On WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

So it's been a few months since the last post but I have not found myself lacking in topics to write about. I have been approached with issues like Title IX, Tiger Woods' apology and more recently the current controversy including New York State Governor David Patterson. I would love to get into all of those and perhaps I will soon. But given that we have just entered March I thought this was a little more appropriate.

A little housekeeping first. Many of you read the blog I posted a few months ago on the Biurny Peguero false rape case. For those who missed that one, Ms. Peguero falsely accused a man of raping her and recently told authorities that she had fabricated the story to cover for a fight she had been involved in with some female friends at a club. The accused man spent 4 years in prison after being wrongly convicted. Last week Peguero pled guilty to perjury charges and has been sentenced to 1-2 years in prison. I am willing to call it a small victory but I'll take any victory I can get at this point.

On to today's topic: WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH.

"My God Steve! The name itself is discriminatory... Isn't it?"

Well, yes. But it's also an accurate way to describe what it entails. Recognized by congress in 1987, National Women's History Month is a time to reflect upon the great contributions of women throughout our country's history. Influential women like Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B Anthony, Sandra Day O'Connor, Hillary Clinton and Nicole "Snooki" Pilozzi are honored. (Ok I made the last one up but you get the point.) Each year March represents a time in which we celebrate the accomplishments of women in our society and prove that women possess a power equal to men in making a difference for social good.

The question posed to men's rights advocates is as follows: Shouldn't we have a MEN'S History Month to celebrate the great accomplishments of the male gender throughout history? Well that would make things more equal I guess. We should give people a month out of the year to honor the fine men in our country who have made contributions to social progress and the betterment of our world as a whole.

On second thought... THAT'S RIDICULOUS!

Now as anyone who reads my blog regularly is aware, I am typically in favor of gender equality across the board. This isn't one of those times. Sorry, guys. We already have awareness of the great contributions of men throughout history. It's called "HISTORY". Men have dominated many of the high profile positions that could even bring about social change for thousands of years. The simple truth is that most of the important names of leaders in government, the arts and society as a whole (as we are required to learn in Social Studies classes) are male names. For a very long time, men were the only ones who could participate in these areas in any sort of influential capacity. We don't need any further appreciation of men's history. We have plenty of that already.

I believe that Women's History Month is not an afront to the men's rights movement at all. Rather, I think it is a valuable tool that we can use to forward our cause to help bring about the changes that we desire in society. As women across the U.S. come together to celebrate gender equality, let's remind them of the inequalities that we still see today. Let's go out to the luncheons, benefit dinners and meetings to support women's causes and bring up these issues. Here are some good questions we should be asking at these things:

~With the population disparity between men and women nowadays, would it be fair to call men a recognized minority? If so, do we face the same issues that other minorities have faced in the past?

~Is enough being done to support male victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault?

~Women make up only 15% of all homeless people living in this country and less than 25% of the suicides. Is that a victory for women?

~If we hold the belief that "behind every good man is a woman", shouldn't it also stand to reason that behind all of these powerful woman was a man supporting her?

These issues need to be addressed and there is no time like the present. Let's get them thinking about these inequalities while the sexual discrimination of the past is fresh in their minds. And who knows? Maybe 50 years down the road we will celebrate the great contributions made to the men's right movement by great difference-makers like Glenn Sacks, Warren Farrell, Marc Rudov and, of course, ME.~~STEVE


As always your comments are appreciated. Also, I would like to know what YOU want me to write about. The lines are open and I'm taking requests!

My New Years Resolution

I am fully aware now that my blog name is a little outdated. I called it Masculism09 because I guess I was a little short-sighted. I didn't realize that I would still be writing this 7 months after I started it. But here we are in 2010 and I find myself busier than ever. It's kind of nice to know that people have read the posts and brought up several issues to me that I've wanted to discuss here. I thank everyone for reading and I would ask yet again that you encourage your family and friends to do the same.

