Canadian MGTOW: International Men's Day

International Men's Day - Respect??

Michael Kimmel : Ass Clown of the Day Award

Video

Video Transcript

Michael Kimmel excerpts are highlighted in red.

This is Canadian MGTOW. Having fun, and not giving a shit... Michael Kimmel is the author of Guyland and Angry White Men. He directs the center for the study of men and masculinities at New York's Stony Brook University. On November 19, 2014, he wrote an article in the Guardian Newspaper entitled "International Men’s Day – what are we celebrating?" This video will use a female voice to read excerpts of this skidmark of an article, which I find fitting for a mangina. Take it away Michelle...

International Men’s Day – what are we celebrating? Is this some form of political tit-for-tat: since they have their day, we men need ours? Really?

Maybe the day is to highlight how men are discriminated against in family courts, have a shorter life expectancy, greater rates of mental illness and suicide, worse educational outcomes, lower funding for gender specific illnesses, underrepresented in schools, higher proportion in prison, etc.

After all, International Women’s Day acknowledges women’s exclusion and asks for a greater commitment to gender equality. From that perspective, we actually have International Men’s Day the other 364 days of the year.

Jesus, really? Why the self-abasement in this article? It's like he's trying to be more feminist than most women. The idea for International Men's Day is to recognise issues that affect men as a whole - crazy ideas of masculinity, lack of paternity rights, body-image issues etc. Pretending these don't exist harms the gender equality movement and will ultimately stop it progressing. If we can celebrate women why can't we celebrate men? I don't understand. Do men not have gender specific problems or are they not worthy of celebration? I find it interesting that this article is tagged under the categories of Parents and parenting, Family, and Women. That alone justifies an International Men's Day.

Here in the US, February is Black History Month. Do we need a separate White History Month – or don’t the other 11 months suffice?

A group named CALM were at the House of Commons this morning launching their new report into suicide. Male suicide rates are now at their highest rate for 15 years. Over 4500 men took their own lives' in the UK last year. CALM used International Men’s Day to launch a brilliant discussion about men's resistance to seek help. There's an excellent article about it in the Telegraph today. Charities like Survivors Manchester and Survivors UK are desperate to raise awareness of the specific needs and issues facing male survivors of childhood or adult sexual assault and abuse. Today was one day when that issue could have been served some of the attention it deserves. All over the country there are charities and campaign groups doing amazing work with men and boys, usually with minimal media support and sometimes in the face of active hostility. One day of the year, we invite the media to lend a sympathetic ear. And what do we get from the Guardian? Not just an appalling dodge of the issues but an active appeal to close down International Men’s Day altogether and replace it with some whining about equal housework and childcare like something out of the 1970s.

Complaints followed that this was unnecessarily excluding boys, who felt left out of the day’s events. So the day is now Take our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. OK, but does the workplace have to be “demystified” for boys? Do they really need encouragement and support to envision their future lives' in careers?

Imagine you're a boy and you've never been inside a workplace. There, that was easy. So why should boys need the workplace demystifying, after all males pick it all up by instinct right? No, the workplace for boys is at least as hard as it is for girls, who will generally be gentled into it, while boys will be expected to get on with it.

Perhaps we can replace International Men’s Day with something slightly different – and tailored especially for men and boys. A friend proposed calling it International Son Day. On one Sunday, every year, fathers can invite their sons into their own homes, so that they can learn how to clean, cook, vacuum, do laundry and childcare – skills that these boys will inevitably need.

