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A big component of the so-called culture wars is this debate about family values. The core of which is the nuclear family, especially as a vehicle to raise children in.

If we're being honest, a strong nuclear family is probably a good thing for most people. It gives children a stable home environment to grow up in, and it encourages positive relationships with friends, family members, and local communities. Which we know is a good thing for mental health and quality of life.

In fact there is research supporting the conservative notion that traditional, dual-parent setups are important for children and communities to thrive:

https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/206316.pdf

Where this

Warren Farrell's male housework list came up here a couple months ago, so I figured I would transcribe it in full.

It comes from the book Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say. It's a relationship book about communication strategies that tackles a lot of the issues that come up in some of these gender discussions.

The author is a well known feminist and men's rights advocate who spent decades working as a professional marriage counselor.

One of the premises of the book is that marital conflict often comes from "political" messages in society that people internalise. A lot of which is the kind of stuff you hear from feminists pretty regularly today. Like the idea that women do all the wor

We call someone a gentleman for being chivalrous towards women. But we don't really have a word, or even a concept in society, for a woman who respects a man and treats men right.

I know the word gentleman is kind of passe but it at least tells us something about history. Especially when you look at published 19th century guides for the behaviours of men. Which focused quite a bit on service and subservience to women. But with very little expectation that women do much in return for men.

This is an interesting paper about some of the debates in feminism around the history of women and society. It's written from the feminist perspective by a feminist, but in many ways it argues against some of the issues that people in this community find troubling with feminism: patriarchy theory, and the post-structural or epistemological approach to history (which is the foundation for much of what we refer to as critical theory or "wokeism").

Patriarchy theory is the view that men work together to organize or control society to oppress women. Radical feminists have tried (and often succeeded) to establish this as a fundamental pattern throughout all of human history.

Patriarchy theory w

When it comes to the wage gap, we keep finding more and more explanations that really have nothing to do with "misogyny" or "patriarchy".

We once believed that there was a 30% wage gap, but that has continued to shrink as we've uncovered more and more reasons for it.

At one point we basically had this,

A 30% wage gap

Caused by:

• The patriarchy!

Then it turned into,

A 10% wage gap

Caused by:

• Working hours

• Career choice

• Work experience

• Aaaand the patriarchy!

Then we learned even more about it, so now we have a situation that looks like,

A 2% wage gap

Caused by:

• Working hours

• Career choice

• Work experience

• Salary negotiations

• Lower produ

Look I get it. There is a lot to be negative about.

But we need to avoid being actively defeatist.

Defeatism is an expectation or acceptance of failure. And I think you see this in a lot of MRA circles.

From a public appeals perspective, it is often better to be positive than negative. There is a lot already wrong with the world, and people don't always want to hear about that.

So while there is certainly a time and a place to be negative and critical, I think it can also help to talk about what our accomplishments are, and what our vision is as well.

People need to know that the men's movement is a viable solution to these problems, and that there are reasons to be hopeful.

Aft

I think this goes both ways, but we are more likely to call women "crazy" than "abusive".

I think it's one of the reasons people have such a hard time admitting that women can be abusive towards men. They can be crazy, sure. But not abusive.

This attitude helps normalize abusive behaviors and it prevents men who are stuck in those relationships from getting help.

In 1856, author of Putnam’s Monthly Magazine published the following summary of relations between men and women in America:

The old and reasonable maxim that ‘he who dances must pay the piper,’ does not apply to wives—they dance, and the husband pays. To such an extent is this carried, that if the wife beats her husband, and he, having no authority to punish her in kind, applies to the criminal courts for redress, she will be fined for assault and battery, which fine he must pay, even thought she has plenty of money of her own. Or, in default of paying, go to jail! Such cases are by no means of unprecedented occurrence in our criminal courts.

https://gynocentrism.com/2015/12/19/a-word-for

In 1842, Abraham Lincoln wrote a series of "letters to the editor" pretending to be a farmer's wife to attack one of his political opponents, James Shields.

In addition to speaking against recent policy decisions made by Shields, Lincoln implied that his opponent was awkward and unpopular with women.

"His very features, in the ecstatic agony of his soul, spoke audibly and distinctly – 'Dear girls, it is distressing, but I cannot marry you all. Too well I know how much you suffer; but do, do remember, it is not my fault that I am so handsome and so interesting.’” -- Rebecca (Abraham Lincoln)

His wife also wrote several letters against Shield under a female penname. And Lincoln apparentl