The men's movement is a social movement that includes a number of philosophies and organizations that seek to support men, change the male gender role and improve men's rights in regard to marriage, child access and victims of domestic violence. Major movements within the men's movement include men's liberation, masculism, men's health, mythopoetic men's movement, anti-sexism, and men's / fathers' rights, anti-misandry, as well as organizations supporting male victims of rape.
Participants vary in terms of religion, politics and sexuality with a number of women also involved. The movement is predominantly Western, although since the early 1990s men's movements have been growing in non-western countries; an example is India, where dramatic rises in false accusations of dowry harassment as cited by the Karnataka judiciary in 2003 "In as many as 44% of these cases prosecution is thoroughly unjustified",[1] and other issues have resulted in large scale false imprisonment of innocent men and their parents, which have in turn provided impetus to a growing men's rights movement. Attitudes vary on issues such as gender roles, human relationships, sexuality (including gay rights), reproduction (including birth control and particularly the abortion debate), work and violence (its causes and resolution).
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The men's rights and fathers' rights movements differ in their orientation with men's rights relating more to civil law and civil rights and fathers' more to family law. However, they share some of the ideas of other groups, such as:
To some extent they are a reaction (or, perhaps more appropriately, a response) to feminism and there is a tendency to draw attention to and/or blame feminism for harm done to men and boys through affirmative action and institutions like the family court, etc. The major men's and fathers' rights theorists dispute the proposition that all men are empowered and privileged in society. Some hold that men can be objectified as "success objects", just as women can be objectified as "sex objects" and that a symmetry exists between these roles. The majority of men's rights groups are non-religious and politically neutral, however, a few are linked to conservative Christian and non-Christian political groups and there can also be left wingers.
Concerns often raised by men's rights advocates include:
Men's rights groups tend to advocate:
Main activities include:
Some people claim that masculism is a different strand from Men's Rights, but often it is referred to as the same. The history of masculism and the men's rights movement is complex, with numerous influences; as such many see masculism as synonymous with the men's and fathers' rights movement (see below). Masculism comprises an inter-related group of social movements to address issues of equality and justice for men, fathers, and boys. While masculist thought has been present for over a century (see, for example, The Fraud of Feminism, written by E. Belfort Bax in 1908), as a broad social movement it traces its origins to the divorce societies of the 1940s through 1960s. It branched off from a divorce-only emphasis to address broader issues in the mid-late 1970-s as a result of what is commonly regarded within the movement as the influence of feminism (that is, social change and legislation around equal rights for women).
Whereas feminism questioned the roles of women and girls in society, and highlighted the limitations and disadvantages of those roles, masculism applied analogous methods to the analysis of the male role. There are numerous strands within masculism: a conservative "traditionalist" patriarchical strand, a moderate equality-oriented one, and a liberal one which takes a more socialist approach and suggests a larger governmental role in resolving problems.
The perspective of men's liberation is that men are hurt by the male gender role and that men's lives are alienating, unhealthy and impoverished.
They believe that men are over-worked, trained to kill or be killed, brutalized and subjected to blame and shame. They give attention to the damage, isolation and suffering inflicted on boys and men through their socialization into manhood.
They may seek ways to "liberate" men and have some sympathy with pro-feminist views.
Activities include:
An opposing view: Many in the men's movement feel that the proper definition of "men's liberation" should imply freedom to embrace male gender roles, not simply freedom from those gender roles.
The Mythopoetic men's movement is based on spiritual perspectives derived from psychoanalysis, and especially the work of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and the poet Robert Bly. It is called "mythopoetic" because of the emphasis on mythology communicated as poetry with some appropriation of indigenous mythology and knowledge (Bly draws on Native American mythology). There is an emphasis on "elder honouring", "reclaiming" fathers, and "unleashing the wild man within", but with an emphasis on the impact of fatherlessness on men's psychological development which is related to their criticism of "soft" men - the victims of militant feminism and single motherhood. With the exception of a few groups such as the Radical Faeries they are generally not politically active as groups, but may be as individuals.
Masculinity is seen to include deep unconscious patterns and archetypes that are revealed through myth, story and ritual, as supported by theories drawn from analytical or "depth" psychology.
There is some overlap with men's rights and men's liberation perspectives.
Activities include:
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