Are you such an absentee father that you have to invite your own son into your home? Doesn't he live there anyway? How many times a year does the lucky feller get to meet you? Do fathers not bring up their sons in the 'home', do all sons get sent off to live in the wilderness until they're 16 or something? Perhaps the author has drunk too much feminist Kool Aid, and believes all kids don't need a father. Other than learning domestic duties, here are some alternative things that men could do with their sons on International Men's Day. Take them to prison because they're more likely than girls to end up there due to social pressures. Sleep out on the streets for a few nights because they're more likely than girls to be home-less. Get them drunk or wasted because they're more likely than girls to suffer from alcohol or drug abuse. Go out for a fight together because they're more likely than girls to be asked to fight for their country at war. And also more likely than girls to be violently attacked or murdered. Finally they could jump off a bridge together because they're more likely than girls to die younger or commit suicide. Yes Michael, us men have got it so easy haven't we? Well middle class feminist men obviously have it pretty easy, protected from the world in their 'intellectual' ivory towers. Unfortunately the real world is not such an easy place in which to bring up a son.

Just as we demystify the workplace for girls, let’s demystify the home for boys, so that they can grow up into the men that they say they want to be: autonomous and capable of living on their own, and also involved family men, in egalitarian marriages and relationships, active and energetically engaged fathers, who use their domestic skills.

It's also frankly offensive to the many men and boys who already know how to undertake domestic chores. Yeah, if boys reach the age of 18 without knowing how to do laundry, vacuum, cook and clean, then their parents clearly failed and I doubt the failure has anything to do with the boy's gender. Are feminists stuck in the 1950s?

I know what you’re thinking: “Who is going to teach the fathers how to do those things?” Point taken. I’m certain that there are shelves of books and thousands of websites for the DIY kind of guy to learn such skills. What a potential father-son bonding moment – both learning how to do the basic household tasks that grown-ups need to know how to do.

The following was a reader comment below Kimmel's article. I would like to celebrate International Men's Day by reminding the world that single fathers actually exist. That, no, we are not "heroes", we are not to be "applauded" or treated like miraculous aberrations. Such views are actually deeply patronising, built as they are on the assumption that we are actually incapable of doing something so difficult as raising a child, therefore anyone who does must be some kind of superhero. We are not, we are ordinary people doing an ordinary thing, the same ordinary thing that many single moms do, we are just men who for one reason or another, in my case the death of my wife, are faced with raising our children alone. We don't deserve to be lauded but then neither do we deserve to be ignored and made invisible So in the spirit of the day I would like to appeal to journalists, columnists and commentators to please desist with this irritating and interminable reference to single parents as "single mothers" and assuming we single fathers don't exist. We do, and we do a damn good job of it too.

I realise that International Son Day, thus conceived, might exclude the fatherless or the son-less among us. But I’m sure we can find some community activities that men can engage in to promote greater equality at home and at work. Perhaps organise a toy drive for children whose mothers are in shelters for battered women.

I would suggest a mother-daughter day for all the women I know who think it's a sign of feminist progress that they can barely boil water. It's not. You're just a burden on anyone who lives with you. When I was in my early 20s, I had 5 male friends who were in university. Each one of them knew how to cook, but NONE of their girlfriends knew. And, what the hell is all this pandering to women, and obsession with housework? Do we ask women on International Women's Day to do stuff for men? Do we suggest they spend the day teaching their daughters how to cook? Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?

Still, without the explicit focus of IMD to engage men to further support gender equality, at home and at work, the day feels too reactive, too amorphous, too ripe for innocent misinterpretation or deliberate manipulation. I think I’ll sit it out.

So as a man, you're far more likely to die of almost every cause from infancy to old age, to end up on the streets, in jail, falling behind in education, without access to your family, but Miss Kimmel will "sit it out." on the off chance this distracts from women's issues or things aren't clearly defined. I'm trying to think of a social group, where such significant needs have been dismissed for such a tenuous reason by left wing progressives other than men, but I can't think of one. Try a little empathy, asshole! Feminism has spawned high numbers of emasculated males like the author. Columnists like this bigoted garbage are the reason we need to recognise International Men's Day. So it is with great pleasure I give Michael Kimmel the "Ass Clown of the Day Award" This concludes this article... If you enjoyed this video, please comment, rate and subscribe. Thank you. This is Canadian MGTOW, signing off! Save yourself! Go MGTOW...