with the Men’s Rights Movement,” painted a picture of hate-on-hate aggression that is counter productive to egalitarianism.
Feminism and … meninism (I’m getting tongue-in-cheek) are well-founded ideals as long as they work toward the goal of establishing true egalitarianism by compensating for and erasing issues that correlate with one specific gender, causal or not.
Ideally, feminists should exist to bring strong, concentrated vocal attention to issues affecting women to move toward solutions. And, ideally, if men feel like there are specific issues that affect them specifically, they should and do have the right at Kennesaw State University to organize and vocalize those concerns.
But, KSU Men founder Sage Gerard, who has produced a very articulate and mostly well-written blog for his organization, illustrates a seemingly unintentional hypocritical conundrum by denouncing feminism as a flawed system while simultaneously attacking its idealistic foundation.
Gerard responded to Howell’s article on the KSU Men blog, stating, “No one here is blaming all of feminism for all problems happening to men. But feminism is a highly corrupt dogma based on the hysterical lies of manipulative, vindictive pundits and the gullible oafs who love them.”
Gerard continues to say, “We are sick of this (expletive), we’re sick of the ignorance and fear you propagate, and for the love of god, we want change.”
Clearly, Gerard is very emotionally invested in his organization. If he’s sick of feminists who have attacked men and demonized men, then I’m actually in his boat, as I’m sick of that sort of thing too. But, if he’s sick of feminism in general, he’s generalizing a very complex issue.
Here’s where the brand come into play: If you call yourself a non-feminist community on your posters that hang along the halls of the Student Center, it doesn’t matter what details you list on your blog—you have promptly and negligently alienated feminists who understand men’s issues are real too—and I promise you, there are many of them out there.
If you cannot identify that any feminist movement and…again for the sake of me illustrating my point…a meninist movement has well-practiced, logical approaches, as well as flawed and sensationally condescending representatives as well, then you are just as ineffective and insensitive in presenting ideas than the counterpart movement you want burned to the ground.
In Hubbard’s article, the first few graphs made it clear that the Southern Poverty Law Center does not list A Voice for Men, which funds KSU Men, as a hate group.
Considering what I’ve read, there’s quite a profound hostility toward feminists coming from KSU Men.
It says it on the sign.
Gerard and his organization have the very real potential to become a useful, and quite honestly, wonderfully productive entity that can deconstruct stigma toward masculine identity.
Unfortunately, the signals coming from its branding and infant communication have focused less on egalitarian prioritization and more on creating friction.
A little bit of marketing and PR assistance could have gone a long way in establishing an organization that can keep its footing, and it will be up to Gerard and his organization’s members to clean up its identity.
…..
Your thoughts? Use the reply option below.
Sorry…I got stuck on “Meninism.” I think that should be the new name of the club. Or maybe a documentary.
It’s nice of you to try and find some middle ground, and to be so up-front with your own biases.
I’ll share with you, what I shared with Sage (though he was not very appreciative):
When I saw this I thought you could use it. http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/2014/09/emma-watson-un-speech-feminism
Perhaps she could help you, maybe you could join a real organization for gender equality: http://www.heforshe.org
She said:
“I decided that I was a feminist. This seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word. Women are choosing not to identify as feminists. Apparently, [women’s expression is] seen as too strong, too aggressive, anti-men, unattractive.
Why has the word become such an unpopular one? I think it is right I am paid the same as my male counterparts. I think it is right that I should make decisions about my own body. I think it is right that women be involved on my behalf in the policies and decisions that affect my life. I think it is right that socially, I am afforded the same respect as men.”
[There lies the problem with KSUMen, they simply refuse to accept that feminism is not actually anti-man, and it makes any further discussion a waste of time.]
It’s funny to me that every critic has yet to actually come to a KSUM meeting.
What about the humanitarian people who are uncomfortable identifying with feminism, and who in fact consider feminism worthy of scrutiny like any other ideology? If people have trouble with new ideas, then that is not my problem, or KSUM’s problem.
Meanwhile, anyone has been welcome to come to meetings, including feminists. I drove hundreds of miles, wrote hundreds of thousands of words, traveled, and donated my time and money to the issues. Those who do not work opt to judge and bully KSUM’s members into backing down. It won’t happen.
