Since the first annual international conference on men’s issues has convened in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, maybe now is a good time to try to imagine what a legitimate men’s issues group would or should do. I am fortunate enough to have never had to work my way through divorce or family court, and my experience in joining a family was to come in on the mother’s side. I don’t have any first-hand or even second-hand experience with how men are treated under the law in disputes with women. I won’t presume that the law is perfectly fair and equitable, but I also won’t presume that men are systematically getting a raw deal. My sense is that there are a lot more men than women skipping out on their families and not providing child support. There are more men than women committing domestic abuse on their spouses and children. Perhaps these facts make it falsely appear that men are treated unfairly. But, perhaps, these truths create biases that disadvantage men in our court system. It could be that, all other things being equal, men do poorly in court compared to what equity would predict.
Just as a father deserves a right to an attorney in any family dispute, men in general deserve advocates in the legal system. This is true even if the current law is basically correct and fair. So, I can imagine a men’s rights group that focused on assuring fairness that would be perfectly legitimate. Perhaps, like any advocacy organization, it would occasionally make unbalanced attacks and maximalist demands, but it wouldn’t be based in any antagonism for women or feminism or liberalism. By it’s nature, it would include a lot of deadbeat dads who were less interested in actual fairness than in lessening the burden of parental responsibility, but it wouldn’t have to be defined by bitter people who resent having to support their children.
Groups that are privileged can be obnoxious when they band together to claim victim status, but it’s always legitimate to fight against any kind of systemic bias. There can be remedial factors that cause that bias, as in the case of preferential admissions and hiring for minorities and women, but if there were actual judicial bias, I think that opposition would be justifiable. Unfortunately, the men’s movement doesn’t look anything like this. It’s much more about sour grapes and hostility to women than it is about addressing real discrimination against men.
