USA Today sieht internationale Männerkonferenz als Signal der Hoffnung

Der USA Today, nach dem Wall Street Journal auflagenstärkste Zeitschrift der USA, eröffnet die Männerkonferenz in Detroit Aussichten auf eine friedlichere Ära im Geschlechterkampf:

Are we coming to a truce in the gender wars? Or just opening a second front? Or, perhaps, actually starting to talk to each other? Those are the questions I was asking myself as I attended the First International Conference on Men's Issues in Detroit last weekend. And, to be honest, I'm still not sure. But it's certainly true that the discussion is expanding, and I'm enough of a believer in discussion and engagement to think that's a good thing.

Folgende Eindrücke hat der Autor, Juraprofessor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, von der Männerkonferenz mitgenommen:

There were plenty of women there, which I suppose should be no surprise, as there are plenty of men at conferences on women's issues. There's even a women's group called The Honey Badger Brigade that supports men's rights. There were also a lot of African-Americans — or, in the case of Canadian Sen. Anne Cools, African-Canadians. But it turns out, as we heard from speakers like Fred Jones, the victims of the gender war are disproportionately black, because black men are more likely to be jailed for failure to pay child support, or on charges of domestic violence.

Tatsächlich? Es engagieren sich viele Schwarze und Frauen in der Männerbewegung? Haben wir nicht letzte Woche erst in einer vom Bundesforum Männer ausgerichteten rassistisch-sexistischen Veranstaltung gehört, dass Maskulisten "angry white men" seien? Muss Michael Kimmel, der in dieser Veranstaltung gegen Maskulisten hetzte, in Zukunft also auch von "angry black men" sprechen – was in den USA im Gegensatz zu Attacken auf Weiße längst als Rassismus erkannt worden ist? Oder muss Kimmel demnächst über "angry women" herziehen? Ich glaube, hier geht einem der Lieblingsdemagogen unseres Bundesforums gerade sein Feindbildgenerator flöten.

Nachdem Reynolds über einige Inhalte berichtet hat, die auf der Konferenz geäußert wurden, gelangt er zu seiner abschließenden Bewertung:

But although the specifics were interesting, the thing that struck me most about the gathering was the palpable lack of gender tension. Men and women at this conference seemed to be on the same page, and the same team, in a way that seems almost surprising in these gender-divided times. Maybe that's because gender-talk, long a female domain, is also now about men. As another speaker at the conference, Warren Farrell, said, women can't hear what men don't say. So it's good that men are speaking up. As Farrell concluded in a Friday night dinner speech, the goal is "not a men's movement, not a women's movement, but a gender liberation movement."

With men and women both talking and listening, it gave me some hope that perhaps we'll see something new, and better, in the politics of gender. Will this spirit be able to overcome the politicized divisiveness that marks today's gender discussion? If enough men and women of good will come together, it just might.

Natürlich darf man aber soviel Fairness und Optimismus wie in diesem Artikel nicht von allen Medien erwarten. Die meisten Journalisten scheinen vom Thema überfordert zu sein, berichtet Dr. Helen Smith:

My only concern with the conference was the media that was present. It seemed that reporters from Time, MSNBC, GQ, and Vice.com were there. I got an uneasy feeling about a few of them though I suppose their stories could go either way, though I think I know which way to bet. There were a couple of women from Vice.com that we sat with at an appreciation dinner for speakers who seemed very nice but frankly, a bit clueless. The woman writing the story, Alexandra Lynn, said that she could not connect with the issues at the conference stating that she was writing her article in the first person and could not relate as she was from NYC and no one she knew acted this way. The women and men were apparently equal and didn’t have issues. I told her to look outside NYC and realize that there is a bigger world out there. And who knows, if men were interviewed in NYC, they may have a different story.

Bei einer Journalistin namens Jessica Roy, die für das Magazin "Time" tätig ist, konnte Paul Elam, der die Konferenz ausrichtete, bereits an ihren Äußerungen auf Twitter ablesen, dass sich dort ein abwertender Artikel ankündigen wird. Dem unbenommen ist Elam guter Dinge:

Currently the public trust in mainstream journalists is about on par with the public trust in Congress. It has been that way for a while, and looks not to be changing. (...) What Roy will do is send a lot of people our way, some of whom will bother not to just take her word for things; who will actually read the articles on the website and figure out that Roy is a biased bullshit peddler with an agenda who has lied to them.

Wie Elam in seinem Artikel berichtet, wird die zweite internationale Männerkonferenz bereits geplant.