Do articles like this fosters free speech on campus, or instead continue the bullying that makes it harder for marginalized voices to speak up? KSUM did not hurt its own brand, but others interpreted it in a remarkably predictable way that illustrates the culture of conjecture and hysteria that made discussion next to impossible.
Regarding feminism, my YouTube video “Why Anti-feminism is a Thing” touches on the need for egalitarian-minded people to criticize feminism. You don’t make a statement with the intention of being liked. This is not a business, Mike, so the brand analogy only goes so far.
KSU students are ignoring legitimate, fact-based criticisms of feminism because we have the audacity to look beyond brands. Perhaps Mike and other KSU students would benefit from judging others on the merit of their actions, and not the brands.
That said, there will be no “clean up.” We do not need anyone’s permission to speak our minds, and you may judge from your high horse freely.
That is the difference between us; We look at the facts, and not an interpreted branded image of it. And as we all know, facts are not always nice to hear.
Your ideas have been challenged. Time will tell which ideas survive.
It’s funny to me that you’ve made multiple personal attacks against me, and (it seems) anyone that disagrees with you, and you’d somehow be “surprised” or “find it curious” that your critics don’t join you.
It’s sad to me that you insist that the dictionary’s definition of feminism, the definition used by feminists, is wrong.
Basically you’ve started a club that says 1+1=3 and you’ve gotten people to join you.
For a while I was frustrated because of the embarrassment you’re causing; I though, “I don’t want people to associate my PhD with such nonsense.” But, actually I’ve come to be proud to be a part of a campus that supports so much freedom.
Wim,
Back on June 22, you wrote comments on an article by Sage over at AVfM that went well beyond personal attack and bordered on libel. You complied (more or less) with my request not to repeat such remarks at AVfM (for which I thank you), but I imagine that it is likely that you have repeated those remarks elsewhere.
In the circumstances, it seems to me that you are in no position to complain about personal attacks coming from Sage.
KSU Students and readers of the KSU Sentinel,
Fair disclosure: I am a member of AVfM staff, which makes Sage and I colleagues. I am therefore not impartial, but nor do I have any particular interest in KSU affairs.
Sage asked me to provide independent (albeit not impartial) context on Wim\’s remarks here. Despite the foregoing, I invite KSU Sentinel readers to consider the possibility that Wim has demonstrated a pattern of smearing Sage\’s reputation here and elsewhere, that Wim evidently has an ax to grind concerning Sage, and that any claim Wim makes about his political opponents ought be subject to careful scrutiny.
For the record, I do not support personal attacks made on anybody (as opposed to robust debate around ideas), including on Wim by Sage — and if he has done so, then I would say that he is in the wrong in that instance.
Meanwhile, I applaud KSU\’s support of 1st amendment rights but, if I may venture a personal opinion, the quality of discourse on this matter might be much improved if parties were actually to talk with each other rather than at each other. Attending each other\’s events would be an excellent way of doing that but, since Wim (and others) have made it abundantly clear that Sage is not welcome at their events, the onus lies with Wim et al. to attend at least one KSUM meeting and debate in good faith.
I don’t have events so I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sage told me that I was welcome to attend meetings as long as I showered the 5h!t out of my hair from having my head to stuck up my ass.
He also messaged me the following: “Oh go fuck yourself. Like I don’t have enough on my plate without baseless accusations.”
I suppose you could say I’ve trolled him and challenged him to stop making a straw man out of feminism and to stop with activities (like recording people) that disrupt campus life.
So, let’s be honest about who is making a civil engagement.
Feminism has been exploiting and using women to further their agenda, they protest gender roles that prioritise provision and protection of women by men and then make laws and campaigns calling for men to provide for and protect women, to risk their lives to save a woman who would likely point and laugh if their roles were reversed, keeping all of us in the very roles they protest against.
Aside from the #KillAllMen and “all PIV is rape” crowd, which at best is ignored and at worst defended and celebrated, there are many blatantly bigoted campaigns which is not just “branded” badly but is toxic to the core.