Now I have never really been one to make a lot of big new year's resolutions. It always seems that we make plans to change our lives somehow and at the end of the calendar year we are almost exactly where we started. This is not to say that there aren't benefits to making resolutions but I think to set goals for an arbitrary 12 month period is a little silly. I believe that the best they can do, most of the time, is to show us what exactly our priorities are at that given moment. It is in that spirit that I am indeed making one of my first resolutions in quite some time.

Let me start out by saying that I certainly have goals in both my personal and professional lives for the coming year. I see some things in my life that are in need of SERIOUS correction and I intend to put time into making them so. However, this blog concerns topics and my personal views on the men's rights movement and my part in it. Given that this is an area of importance in my life, it only seems fitting that I should make a resolution based on it.

While I am very pleased that so many have read my blog and taken part in some of the discussions, I would like to expand my efforts a bit further. Increasing awareness on a grand scale requires a lot of time and money that I simply don't have right now. But there is little stopping me from making progress on a smaller scale here at home. I would hope that I am at least able to stir up some local awareness and maybe even activism in my area.

Therefore, as of today I am officially announcing my intentions to found the Hudson Valley Men's Rights Coalition. That's right. I will start my very own men's rights activism group right here in the the Mid-Hudson Valley region of New York. My goal will be to have a bi-weekly meeting at a local establishment for the purposes of discussing bot local and national men's rights issues. The HVMRC will work with other groups including Fathers & Families to debate and hopefully to affect change on the problems affecting men specifically today. If you would like an example of any of these you can simply read any of my past entries.

I haven't made any specific plans yet and as always I will welcome other opinions on how I should go about it. Even if you don't like the name. Let me know what you think it should be and we can make that our first order of business! I hope you will all help me along in what could be quite a fun endeavor for those interested in our cause.

The Hudson Valley Men's Rights Coalition: All are welcome!~~STEVE

On THE BIURNY PEGUERO CASE

I know, I know. I now have TWO open topics that I have yet to finish. I will soon post the follow-up including my plan for raising funds to finance support for male victims of domestic violence. I will likely post something a little later discussing the Male Abortion topic (and if you haven't filled out the questionnaire then please do so by clicking on the post from AUGUST to the right). But I heard something tonight that got me so upset that I just had to comment on it here. It involves the now infamous case of Biurny Peguero.

In 2005, Dominican immigrant Biurny Peguero spoke to police who responded to a drunken altercation outside a New Jersey night club. They found Peguero with noticeable bruising after having recently returned from leaving the club with 3 men. When asked, she claimed in a drunken stupor that she had been raped. As a result, William McCaffery, one of the men involved, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for several charges related to the incident including rape and false imprisonment. In reality, she had received the bruising during a fight with some friends AFTER she had returned to the club.

In the spring of this year, Peguero confessed to a priest (in the confessional) that she had made up the story about the rape and that a man was serving a sentence for something he hadn't done. The priest (and yes, there are still good ones out there) convinced her to come forward and admit what she had done. He helped her contact an attorney and together they contacted the District Attorney's Office to rectify things. McCaffery is currently out on bail awaiting the final dismissal of the charges. Within that last couple days Peguero pled guilty to 2 counts of perjury and now faces 2.5-7 years in prison.

Now, it's no secret that men's rights activists hold false rape claims as a huge platform for their beliefs. Since rape is a crime for which the incarceration rate for males is much higher than it is for women AND given the destructive power of even an unjudicated rape claim, men's rights groups often speak about these issues. This particular case seems to have a lot of people talking about the problem and how to handle people who make false rape allegations. To tell the truth, I'm a little torn on this one...

The debate seems to be whether or not to charge these "victims" with very harsh punishments or to be a bit lenient with them. Some say we should throw the book at people who make false claims of rape given the lives that they tend to ruin. In this case, the man lost 4 years of his life for something he never did! This argument certainly holds water even if it does kind of feel like an eye-for-an-eye type of policy.

Others have argued that imposing very harsh penalties on these women (or men) will deter others from coming forward and admitting having falsely accused anyone of a crime. This theory is that women may say, "I don't want him to have to do prison time for something he didn't do, but it's better than the alternative of ME having to serve time." I think this one seems to make some sense too.

