I wanted to love Dr. Helen Smith's "Men on Strike." I wanted to write that glowing 5 star review of it. Honest. Sadly, I think this book could've been written in a way that makes it more accessible to the general public - a little more of an op-ed, journalistic style - hitting the reader with a few more good old non-sensationalised facts, statistics and studies, one after the other.
Smith writes with a clear, vitriolic, straight-at-you style which I discuss below, but I would've liked a few more numbers to give the reader a better idea where most (middle and lower class) men are at in today's society, and how we all, men and women alike, can get together in order to structure a society that everyone can live in together, in harmony, where people may interact with one another ad libitum, while never failing to make adult, clear-headed and rational decisions, and with little or no infringement upon one another's individual rights.
Read this for me:
I'm not saying the book lacks stats and studies, or that it doesn't offer men some helpful resources. It contains plenty of both (see the last chapter "Fighting back, going Galt, or Both?" for details of the latter). I just felt that a softer approach might've been warranted in order for the book to make its biggest impact on 2013 America (and on other nations).
That was something that I originally wrote. But then, when I really thought about it, I realised that the compassionate tone would in fact have fallen short for most male readers. The thinking, reading type of man is better at processing vitriol and righteous indignation in written language, rather than a softer-type of compassionate language. The former sends him a clear message of "I'm with you. I'm on your side" while the latter seems ambiguous and may be misinterpreted. However, many women find that the latter writing style is preferable when getting a point across to readers, especially a primarily female readership.
So perhaps the book was written for men in that regard. But here's the thing - rather than realise that the above paragraph about men is true, most women would rather simply criticise the man for weird, abstract "male flaw" reasons, such as the presence of vitriol/indignation in the book's prose style, which displeases her because she wouldn't like to encounter it in a book she'd want to read. "You shouldn't like a book like that. It's so angry, the blablablah."
A lot of women fall into behavior like that, 'cause they cannot figure men out and they find it too frustrating or are too intellectually lazy to apply any effort towards knowing someone other than themselves.
A lot of men fall into it, too, about women, never putting the least bit of effort into thinking like a woman. In that regard, "Men on Strike" fails to state an obvious fact: men, especially the majority of this book's target audience, need to realise that, far from not knowing about what it feels like to be society's pariahs, women really do know what it's like to get tormented by society's constant "disapprovals" and subtle hatreds, in lots of ways that men never experience. So I hope that someday men learn to put themselves in her place, and women learn to put themselves in his place, because we'd all be better for it.
Some other Amazon reviews were critical of the author's use of anecdotes and blog comments; I think it works fine. But, honestly, many of the quotes Dr. Smith uses sound like they could've all been written by the same guy. And a lot of Smith's vitriol-spitting simply echoes the rhetoric of the men being quoted, and she does this throughout most of the book, which causes it (as many other reviewers have already pointed out) to become repetitive. However, the repetition effect seems to reflect one of Smith's recurring points. Namely, "A lot of men are on the exact same page about this whole marriage thing."
Content wise, "Men on Strike" contains both good and bad. Although I would've liked to have written more thoroughly about both, I'll have to stick to a few highlights (and lowlights), just to keep this review short(er).
First, the Good:
"MoS" makes some salient points, for example: It takes two to begin a pregnancy. The woman has a choice whether or not to become a mother. The man has no choice whether or not to become a father. But how can that be, here and now, under this "man woman equal" system we've got?
Bam! Spot on. This is a commonsense notion, and one that merits further public discussion.
Another good point "MoS" brings up is one of the reasons behind the decline in male college students. I've been out of academia for years, and therefore didn't realize how bad it's gotten, but apparently it's become a risk to even ask a girl out on a college campus because of sexual harassment laws.
No, I'm serious. Some consider that to be "sexual harassment." On a college campus, filled with late teens and young twentysomethings, people of prime dating and relationship age, talking to a girl who doesn't want to hear what you've got to say can now be considered "sexual harassment" if you're a man.
Can't you see a "Saturday Night Live" commercial:
"I used to politely decline dating propositions from men I didn't want to date. But now, to save time, I freak out and call the cops and the dean of students."
No lie. You can get kicked out of school, apparently without any due process. No 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' No 'preponderance of the evidence.' You're accused? You're out, basically... unless you want to sue the college to let you back in. Doesn't sound like anyplace I'd want my son to go to college. I mean, if I had a son.
But it's stuff like this, with men more or less saying, "I'd rather opt out altogether, than put myself in a situation where I risk being thrown on the mercy of a system that views me as some kind of rape-ready penis-landmine that all a girl has to do is step on wrong and she suffers the horrific consequences. My whole life I've never been that sort of person. I'm a good, honest man. And yet, because I'm a male, everybody takes at face value this farcical, quasi-'Original Sin' notion that, were it not for the laws we have in place, I'd be the complete opposite of the person I am."
In my daily life, I try not to insult the people I meet by implying they're criminal deviants waiting to happen. But apparently, that's SOP for some colleges and universities, at least where male students are concerned. And still, people scratch their heads, wondering why so many men want no part of that world.
