"Time" berichtet ausführlich über Männerrechtskonferenz

Schon bevor Jessica Roys Artikel heute im Magazin "Time" erschien, wurde sie aufgrund einiger dümmlicher Twitter-Nachrichten sozusagen vorsorglich von Paul Elam angegiftet. Jetzt hat sie ihren Beitrag veröffentlicht, und er ist sehr ausführlich geworden. Sein Teaser lautet:

I went to the conference in suburban Detroit expecting a group of feminist-hating Internet trolls; I found much more

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When I went to Detroit, I expected the men who attended this conference to not be thrilled with my presence – and many made clear that they weren’t – and to make provocative statements about "the myth of rape culture" and even to smoke a lot of e-cigarettes. But what I didn’t expect was how it would make me feel: sad and angry and helpless and determined, all at the same time. Moreover, I didn’t expect to talk to so many men in genuine need of a movement that supports them, a movement that looks completely different from the one that had fomented online and was stoked by many who spoke at this three-day conference.

The event came at a time when attention for its supporters’ ideas are rising beyond the Internet’s fringe. And while nearly every corner of the web is now home to discussion of the state of feminism today, with anyone from Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg to Beyonce participating, a countermovement is growing. Nearly 150,000 people subscribe to forums dedicated to men’s rights on the social media site Reddit.

Ich lasse vielleicht erst mal die Zahl von 150.000 Menschen etwas sacken ...

Beneath the vitriol and fear these men (and a small number of women) express are some truths about the state of men today. In a growing number of ways, boys and men are at a disadvantage. Men and women were hit unevenly by the recession. Women recovered job losses this spring. Men did not. Women are outpacing men in college enrollment, with 71% of women enrolling in a university immediately after high school, compared to only 61% of men, a 2012 Pew Research Center survey found. The suicide rate among men is four times the rate of women, with males accounting for 79% of all U.S. suicides, according to a 2010 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control. Frequently boys do not have the same support network as girls their age (the cost of this deficit was detailed by Rosalind Wiseman in TIME last December). And yet despite these real troubles, the leaders of the movement have been unable to move beyond a reputation for hate.

Es folgt eine ausführliche Darstellung von Warren Farrell, auf internationaler Ebene die zentrale Persönlichkeit unserer Bewegung, sowie von Paul Elam. Und sie schildert ihre Begegnungen auf der Veranstaltung:

Some of the men at the conference said they were drawn to the movement after alarming personal experiences caused them to realize there were far fewer resources for men’s emotional and physical health than there were for women.

Brendan Rex, a 28-year-old who flew down from Manitoba, Canada, to attend the event, confided that he lost his virginity at the age of 14 when a woman climbed on top of him and had sex with him while he was drunk and unconscious.

"It kind of took me a few years to come to terms with the concept that I had nowhere to go," Rex said. "Then about six years ago I kind of realized that there were a lot of other people like me; it’s not uncommon for men to be sexually abused, it’s not uncommon for men to be sexually abused by women. But because there’s this lack of knowledge, there’s this lack of community – you’re completely isolated. You have no one to talk to who understands this."

Allerdings nimmt Jessica Roy, so wie mehrere ihrer Kolleginnen und Kollegen, auf der Veranstaltung auch immer wieder ätzende Frauenfeindlichkeit wahr:

Still, being surrounded by men who belly-laughed at rape jokes and pinned evil elements of human nature wholesale on women was emotionally taxing at best and self-destructive at worst. Once, during a particularly upsetting segment of the program, I had to excuse myself from the auditorium to seek refuge on the bug-filled bank of Lake St. Clair. I kept wondering why I had volunteered to fly 600 miles to attend the conference alone, to surround myself not just with crass ideological opponents, but with people with violent Internet histories who believed my very existence oppressed them. But to emerge on the other side of this with both my sanity and a worthwhile story, I would have to actually adopt a grain of their advice. I would have to stop feeling like a victim, and in turn cast aside all of the humiliating and unfair and devastating experiences I had collected as a woman.

For the most part, the conference tried to display the gentler side of the movement, one that embraces activism for significant men’s issues. Its organizers are aware of the fact that it would tarnish their authority to allow misogyny to overshadow their policy prescriptions to help real problems that affect men.

Natürlich kommt Roy auch auf die bereits erfolgten Attacken Elams auf sie selbst zu sprechen:

In the post, Elam called me a “low rent hack” who “practiced journalistic scumtardery,” a “liar and a bigot [who] will be exposed.” He titled the post, “An Amazing, Amazing Conference, Even With the Stink of Jessica Roy in the Air.” Those who tweeted at me following the publication of the post minced fewer words.

It seemed the perfect example of the fact that though the movement was attempting to put a polite face on in public, they still continue to harass and intimidate online. (Though they adopted similarly skeptical attitudes, none of the male reporters who tweeted or wrote about the event were subject to similar treatment.)

Jessica Roy gelangt zu dem Fazit:

When you talk to someone like 68-year-old Steve DeLuca, the legitimate need to remedy some of the issues raised by men’s rights activists becomes more evident. A Vietnam veteran who was injured in combat, DeLuca spoke movingly to me about the two brothers he lost to suicide, and the unfathomable toll the high suicide rate among men can take. There are men out there, like DeLuca and Brendan Rex, who have a real stake in the movement’s success. The paranoia and vitriol of its leaders can’t possibly do anything for them.

Auch in der deutschen Männerbewegung beißen sich Appelle an mehr Menschlichkeit immer wieder mit Ausfällen, die genau dieses Ziel konterkarieren. Auch bei manchen von uns scheint ihr Hass auf Frauen, Schwule und Nicht-Radikale die erste Geige zu spielen, egal wie sehr sie sich selbst und unsere Bewegung damit zum Affen machen. Auf der anderen Seite reicht es schon, dass eine Initiative wie MANNdat mit Statistiken und anderen Arbeiten auf die problematische Situation von Männern aufmerksam macht, damit sie von der grünen Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in einem Atemzug mit einem rechtsradikalen Massenmörder genannt wird, und das Bundesforum Männer schürt fleißig das Abwandern von Männern an den radikalen Rand, indem es jeden, der sich mehr für Männer engagiert als die satten Bundesforisten selbst, als Nazis und Loser darstellt. Zwischen diesen beiden Extrempunkten werden seriöse Männerrechtler weiter alles dafür tun, Gehör für unsere Anliegen zu finden. Und damit sind wir trotz allen Irrsinns, den man nach einiger Zeit einfach als Begleitmusik hinzunehmen lernt, auf einem guten Weg.