My issue is a little different. The plain truth is that rape is a very difficult crime to prove to begin with. The conviction rate for sexual assaults in this country is exceptionally low. Since most of the time it involves a "he said, she said" type of situation, evidence is often hard to come by and much of it is subjective. If we begin to doubt every victim in theses cases (and we may already) we make it much easier for the REAL sexual predators out there to comit these crimes and get away with them. Cases like Peguero's do irreparable damage to a victim's integrity.

MY SOLUTION: Although my heart bleeds for the men out there who are falsely accused and serving time (as it does for all people in that situation), I can't totally agree that we should show leniency toward people who make false claims of sexual assault. Lives truly are altered forever by these allegations, whether they are ever proven or not. Just ask the Duke lacrosse team. I think that we should likely hold these accusers fully responsible for their lies in order to prevent anyone in the future from sending more innocent men to prison. Feel free to disagree in the comments section if you like.~~STEVE


I am currently researching ways to obtain funding for my cause of male domestic violence victims. When I reach a conclusion there, I will be sure to post that plan as a follow-up to that post. And, once again, if you haven't done so please fill out the make abortion questionnaire so we can FINALLY get that out into the world.

On DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (I have an idea...)

So in light of the way the Tiger Woods situation is being treated, I have been asked multiple times if I would write something about female-on-male domestic violence in this blog. The truth is we are likely not ever going to learn whether or not Tiger got beat up by his wife Elin over his numerous "bad choices" lately. I won't push the issue. But the truth is that the country is talking about the possibility and the problem of male domestic violence victims for the first time in a long time. I just wish they were talking about it SERIOUSLY. Tonight I saw a skit on SNL about it. This past week I have seen many jokes having been made about the situation. I have even heard Mike Francesa, my favorite radio talk show host, telling us that this idea is ridiculous and that there really isn't anything to worry about. Is there? I think there might be....

This topic was not in any way sparked by the Tiger Woods issue. I saw an article in my GlenSacks.com e-mail newsletter talking about how men's rights groups are becoming succesful in limiting legislation like the Violence Against Women Act. I mentioned it in my last blog and I won't go through that again. I will say that it sparked me to do some serious research on domestic violence laws and statistics. I even interviewed a few of the leading authorities in the area. (Yeah, I take it that seriously.) I saw some startling statistics and heard some interesting points of view. This, however, was the straw that broke the camel's back.




I could go on about this for hours. But I won't. It proves, if nothing else, that neither men nor women take this issue seriously. Let's just note that no one seems to think that the man needs protecting from the woman. Also, the ones who do notice all seem to think that the men deserve it... (sigh)

So I did some checking. The lady interviewed is right. According to most studies, women initiate violence slightly more often than men do but women are often injured more often. I have stated earlier that biology does seem to make men bigger and stronger than women on average. But I'm sure many of us know couples in which the woman is larger, stronger or possibly better trained in martial arts and could likely cause serious injury to the man. Let's also remember that weapons are the great equalizer in violence. Nothing cancels out that size difference faster than a common kitchen knife.

According to a Justice Department/Center for Disease Control survey, about 1.3 million women report being victims of domestic violence compared to about 835,000 men. That statistic suggest that about 39% of the victims are male. Some studies say it's from 4%-6%. Some say over 50%. But for my purposes I will use the one that was actually used to make policy in the Violence Against Women Act passed by congress and signed into law by Preasident Bush.

So if the number is so big then why isn't there more of an outcry? The simple truth is that men are less likely to come forward. I have discussed in my previous blog "On RAPE" exactly how much more shame there is for men to be subdued in cases of violence and sex crimes. Our society teaches men that we have to be tough guys and to be subdued by a woman is simply unforgiveable. This is a big problem.

In talking to the executive director of a local battered women's shelter I discovered that male victims that come forward to their organization are transferred to Battered Women's Services. Naturally, my next conversation was with the head of THAT office. She was a very nice lady. She assured me that male victims are treated very similarly to the women that come forward. They provide counseling, shelter, food if necessary and much of the aid that is offered to female victims. Where they fail to be truly equal (aside from the name itself) is that there are no local battered men's shelters, no support groups and MUCH WORSE there is very little information in circulation that there are even services available to abused men.