And now, the Bad in "Men on Strike":
From Chapter 1, "The Marriage Strike" page 20-21: "Vox Day is a blogger who runs the Alpha Game blog... Vox Day, like many of the `pickup artist' bloggers, has a male social hierarchy that he uses to classify men."
First, I had to go online to find out who Vox Day (real name Theodore Beale) was, and, honestly, I wasn't too impressed. If you look extensively at his "Alpha Game" blog and especially at his other blog (entitled "Vox Populi"), you get the impression that Vox Day is plainly not the most level-headed of fellows. I don't know if he is the sort of man you'd want to quote in a book that you intend to purvey to a wider audience, to make them more aware of certain social justice issues.
For example, Vox Day believes the Sandy Hook massacre was likely a conspiracy, and likely no one was actually murdered. Vox Day also entertains the belief that those pesky "men in black" assassinated journalist Michael Hastings, who died in a car wreck earlier this year. Not only Hastings, but apparently also Andrew Breitbart, who died of heart failure (!). He was taken down Georgi Markov style by "men in black" while he was out for a walk, or something. I don't know, people. Day suggests this in a blog post. And it gets wackier.
Day is also one of those dyed-in-the-wool, Bible-licking christian-in-your-face types, who thinks the theory of evolution is bunkum, and the fact that atheists have no religious beliefs must mean they are autistic. He's also obsessed with some science-fiction writer named John Scalzi, who I then also had to look up. From what I gather, Scalzi writes novels that are repackaged, Heinlein-esque, wannabe social sci-fi, while Vox Day writes novels that are repackaged, Tolkien-esque, wannabe christian sword and sorcery, and once upon a time one of these guys angered the other one, and now they both hate each other's guts and they're having some kind of (apparently one(Vox)-sided) feud online.
Ah, Internetland, I love you. You're not like Mundania, Internetland. You have magic.
I like how Vox Day has never forgiven his enemy for whatever slights may have long ago bruised his fragile ego. Beale wears his scorn and contempt for Scalzi on his sleeve. Yep, those ever-Christlike Christians are at it again. Hey, Jesus never forgave anyone, so why should they?
Anyhow, back on track, Vox Day's "male social hierarchy" is an interesting premise, until you notice a single, glaring contradiction: "Alpha male" types (which I guess Vox Day presumes himself to be) in the "manosphere" (Google it) are dead set against any woman defining what it means to "be a man" and they bristle whenever any woman dares suggest that what "a real man would do" is something other than what the "manospherian" man is doing. Got that? Women have no place to tell a man whether he is or isn't a "real man."
The glaring contradiction is that, for every rank in Vox Day's male social hierarchy (alpha, beta, gamma, sigma, omega), that man's designation as an "alpha," or other rank, is WHOLLY BASED UPON AND DETERMINED BY THAT MAN'S AMOUNT OF INTERACTION WITH AND SUCCESS, OR LACK THEREOF, WITH WOMEN.
So it's fundamentally a ranking system in which the Women, by and through their actions and reactions re: a Man, more or less get to tell that Man what he is or is not (alpha, etc). Why would Day, one of the bloggers in the "manosphere" (and other bloggers also use similar ranking systems) create a hierarchy that appears to put the power to designate rank right back into the hands of women? Or maybe I'm just confused here. If you're a "manospherian" and you're reading this, perhaps you'll be so kind as to provide an explanation for this apparent contradiction in the comments section. Mind you, I'm not busting on anyone, I just have some questions about the inherent illogic of the hierarchy.
More bad: "MoS" contains a number of statements like this:
From the Introduction, page xv:
"Men kill themselves over pain like this [Context from PJS1975: divorce, wife cheating on him, child custody issues, victim of paternity fraud, etc.] and the statistics show they do it often. In 2010, the latest suicide statistics show that 38,364 people killed themselves nationally and 30,277 of those were men."
Now, I wish to convey absolutely no ill feeling toward suicides and their families. The above is a grim statistic, and suicide is a terrible tragedy, and I want people to respect my word on that.
But I'm afraid you cannot make statements like that and then just proceed straight ahead in your explication, without providing ANY statistics showing exactly how many of these men who committed suicide were unhappy in their marriages, or were cheated on, or were divorcing their spouses, or had recently divorced at the time they died. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. Maybe the numbers for those aspects of suicide don't exist or couldn't be located. But you must admit, after reading that, you've no way to calculate how many of the 38,364 male suicides could in fact have been reactions to an unjust society, oppressive divorce laws, or similar circumstances, unless you can provide numbers or statistics to somehow connect the one to the other.
People commit suicide for a variety of reasons, or sometimes no one ever figures out the reason. Unlike homicides, the driving force of which is almost always either overheated passions or material gain, people are driven to suicide by the 'gain' of 'getting out of a situation,' if you want to put it that way.
The flip side of this coin: the idea that even a few men might be committing suicide for the above reasons, BECAUSE OF THE TAXPAYER-SUPPORTED COURTS' RELENTLESS EXPLOITATION OF THEM, makes their deaths by their own hands that much more morbid and horrible.
