When setting up this site, one of the intellectual difficulties was trying to make sure that content on the site did not come across as the male equivalent of the politically correct feminist fundamentalist ideology endemic in UK society and culture.
The aim is to highlight issues where there is obvious male gender/sexual discrimination and not be anti-women or in many respects anti-feminist.
Not being anti-women is important because the argument is instantly lost if you try to create a false battle between men and women where both sets of individuals fight for attention and power. To attack women, means you lose the authority of being reasonable and coherent.
Not being anti-feminist is also important because there still remains some areas where women, as a group of individuals, do need redress (pension provision for example) or have specific needs (breast cancer).
The aim is to be opposed to feminist fundamentalism.
Feminist Fundamentalists (also known in some circles as ultra feminists) fall into two groups.
Marxist Feminist Fundamentalists
The first group (called Marxist Feminist Fundamentalists) are mainly people who firstly believe in and purposely ferment the battle between men and women. They believe that women should have more rights than men. Instead of treating people as individuals first, members of a gender group second, they believe that all men are intrinsically oppressors and all women victims. The only way for women to fight back is to have more power and more rights than men. This is a very Marxist view of the world where society is based on your membership of a particular power group. Many Marxists in this category are also genuine men-haters.
This can come through into reality with the continual denial of help for men, even when it is obvious help is needed or when something is so obviously biased but there is a obstinate refusal to do anything about it. Issues include, a Minister for Women but no Minister for Men, the denial of real help (refuges) for male domestic violence victims, the anti-male culture of the CSA, the lack of money for victims of prostate/testicular cancer, the lack of enforcement on child contact orders or women-only courses etc.
Reactionary Feminist Fundamentalists
The second group are more unthinking in their fundamentalism (Reactionary Feminist Fundamentalists), often being 'conditioned' by the media, education, politicians or society into thinking that that women are oppressed and therefore require special treatment and more rights than men. These are the advocates of positive discrimination, which by definition, is negative discrimination for someone else - that is, men.
They are unthinking because each time that there is a comparison between men and women with the latter coming out worst, their knee-jerk reaction is that it is because women have been discriminated against and men or society are the oppressors. Often they come across as reasonable, balanced with a slight 'middle class' do-gooding tendency but in reality what they portray is a smiling face of feminist fundamentalism.
There is a strand that use fundamentalism as a cynical personal ploy to enable them to leapfrog men in the promotion/status race.They do not care about other women only themselves.
Examples of reactionary fundamentalism can be seen on the gender pay gap issue, where whilst the average pay* of a women is lower than a man, the knee-jerk reaction of feminist fundamentalist organisations such as The Fawcett Society or the Equal Opportunities Commission is that, without proof, it is down to discrimination and oppression by men/society. The only way to combat this to give all women (whether they need it or not) special treatment above men to counter the gap. Another example, is they believe that there are less women in Parliament because men or the ‘system’ prevent women from entering politics. The only way round this is to have all-women shortlists or priority lists which give women special treatment and sexually discriminate against individual men.
Reactionary Fundamentalists are vulnerable to argument when they suffer themselves through the discrimination of men. Often, this is where a male family member (son, son-in-law, boyfriend, husband, and father) or just a plain male friend are discriminated against. This tends to change their view of the men versus women ideology. An example was that a friend who was a reactionary feminist changed her view completely when her best male friend was not allowed to go onto David Cameron’s Priority List on the sole basis that he was a man and not because of his ability (he had stood twice before).
Summary
In summary, both strands of feminist fundamentalists are dangerous as they create an artificial women versus men ideology and society. One of the reasons for this web-site (and others like it) is to combat this male gender discrimination and male sexual discrimination in a reasonable and balanced fashion. The site is also to raise issues where men are clearly discriminated against in the same way that reasonable feminists promote their cause.
*Gender Pay Gap does not take into account different types of job (more men carry out work abroad, manual work and work longer hours so are likely to be well paid), the economic value of an individual man or woman, gaps in employment by some mothers choosing to bring up children at home and not go to work. The Gender Pay Gap also does not compare two people (one man and one woman) doing the same job, for the same company, with the same skill and same talent. That is the only way to prove discrimination.
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