Why Men's Rights Advocates Must Remain Anonymous
October 04, 2010
The The Legal Satyricon's Jay Devoy defends anonymous speech at The Spearhead:
A little over a year ago, The Spearhead was created by writers and a community of readers who primarily participated anonymously or pseudononymously, using online monikers instead of their real names. While this is the formula for many successful message boards and blogs, it was especially important in creating a community dedicated to challenging the orthodoxy of modern society’s contrived gender equalism — a regime where men and women aren’t merely equal under the law, but identical despite obvious biological and physiological differences.
Especially for a venture in its infancy, the career risks of having one’s name associated with a site that could be branded as extremist or sexist – even absent any evidence – were great enough to dissuade participation under one’s real name.
While defending anonymous speech, Devoy makes an ironic argument:
The best tactic is to post comments and content using your real name. Though not feasible for all situations, having one’s words tracked back to them leads to a certain restraint that is not as likely when the speaker will not be held personally accountable for his statements. This is an aspirational goal for everyone who works for someone else, but it helps keep discourse responsible while still making important observations and arguments. For the most part, people writing under their real name can get away with saying whatever they want — provided they do it civilly.
That has not been my experience.
When I post about men's rights issues, people immediately say I must be sexually frustrated. Or I can't get laid. Or I am ugly. The e-mails provide a great laugh.
To those who know me, such comments allow for a wonderful inside joke. Yet it's true that there is no logical answer for my posts about men's rights. And so people attack my persona.
If I were a wage slave, I have no doubt that an offended fembot would print out my blog posts for HR to review. Being childless and free from status desires, I work for myself and need little money to survive. If people don't want to work with me because of my writing: So what?
Yet it's unfortunate that people answer the men's rights movement with force. In some cases, men's rights advocates are arrested falsely. In other cases men's rights advocates lose their jobs.
This is the case even though men like me do not advocate for female oppression. We simply want equality.
There is no logical justification, in a feminist era, for men to pay lifetime alimony to ex-spouses. There is no logical justification for favoring women are parents in 95% of all cases. There is no logical reason why women who falsely accuse men of rape should escape criminal prosecution.
And yet we live in a world where any man who gets married is making the riskiest decision of his life. Seventy percent of divorces are initiated by women. A woman who gets bored with her spouse may take the kids, shack up with someone more interesting, and then sue her husband for alimony and child support.
When the man loses his job, the family courts laugh in his face. Under the imputed income doctrine, the court can literally make up how much money you earn. And although we do not have debtor's prisons, a man who loses his job will be imprisoned for unpaid child support. (And smile nicely for the Deadbeat Dad billboard!)
Explain - using logic and reason - why such a state of affairs is just?
Since no one can rely on argumentation to persuade, the misandrists turn to fear. They identify men's rights advocates. After identifying the advocate, they resort to threats or shame.
Most men's rights advocates should remain anonymous.