If you consider divorce can make some men want to end their own lives (and if you don't believe it can happen, look online for divorce horror stories - or work for a law firm, like I do), rather than live a life that is all lawyers and courts, and hearing dates and gathering financial records, and getting your bank account drained and getting the run around over and over again...
... then gee, I dunno, do ya think maybe these court-induced suicides, their deaths filed in thousands of dockets in courthouses across the country, might be telling us something? Like perhaps, the law is just a wee, teensy bit oppressive to divorcing men and is responsible for grinding many of them down into hopeless, suicidal wrecks?
Like maybe, reform the courts, like, sometime? Because I don't recall a lot of cases in which non-oppressed and non-hopeless people have gone and killed themselves.
Maybe if the government wants more men and women to marry each other, the government should just let it be between That Woman and That Man, with a contract of their own choosing. Why involve the government? Like stand-up comic and former presidential candidate Doug Stanhope said, "Hey, baby, this love, this thing we got 'tweenst us, this thing is so real, we gotta get the GOVERNMENT in on this, baby. 'Cause it's hot!"
In other words, it doesn't make a lot of sense to give the civil courts the power to inflict this much emotional and psychological damage on a person. Let me amend that: IN A FREE SOCIETY, it doesn't make a lot of sense to give the courts the power to inflict this much emotional and psychological damage on a person. In fact, it starts to look downright noxious and antagonistic when you critically regard the basic concept of divorce court:
"You wanna leave this person? Well, you gotta PAY THIS PERSON in order to be able to leave! Ha! That's right, Bucko! Don't pay, can't leave, and we can throw you in jail, too! We can do this all year! We've got unlimited imprisonment space and your Tax Money to pay the power bills, and to pay people to guard you day and night. You got plenty of reasons not to not pay up, so pay up!"
And furthermore, why even choose to be bound by the tenets of a marriage contract that someone else - some complete stranger who's never even met you or your spouse-to-be - wrote, if you can just come up with your own contract between the two of you?
Maybe "Marriage 3.0" is coming, and it will be just that: Let individual couples decide the terms of their own binding agreement, where and how it is binding, and write the document so that it leaves both the wife and the husband an "out" that offers them little to no risk should they ever get sick of the whole thing and want to bail.
After all, if America is so full of independence and individualism and diversity and 'melting pot' and 'pioneer spirit' and all that jazz... then how 'bout being the first country to pioneer Marriage 3.0: The Open Format Marriage?
"Ooh, but what would your 'Marriage 3.0' do about a marriage with children?" you ask.
Glad you brought it up. There are already seven billion of you. Stop creating more people until you've figured out a way to take care of all the ones we've already got here. That'd be my solution. Talk to your doctor, visit your local adult shop, get creative, and work with what you've got. If you really do want a baby, make sure you've got all your ducks in a row and your life in order, to give that kid the healthiest possible environment to grow up in.
Otherwise, you tell that acrosome reaction to go react itself somewheres else, capisce?
"Ooh, but what if your 'Marriage 3.0' idea and this whole gay marriage thing are just 'slippery slopes' to permitting people to eventually marry their house-pets, or farm animals, or blow-up dolls etc.?"
If you even have to ask a question like that, then you're a talking meatsack and your parents should've aborted you (see above, RE: 7 billion). Stop being dumb already. Name ONE public figure from any reasonably well known political or social movement who is a vocal proponent of marrying your cat. No? Nothing? Thought not.
"Ooh, but your 'Marriage 3.0' idea is insulting to the very idea of marriage, to the idea of commitment," you claim.
Hey, do you see a huge majority of people taking their vows seriously? Ok, granted, many of you do, and it's commendable. But what men have begun to dislike is the risk that they will marry one of the women who doesn't think it's wrong to take her nuptial vows lightly; and also, who doesn't think it's wrong to remake his life into a hideous, ensanguined, Cenobite-ruled hell. The feeling among a growing number of men is that they lack sufficient protection from Pinhead and the Cenobites, after they've solved the demonic puzzle-b - uh, I mean, after they've slid the wedding band on, and this feeling has precipitated many men going "on strike" and consequently has caused the book "Men on Strike" to be written.
IMO, at its core, the marriage strike phenomenon is about men and women finally getting on the same page about marriage, but in an ironic backlash-y sort of way. A lot of men are saying "No" to the Oath, externally and preclusively, as demonstrated by the lives they're leading (avoiding marriage). Because, according to these men's ratiocinations, a lot of women are really saying "No" to the Oath, internally and/or after the fact, as also demonstrated by the lives they're leading (initiating divorces like it's going out of style, and feeding more and more bodies into an impersonal and exploitative court system).
I believe people interested in the subject of civil rights - but from a far different perspective than the usual MSM pabulum - should read "Men on Strike." We live in a society planted thick with laws, including marriage laws, and we (theoretically) ought to be able to change the obsolete laws into something that is more suited to the current zeitgeists of "less government" and "less regulation of our private lives." I conclude that this book's inherent flaws and weaker arguments can be overlooked in favour of the overall message it seeks to convey.
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Telling all my male and female friends about "Men On Strike". Hits home for me. I get it. Thanks to Dr. Helen Smith for doing the research and sharing our story. Just wished she would have interviewed me.
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