There Are No Winners in the Battle of the Sexes

I’m a bit of a traitor – or so some would say. I’ve been an advocate for men’s rights for 20 years, what would seem a highly inappropriate stance for a woman who, during the 60s, championed the cause of equal rights for women. I still support equal rights – and that is what led me to advocating for men’s rights. One can not be taken seriously as an adult of equal stature while maintaining exceptional status. It has been my experience that men do not have difficulty with the concept of equal rights so much as they rebel against the maintenance of special exceptions at the same time. Such men frequently see my position in favor of fair and just treatment for men as stemming from a concern for them – that’s not what motivates me. While I do like men, it is not for them that I take the position that I have – it is for me, as a woman. I benefit directly when those around me thrive. My survival is compromised to the degree that those I am close to do not thrive. This is not a gender-specific reality; whether my family, friends and associates are female or male, if they are compromised then I am compromised to some degree. I am a pacifist when it comes to the battle of the sexes simply because it is a battle that can only be lost - it is a foolish battle to fight. No one wins and I am bloody tired of certain ignorant women who feel it is their right to wage war on the opposite sex in any way that happens to strike their fancy and to hell with what it does to the rest of us!

Over the years I have found myself defending the rights of a large number of men that I have never met or spoken with. This happens because it is frequently the man’s wife, mother, sister or fiancée who is the one to tell me what has happened. That’s right - a man in her life has been taken advantage of or hurt and she’s reaching out to try to help him. It’s making her life miserable too! Once in a while a man will sit down and ask my advice or help on an extreme injustice that has happened to him (those who know me know that I am involved in just such a situation now) but usually it is the woman who tags me and says, "Sister, I need some help!" You might suspect the reason for that is men tendend to be more stoic, to bear these slights silently – or maybe you think they don’t feel emotional pain so much. You would be wrong on that. Men feel injustice just as deeply as any woman. They show it differently, are more apt to display anger than tears, but the tears do follow – just not always publicly. What is ignored here is the fact that when a man is attacked unfairly, when he is used and abused without recourse to justice, the women in his life fall victim to that as well and that is why I wind up talking to female relatives and companions – because they are being harmed by what is being done to that man in their life. People are interconnected. Wow - who knew?!

Do you wonder where the harm is in allowing a system to exist where the mere word of a woman against any man is enough to send him to prison, to get him deported, to strip him of everything he has worked for and created? If you would insist that men are the exception to human rights, that they have been the oppressor for so long they deserve everything that happens to them, that is fine; you have a right to hold that opinion, but you still do not have a valid argument in favor of denying them rights and fair treatment. Even if it were true that human rights only apply to certain humans (by definition, human rights belong to all humans), men are connected to women and children who do not fall into that category and violating the man’s human rights harms women and children as well, so that sorry excuse just does not fly! Ask the women around you. You won’t have to go far to find one whose life has been turned into a living hell thanks to a woman who has attacked a man in that woman’s life.

It goes further. I’ve unfortunately witnessed a number for circumstances where a young man was mentally abused by a grandmother, mother or other female authority. I’ve frequently wondered about the women that come after – when that young man is grown will they be paying for the sins of those who abused him. My experience is that they will. Mental manipulation and abuse travels on from woman to man to woman, or man to woman to man – there are no shortage of combinations – until someone says, “Enough!” and refuses to pass it along any further. My own mother was abusive to me and my father, but it didn’t originate with her. It’s been hard to trace the source, but from the wall of silence I encountered when I started asking questions, and from the way she related to men, my guess is she was molested by some man while growing up. So she in turn victimized my dad and me. I was well set up to be hell-on-wheels for any poor guy that hooked up with me – and I started out that way till I stood back, took a look at how totally illogical my actions were and decided that was enough – that the chain of pain wasn’t going to go any further. Ultimately the battle of the sexes is a war against humanity - and laws that favor one gender at the expense of another harm both genders. It has always been that way, it always will be. We can not survive without the opposite sex.

So let’s get down to what got me to step aside from my immigration obsession for a moment: Lately the number one incident I have run into has been false claims of domestic violence. It is an easy way to make life hell for a soon-to-be former spouse. It shouldn’t be. But, you say, if such claims were not so easily believed women would be at the mercy of men even more than they are. Are you sure about that? The most thorough studies indicate that women and men are equal in acts of domestic violence. Do you perhaps think women are killed more? It would appear to be true, but I’m not even sure about that. Some recent disturbing murders on the part of women have all been preceded by violent episodes, some resulting in death, and they were not handled as crimes. How many times does this happen where the woman does not go on to kill again or does not eventually get caught? Each of these murderous women got away with it a few times before they went so far that there was no way to avoid acknowledging the obvious. A woman professor opens fire on a room full of colleagues and it turns out that in her past she shot her brother to death, but it was ruled an accident. As the details emerge, it sounds less and less like an accident, and there have been other violent episodes in her past as well, but she was a teenage girl – she couldn’t really have murdered her brother. That is what the investigators decided. She went on with her life, married, had children, became a college professor and when she was passed over for tenure she took a gun and blew her colleagues away! I’d say she was given the benefit of the doubt a little too often. This sort of attitude creates a false perception of women as the peaceable sex. Ask any woman who loves a man that has been the victim of manipulative and/or vicious female. She will tell you – women can be dangerous – even deadly. Actually, you don’t have to go that far – ask me. I act non-violently because I choose to, not because being female predisposes me to that. I have had cause in the past to get physical in self-defense. It has not worked out well for the person on the receiving end.

This is a complex subject, more worthy of a book than a short blog, but I’m irritated by it today and I’d like to make a proposal. I’d like to propose that any woman who can be proven to have deliberately falsely accused a man of violence against her for personal gain should be sentenced to the punishment that that man would have been sentenced to if he had been found guilty. It’s not going to create a climate where women will not dare come forward when they have been abused or raped if it is kept to only completely obvious cases - not in cases where the man was simply found not guilty - but in cases such as the woman who accused a young college man of raping her when he wasn’t even at the party and a bank video camera recorded him getting money out of an ATM across town at the time. You talk about women’s lives being ruined . . . do you think the lives of the mother, sisters and girlfriend of that falsely accused young man were not ruined? I assure you they most definitely were!

What such a law would do is make the legitimate claims of women who really have been attacked more credible. These days I have to admit, I am immediately skeptical about claims of domestic violence unless I see the damage or the act. Of course I know it happens, but I also know it’s faked to gain the upper hand in relationship disputes . . . a lot! It is especially common in divorces that involves child custody and I’ve had to deal with the fallout one too many times.

This time around I’m dealing with it very close to home and I would so dearly like to see the woman responsible experience exactly what it is she is trying to create for the man who has been her victim. It, quite honestly, would make my day! In her case I know there are a number of people who are actively praying that she receive a full and speedy return on all her thoughts and deeds, and I join them in that wish, but wouldn’t it be so gratifying to see this kind of bad actor actually reap what she sows in exactly the form that she created it? I would dearly love to see that! Just had to get that off my chest . . . I will now return to my regularly scheduled obsession . . .