Masculism

Masculism is a nascent movement and ideology that considers the sexes complementary (Warren Farrell) and interdependent by necessity; masculists generally believe that the expression of differentiated sex roles is natural and should be exempt from government interference. This contrasts with how these masculists view feminist ideology.

While feminists consider the sexes as having the same capacities in virtually every respect and denounce differentiated sex roles as an oppressive artificial construct, masculists believe, to the contrary, that profound sex differences are inherent in human nature, and that feminists who have attempted to negate these differences by legislation and social engineering are dragging civilization through a fallacious experiment. Masculism blames this experiment for high divorce rates, alienation of the sexes, disintegrating communities, fatherless children, high school dropout, drug addiction, consumerism, teenage pregnancy, suicide, violent crime, and overfilled prisons.

Masculists further state that sexual equality laws (beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1964) have resulted in making feminist ideology mainstream--that such laws serve primarily women and have created significant unconstitutional discrimination against men. While feminism rails against an all-powerful patriarchy, masculists consider patriarchy "inevitable" Stephen Goldberg. While accusing feminism of characterizing women as powerless victims of patriarchal oppression, masculism sees this as a device used to justify the vilification of men and the curtailing of men's rights. Masculism believes that feminism has achieved a covert matriarchy by means of such devices.

Masculists cite many examples of anti-male discrimination, including one-sided legislation, selective enforcement, and neglected civil rights: child custody strongly favoring mothers, men incarcerated for inability to pay unrealistic support payments, children aborted or given up for adoption without fathers' consent, men risking their lives in military service and high-risk employment but receiving no special honor for doing so, men charged in domestic violence cases even when victims, men charged in rape and sexual harassment cases with no evidence beyond the plaintiff's claim, where the mere accusation frequently destroys a man's life, research and free speech repressed unless pro-feminist, men fired from their jobs for dissenting with feminist idealogy in the workplace, hate crimes against men, relative lack of funding for men's health, lack of advocacy for men's rights, entitlement programs for women only, special government ministries for women's affairs with no corresponding ministries for men's affairs, etc. Masculists also complain that feminist ideology is taught in universities, where it is misleadingly labelled as "Men's Studies". (We need citations for many of these--NO PROBLEM.)

The greatest area of disagreement among masculists has to do with religious proscriptions for sex roles. This is largely a matter of degree, with most masculists acknowledging men's general leadership role and greater contributions to society. The term "masculism" may be used interchangeably with "men's rights movement", but conservatives in the men's rights movement often reserve the term "masculism" for the liberal branch of the movement (as epitomized by author Warren Farrell). The essence of the division between liberal and conservative anti-feminists is secularism versus religion, with the liberals more prone to take an ideological stance, as pioneered by Farrell, or a religious approach as represented in patriarchy by Goldberg.

Masculism envisions a greater role for men in both the family and society at large. Most masculists note that father custody is assigned less often than mother custody, and argue that this should be reversed, citing lower incidence for all child development risk factors in single-father households compared to single-mother households. They also believe that most family breakups are initiated by women, that this is exacerbated by women's expectation of full custody, and that the expectation of father custody would therefore reduce the divorce rate. One of their goals is to overturn the covert matriarchy and elect masculist politicians, whom they would consider more altruistically motivated. Most masculists support opportunity for women.

There exists an alternate view of masculism as a complementary movement to feminism. In this viewpoint, both feminism and masculism are attempts to correct disadvantages induced by gender roles - feminism addresses areas where women are (seen to be) disadvantaged (e.g. pay and promotion) while masculism addresses areas where men are (seen to be) disadvantaged (e.g. criminal prosecution and sentencing). Masculists with this view may object to specific aspects of feminism, or to the expressed views of specific self-defined feminist groups, but do not reject feminism as a concept, or believe that the feminist movement as a whole is inmical to masculism. For example, Warren Farrell states in The Myth of Male Power that both sexes are hampered by gender roles of the past. On his Web page (http://www.warrenfarrell.com), he further expands on this compatibility: "I use two podiums: Dr. Farrell, Masculist; and Dr. Farrell, Feminist." Another example is found in Fred Hayward's speech to the National Congress for Men in 1981: "We must not reverse the women's movement; we must accelerate it... [Men's liberation] is not a backlash, for there is nothing about traditional sex roles that I want to go back to..." However, it should be noted that many masculists vehemently decry this idea, and do not believe that masculism and feminism can possibly co-exist.

The best-known authors on masculism are perhaps Warren Farrell and Fred Reed in the United States, Neil Lyndon and David Thomas in Great Britain, and Matthias Matussek and Arne Hoffmann in Germany.