She seemed excited to meet a man who had taken such an interest in male victims and stated clearly that she would support any efforts I made on their behalf. She gave me ideas on people to talk to and suggested that I myself could get a support group started for abused men in the area. I'm not sure I have the necessary tools or skills to do that but I would like to see if I can help out in some way. When I asked just how something like that could be accomplished, she looked at the floor in dismay and sighed. "Everything costs money." she said. "Our resources are stretched so thin as it is that there isn't enough money to get more information for the male victims. We are a small organization and can't do much with our limited resources."

The solution seems simple: Get them more money specifically to help these guys.

HOW DO WE DO THAT?:

We take some of the government funding that has been earmarked for charities that serve exclusively women and give it to Battered Women's Services specifically to help the male victims of domestic violence in the area. Not only do I think this is a good idea but I think I have found a way to do it.....

(To be continued)

A Quick Word on Feminism Vs. Masculism

I got my latest Glen Sacks newsletter and started scanning through some of his latest topics. Among them was his interview with a women's magazine about the men's rights movement and its "frightening effectiveness". He claims he was misquoted about a very extreme case in which a man opened fire on a gym full of exercising women. The man's diary was later published in which he had listed a long history of women rejecting his advances (for as much as I can tell). You can read the article here.

Let me start out by saying that I don't ever want to see this movement or even the anger caused therein cause violence. This is an example of a crazy person, pure and simple. I believe that in all causes there are extreme cases and it is unfair to judge a cause based on them. These cases give us all a bad name.

My issue with the article has to do with the characterization of the men's rights movement as "anti-feminist". Perhaps it's just me but I never saw it that way. I always viewed feminism as a desire for EQUALITY between the sexes. That's all I ever saw masculism as. I am wondering if people indeed use masculism as a justification for misogyny. I sure hope not.

In no way do I endorse any kind of hatred toward women nor do I oppose feminism if it is indeed to be used for the purpose of seeking equality. I have mentioned before that one of my arguments will always be that feminism has worked... too well. I see many instances where men are now indeed viewed as the inferior sex. There are injustices everywhere we look. My argument is now, and has always been, that there is no inferior sex.

I cannot speak for all men's rights activists, but personally I don't see myself as anti-feminist but rather pro-equality. It is in that spirit that I write things here.--STEVE

(The Male Abortion Debate is coming. I promise.)

On WOMEN-ONLY HOTEL FLOORS (a brief interlude)

I am not ignoring my male abortions debate. We will have it. I am still trying to collect a few more opinions and answers to the questions. If you haven't done so then please click on that entry (from August) and do so. We will continue the topic then. But in the meantime...

I was perusing some videos on YouTube.com the other day having to do with men's rights the other day. To my surprise there are actually several good videos on the site. There are montages, video blogs, news clips and even a few more mainstream things like stand-up comedy clips on the subject. Then I came across this...



Well just take a guess which side I'm on....

I have yet to talk to any woman who feels more at risk at hotels than at other places they may go to. The only person whose view seems to support this in my own life is Kelly who believes that hotel bars specifically carry a certain stigma about them and that women go to hotel bars specifically to be hit on. I'm not sure I agree with her there but I'll let you guys tell me whether or not that's true.

Women seem to still feel that men are the more likely sexual predators and that they are safer if they are on a hotel floor where men are not allowed. There are plenty of female sexual predators out there who would prey upon women who might be drinking in a hotel lounge area. I would argue that this possibility is MORE likely if we eliminate men from the equation all together. Does this contribute to the idea that women should be protected from men and that they are more likely to be victimized by a man? Yeah maybe. But only if the hotel chooses to market "Safety & Security " as a selling point. As an additional point here, if women are safe and secure on the women-only floor of a hotel, what exactly does it say about the rest of the place? I say just make the whole damn place feel safer with more cameras, locks and guards if safety is such a concern of hotel management.

