Radical Feminism and Misandry

Definition

Misandry is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as the "the hatred of males; hatred of men as a sex" . It is a noun that was first used in 1885. It is synonymous with misandrist, a noun used to describe a person, especially a woman who hates men. The term misandrist was coined in 1952. . The more commonly known term is misogyny, which has the same connotation as misandry but directed at women.

SCUM Manifesto

The SCUM Manifesto was a novel written by radical feminist Valerie Solanas in 1967. The title on the original cover of the book appeared as S.C.U.M, an acronym that was speculated to stand for 'The Society for Cutting Up Men". The Manifesto called for a male gendercide and the creation of a superior, all female-society. Solanas said the book called to "overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex". . Solanas went on to hold meetings for the so called Society for Cutting Up Men in The Chelsea Hotel in New York City. The book, that some have argued is hate speech, is still in circulation and can be acquired in most public and university library's.

Munk Debates

The Munk Debates are a semi-annual event held in Toronto in front of an audience of 3,000 people. The Munk Debates were established in 2008 by the Aurea Foundation as a charitable initiative. They are broadcast to the entirety of Canada on CBC and throughout the United States on C-Span and the transcript of each debate is published as a book. There are generally 4 debaters, two arguing in favour of the proposed statement and two arguing against. The audience is asked to vote pre and post debate whether they are pro or con the statement, whichever side has swayed the audience more is pronounced the winner and the statement is accordingly declared or refuted.

Gender in the 21st Century

Gender in the 21st Century was the topic of the Munk debate on November 15th, 2013. The question of this monk debate was "are men obsolete" and an hour and a half later it was declared "be it resolved, men are obsolete". The debaters were entirely women, comprised of Hanna Rosin and Maureen Dowd on the pro side and Caitlin Moran and Camille Paglia on the con side. Maureen Dowd's, a New York Times op-ed columnist, opening statement was: “So now that women don’t need men to reproduce and refinance, the question is, will we keep you around? And the answer is, ‘You know we need you in the way we need ice cream — you’ll be more ornamental.’ ”. .

Anti Misandry Journalist Barbara Kay

Barbara Kay is a writer for the National Post. She wrote an article on November 20th, 2013 titled "Be it resolved, we live in a misandric society". The title reflected the Munk debate resolution from the previous week. She questions whether we "can... imagine a public debate on whether Muslims, natives, or even sharks and polar bears are worthy of continued existence?" and comes to the conclusion that it is only acceptable when men are the subject of extinction.

Kay writes on a wide range of men's issues, including the injustices suffered by men in Divorce Law. She argues that the maternal rights over children are always favoured, forcing the paternal parent to pay support to the mother without any system in place to ensure the money is going towards the well-being of the child. She gives countless examples in her writing of cases where the father's right to parent is revoked in favour of the mother's wishes. Kay gave a lecture at the University of Toronto with C.A.F.E. on family court bias against dads and was assaulted with tweets from feminist attendees with the slogan #feministbashingparty. She questions whether a similar message would be tolerated if directed at a Women's rights lecture.

Canadian Association for Equality

The Canadian Association for Equality (C.A.F.E.) was granted charitable status by Canada Revenue Services in March 2014. Their goal is equality but at the moment they are focusing on the issues facing boys and men in society. Their mandate reads as follows:

"The Canadian Association for Equality is committed to achieving equality for all Canadians, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, family status, race, ethnicity, creed, age or disability. In particular, we are interested in gender equality, that is on achieving equality for all men, women, girls and boys. While we support all efforts at achieving gender equality, we will work for balance and fairness within this societal project by focusing our limited resources on those areas of gender which are understudied in contemporary culture. This has led us to a current focus on the status, health and well-being of boys and men, where attention, investment and support for educational and social programs stands at a level that is far from equal to the seriousness of the problem, while also being significantly underdeveloped compared to the resources in other important areas of social improvement. We provide current evidence-based research and balanced information. We also provide opportunities to engage in furthering this cause by participating in discussions, events and family-friendly activities. We sincerely believe the goal of true equality and human rights is best served by conducting inclusive conversations based on facts and evidence, not by promoting ideology or special interest agendas."

CAFE has sponsored and hosted multiple lectures at Ontario universities by professors, journalists, and writers in an effort to increase awareness about men's issues. These issues include, but are not limited to, the disproportionate suicide rates of men to women, the commonly unknown domestic violence rates against men, and the issue of legal fatherlessness and parental alienation. The talks, hosted at the University of Toronto and Ryerson, have seen heavy protestation by feminist groups. Protesters have accused the group of promoting hate speech against women but rarely are women mentioned in the lectures, they are simply not the focus.

The organization drew attention to the lack of a Men and Children's Centre in the city of Toronto in 2014. They claim that men are the victim in nearly half of domestic violence cases but of the 500 shelters in Toronto, not one was dedicated to the protection of men. In 2015 they achieved their goal by opening the first Canadian Centre for Men and Families in Toronto.

Simon Fraser University Men's Centre

Simon Fraser University approved a budget of $30,000 to the creation of Men's Centre of campus in early 2012. This decision was immediately greeted with extreme backlash from the Women's Centre, who had received the exact same amount to fund the creation of their centre in 1974. The Women's Centre released a statement dismissing the idea of a men's centre stating that "the men’s centre is everywhere else", this statement has since been removed from their website. A series of Youtube videos compiled by students further protested against the proposed men's centre. Some of the comments were that the decision was "not financially responsible" and that "The Men’s Centre will end up being a place to celebrate hegemonic masculinity", both politely addressed concerns which soon degraded into insults and misandristic statements by other students.

References

SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas excerpt, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/feminism/solanis.pdf