The Men's Rights movement strikes me as a silly but harmless minor phenomenon. It's not something I've ever inquired about seriously and it only ever evoked snippets of imagery, like a vague memory of Robert Bly's Iron John, which inspired some men to go out into the woods in groups and howl at each other or some such nonsense. It sounded more like a Wolfmen's Rights movement and seemed about as frivolous as being a vampire aficionado.
However, the world and the relationship between the sexes has changed a great deal in the last forty years and it certainly is a subject that merits exploration from a variety of perspectives. A Men's Rights group at the University of Toronto brought in Dr. Warren Farrell, one of the better known theorists on the subject, last month to discuss some of the issues related to the changing expectations that males have to face in our evolving culture.
That infuriated a group of U of T's Women's Studies students and in the spirit of academic freedom promoted in that department and in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, they attempted to shut Farrell's speech down.
Falsely and maliciously attempting to portray anything to do with Men's Rights groups as "promotion of rape culture," protesters barricaded the speech, trying to prevent entry and attacked police officers there.
The communist-dominated University of Toronto Student's Union issued a statement that the protest was an "information picket." But the video below shows that unless their definition of information includes physical assault, deprivation of free speech, vitriolic, profane insults and shrill hysteria, U of T's Student Union contains blatant liars.
Anyone who chooses Women's Studies as their area of academic pursuit is unlikely to have made that choice as a preference over advanced physics or medicine. But even from the sub-par intellects of these people, their behavior is abysmal, suggesting mental illness rather than political objections. Evidently operating from idiotic assumptions they were conditioned to accept in Women's Studies, they label anything that challenges their position in the pecking order of victimology as "hate speech."
Farrell's talk, which can be seen in its entirety below, seems thoughtful, balanced and addresses some interesting concerns. Only the most melodramatic imagination combined with deceitful intent could construe it as anything resembling 'hate.'
The Farrell lecture on November 16 eventually was able to take place, but only through the stringent efforts of police. The University of Toronto's Provost finally got around to issuing a statement on the matter on December 11, but that seemed to mainly deal with concern for the well-being of histrionic protesters who were exposed and identified on a Men's Rights website.
I am unlikely to take much of an interest in the Men's Rights movement since, despite the best efforts of some of the imbeciles in Gender and Women's Studies programs, I've never felt particularly oppressed as a male in society. (That of course does not include a couple of my prior romantic relationships, but I'm not disposed towards blaming the whole world for my own choices and I've always managed to escape with my hide more-or-less intact.) However the totalitarianism and hatred promoted in Women's and Gender Studies manifested by a proclivity to suppress ideas and free speech, could blow up in their faces.
Who knows? The way things are going, and thanks to some boneheads at the University of Toronto acting in the name of feminism, it wouldn't be surprising if Men's Rights became the next big civil rights issue.
h/t GenuineWitty
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