World's First International Anti-Feminism Meeting in Switzerland
Oct 29, 2010 - 21:41
Swiss stage world’s first antifeminism event
Oct 29, 2010 - 21:41
Somewhere in Switzerland
on Saturday around 150 men’s rights activists will be gathering
at a secret location for the “first international antifeminism
meeting”.
.......
IGAF says the meeting
is "an exceptional opportunity to make our concerns known to
the public” and a chance to network.
Addressing the day-long
conference will be IGAF founder René Kuhn, and speakers from
a German gender policy initiative, the Swiss men’s political
party, an interest group for divorced men and European and Swiss
men’s and father’s rights groups.
Andersson described
it as a “very special” and “historic moment”.
“The major goal is
not to come to conclusions about anything but mostly to meet
like-minded people. As you have seen, there are forces trying
to stop us from having this meeting,” Andersson told swissinfo.ch.
News of the meeting was reported in the
media and led to a demonstration by 50 feminist activists in
Zurich. Graffiti was sprayed on a community hall in Uitikon,
canton Zurich, where the meeting was planned. Leaflets have
also been handed out for a rally to coincide with the event.
“A lot of people have the wrong impression about what an antifeminist
really is,” said Andersson.
“They believe that an antifeminist is a woman-hater. Not at
all. An antifeminist is a kind of peacekeeper who wants to return
things to normal. As an antifeminist I believe in true equality
between a man and a woman.”
Core beliefs
In a written statement prepared for Saturday’s meeting, Andersson
has drawn up five key beliefs of antifeminists: “opposing the
feminist hatred of men, valuing the nuclear
family, believing in the child’s rights to both its parents
after a divorce or a separation, looking at the individual and
not judging people by their gender, and accepting that men and
women are different and counting that as assets”.
Anderson founded the Swedish father’s rights group PappaRättsGruppen
after being prevented from seeing his daughter for six years
after getting divorced from his wife. With support from a father’s
rights group his situation has since changed and he is now able
to see his 11-year-old occasionally.
But he blames “feminist” social workers for
his plight. In his eyes, “feminists have hijacked the word equality”
and today, “feminist stands for pure evil”.
He cites radical feminist organisations who
call for men to be grounded at home after 9pm or bear placards
calling for “male slaughter, female supremacy”, as an example.
Full article link
While the Swiss Federal Office for Gender
Equality is not worried about the event happening within the
country’s borders, director Patricia Schulz told swissinfo.ch
that she was concerned by “this movement’s denunciation of all
women who do not correspond to its limited vision of what constitutes
a ‘real woman’. There is a very high risk of discrimination
in the ideas of this movement.”
Okay, that may be a concern, but on the
flip-side why doesn't Patricia Schulz show concern whenever
feminists demonise males during protests?
She added that the organisers did not
appear to be looking to stimulate debate that could lead to
solutions to the real problems faced by many men, rather they
“seem particularly to want to place the responsibility for its
problems on women who can be described as ‘emancipated’, without
realising that there are certainly other causes”.
How can Patricia Schulz say beforehand
that they're not looking for solutions? She's not making sense.
Marginal position
commented Sabin Bieri, of the Interdisciplinary
Centre for Gender Studies in Bern.
“Feminist positions today, although diverse,
stand for more justice in our societies, including politics
and the economy. This does not mean – and has never meant -
a reversal of discriminating structures,” said Bieri.
How can feminists stand for more justice
in society, when they continuously ignore men's rights issues?
Feminists also lobby for special treatment and privileges for
women only such as affirmative action and quotas which discriminates
against men. You almost never see feminists campaign for men's
rights. Feminists never show true concern for men's issues like:
1. higher suicide rates among men,
2. lower life expectancy,
3. Mostly Men who are sent to fight and
die in wars, and disproportionate high amount of male victims
in war,
4. How Work Fatalities are mostly men,
5. Men have much higher risk of being
murdered.
6. Men rarely receive physical custody
of children after divorce,
7. reform of the secretive and corrupt
family courts,
8. Support for Shared Parenting Laws,
9. Court Bias: how men get more sever
punishment for similar crimes,
10. How most child support prosecutions
are against men,
11. Lack of support for male victims of
domestic violence,
12. How children are systematically removed
from fathers even though they're more likely to be murdered
by mothers,
13. How women hold more wealth in society,
14. Lack of funding for male specific
health research such as Prostate Cancer compared to Breast Cancer,
15. Jury Bias: how women are acquitted
of spousal murder way more often then men,
16. Problem with harmful substances in
food, plastic products that result in an overdose of estrogens
which harms people's health. Such as harmful estogen-like chemicals
(Bisphenol A) in plastic bottles,
17. How most dirty, dangerous, and heavy
jobs are still done by men in society,
18. how affirmative action and quotas
that specifically helps women is very sexist, for it discriminates
against men. This results in second class treatment of citizens
and is thus against basic human rights,
19. About 44% of homeless people are single
men, compared to single women who comprise 13% [National Law
Center on Homelessness and Poverty].
More information here