Now if a hotel wants to re-model some of their rooms to cater to "a woman's needs" then I say go for it. If you can drum up more business for your hotel by providing bath salts, better mirror lighting for putting on make-up and copies of the Oprah magazine for reading then I am all in favor of that. But don't exclude men from the experience. I know that I for one would love better lighting for shaving purposes as well as flowers in the room. And while I haven't experienced any kinds of bath salts I'm sure they are quite pleasant. If we are to believe stereotypes, then there is a certain large group of men that would prefer to have just that kind of experience.

The sad truth is that I know some people who would feel much safer in a place that didn't allow blacks or hispanics because they are perceived to be more violent groups putting the rest of us at risk. I'm sure that if you asked them they would come back with the same two points we are making here: 1.) The majority of us are fine people but a few bad apples always seem to spoil the punch and 2.) Look out for your own group because there are plenty of bad apples there as well. We would very quickly call that discrimination and segregation but are resistant to do so in this case. We need to fix that.

THE SOLUTION: How about adding a MEN-ONLY floor as well. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't do nearly as much business and might be a losing proposition but it would certainly shut up the men's rights activists such as myself. Failing that, just make your more effeminate floors but allow anyone access to them. You should probably give them a different twist as well so as not to aggrivate the feminists. I mean, if you think I'M pushy.... Better idea: Just give this up! Let everyone be responsible for their own actions and safety. Is that so hard?

(An interesting post-script to this story... The hotel in Grand Rapids, MI that was the subject of this whole debate decided to scrap the idea of making the floor in question a women-only floor. The decision was made to go ahead with the renovations but to allow access to the rooms to anyone who preferred that kind of treatment. Apparently they did so "under pressure" from certain gender equality groups. Could it be that we won one?...)


Pleas stay tuned as I PROMISE that we will get into the male abortion discussion very soon. It's gonna' be quite a hot one so make sure not to miss it. Thanks for reading as always.--STEVE

On MALE ABORTION (Pt 1: Questionnaire)

I made a decision a few days ago that 4 months is far too long to go without posting a new entry if this is indeed something I am serious about. I apologize to those of you who have liked reading my entries and who seem to enjoy debating the topics raised with me either online or in person. I assure you I have enjoyed it as much if not more. I have also made the decision that a post that is 2 months in the making better damn well be worth it. With that in mind, I have chosen what I have found to be the most controversial belief of many masculists and men's rights groups... MALE ABORTION!

Unfortunately, I have run into some serious issues with the whole debate. The main issue I found is that the whole topic is simply monstrous! When we are discussing reproductive rights there are certainly a lot of opinions and subtopics with their own debates. I'm certain we could debate these issues for hours on end but instead of just throwing out my own views I will ask for yours. Yup, I finally start blogging again after months of absence and I'm asking my readers to do the writing. I really do just need to get some idea of where to go with this. Please help me!

I am going to just list some quick questions and hope for some genuine responses just to get the ball rolling a bit. Answer as many or as few as you feel like. Thanks in advance....


1.) Should a man have any say in whether or not a pregnant woman chooses to have a baby? Should he be able to have her carry the pregnancy full term even if she wants an abortion?

2.) If a man decides he does not want to be a parent after impregnating a woman, should he be allowed to abdicate all rights and responsibilities to the child? (ie. no visitation, no child support. nothing!)

3.) Should a man be financially liable for part or all of the cost of a woman's abortion if she so decides? If he is morally opposed to abortion, does that change things?

4.) Do you believe men should always have to pay child support? How about if the woman becomes pregnant through manipulation or deceit?

5.) Is contraception a man's duty? Should a man be morally obligated to use latex condoms because they are cheaper and have less side effects than, say, the birth control pill?

6.) If men are allowed to abdicate all responsibilities to children and their pregnant mothers, what's to stop a man from simply spreading his seed as often as he chooses?

7.) AND THIS ONE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT!... Men and women ARE biologically different? Given that fact, is there an equitable solution? Is the current system fair?

It's a lot I know. I really just appreciate any help I can get here. I'm looking for ALL opinions and not just the ones you think I will agree with. Thanks.