“HeforShe”: shed the gender roles that push you to suicide and make your entire existence revolve around women’s feelings, because nothing you suffer compares to the horrific and torturous oppression that is being called “bossy” when we’re being overbearing bitches, we’ll mention your massive rates of suicide as an inconvenience to us women, if a woman hasn’t made the effort to achieve something, do all the work for her and hand it over on a silver platter. So give up this damaging gender role of provide and protect for an even more empty existence of thankless provision and protection while we call you a misogynist and blame you for all the world’s problems.
“Teach men not to rape” Because apparently you’re all out there raping your mothers, daughters, sisters, wives and any other female you happen across and you need someone to sit you down and teach you how to stop doing that.
“One is too many” More than half of DV victims are men, we will not stop until 100% of victims are men. Apologise for being male and let the nearest female beat you with impunity. Most DV is reciprocal, if the woman beats you we’ll laugh and cheer about it on daytime telly, if during such a beating you push her away it will be headline news and you will have your career publicly destroyed and people will be calling for your imprisonment if you’re famous, if you’re not you will rot in jail and we’ll laugh about you being raped in the original home of the term “rape culture”. “No man should ever hit a woman back.”
Then there’s the white feather, I mean, white ribbon campaign.
Given what we’re up against, I think a flaming fist, a mirror of the feminist fist, is tame in comparison.
This, http://www.ncadv.org/files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf, says 85% of Domestic Violence victims are women (citing, Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003). Care to share where your numbers came from?
It is inherently contradictory to say that feminism works toward equality of men and women by exploiting women who’ve been exploited, I think you suffer from the same problem Sage does. You seem to grossly misunderstand what feminism is and are thusly fighting ghosts.
One thing to consider is that Sage and his work have a strong off campus following with MRAs (He is the collegiate director of the MRM flagship website). Typically when a prominent MRA responds to an article or a video, there is a flood of MRAs and Feminists that fight in the comment section.
“It is inherently contradictory”
Feminism is full of contradictions – that’s one of the reasons why it needs to be examined.
As anyone with even a passing interest in domestic violence will know, there is competing research with different findings. Not surprising a lot of feminists tend to migrate to this area of research and, equally unsurprisingly, have a tendency to find what they’re looking for.
Let us suppose a feminist researcher found things that didn’t fit the feminist narrative. You can see that that would be a very distressing, particularly if they’ve made a career out of pushing this narrative. Furthermore, as feminists, their focus of interest and concern is going to be women so, again unsurprisingly, women will tend to be the focus of their interest and concern. Also, if they are good feminists they will want women to the focus of everyone else’s concern as well and so will likely view any potential distraction with some hostility. That is why it is so important to carefully scrutinise the findings of researchers with an ideological and career commitment to particular findings.
You might find this article from someone who has worked in this field interesting: –
http://breakingthescience.org/RichardGelles_MissingPersonsOfDV.php
Yeah, I scanned through your link, and found what was consistent with what I posted. No problem admitting to this:
“[…]the U.S. Justice Department’s Uniform Crime Statistics, the National Survey of Crime Victims, and the U.S. Department of Justice National Survey of Violence against Women. The Uniform Crime Statistics report the rate of fatal partner violence. While the rate and number for male and female victims was about the same 25 years ago, today female victims of partner homicide outnumber (and the rate is higher) than male victims. The National Crime Victims Survey and National Survey of Violence against Women both assess partner violence in the context of a crime survey. It is reasonable to suppose both men and women underreport female-to-male partner violence in a crime survey, as they do not conceptualize such behavior as a crime.
It is worth repeating, however, that almost all studies of domestic or partner violence, agree that women are the most likely to be injured as a result of partner violence.”
But, I do not support any violence… its just important to note that women are much more impacted by violence–of all types–and this is a problem.
You missed the point about the contradiction; feminism is consistent but straw man definitions like the one that had been offered fail prima facie.
Here’s my take on the conference and planned protest:
http://youtu.be/FZqpGE9SmLs
Southern Poverty Law Center does list AVfM as a hate website in its Intelligence Report. They clarified that the broader Men’s Rights Movement is not a hate group, but AVfM is an example of a hate website.