Forgive me for bringing this subject here, but I do think it's too recent for rec.arts.movies.past-films.

(Don't confuse it with the very different FICTIONAL movie, which was about the 2020 election!)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3686998/

It was directed by Cassie Jaye.

There are nearly 200 user reviews. I hope to read most of them eventually and pick the one that I agree with the most. (Likely one that gives it a 6 or a 7.)

I saw it on DVD. A good thing, too, because one mistake the director made was that every time someone's name and title appeared, it was in a thin red font, and I had to pause the movie and walk toward the screen to read it properly. Honestly - while I
understand not using white or yellow instead, it would have been so much easier to read the first time!

But otherwise, it was filmed better than I expected, I have to say. And at least Jaye was willing to start with a few seconds of the truly ugly side of the website "A Voice for Men." (I'd rather not quote the hideous invented words commonly used at that
site - but she did. Let's just say that even Rush Limbaugh probably wouldn't have used them.)

There were many valid points raised. No one can deny, after all, that men are the vast majority when it comes to wartime casualties, workplace deaths, the homeless, and suicides. Such cases deserve compassion and action, period.

However, there are definitely gaping holes that get danced around.

1. Regarding men's reproductive rights: if men insist on sleeping with women they don't know that well or even trust, why don't they use condoms - AND make sure she's using a diaphragm, since that's the easiest way to make sure she's using anything at
all? It's for his own good, after all. (That goes for married couples as well; a husband can just say "even the Pill has a 6% real-life failure rate, honey, so I'm using condoms for both our sakes." Chances are, the wife would actually be grateful. Or,
if he doesn't like that, he could at least pay for the wife's pills AND a diaphragm.)

2. In the film, when men list their limited reproductive rights compared to women's many options, they NEVER (even when being interviewed) bring up the subject of campaigning for better male birth control. This is not facetious; Warren Farrell, who is a
big part of the documentary, made male birth control part of his platform when he ran for governor of California in 2003. I can only assume that Jaye would have included the subject had Farrell or anyone else featured in the documentary had ASKED her to
do so. (To my knowledge, even Farrell stopped talking about it many years ago. That likely means that he thinks that even men's rights activists - MRAs - just don't care about it until unwanted fatherhood happens to them, and then they start raging about
their lack of POST-conception rights.)

3. A child's right to be fed and clothed clearly outranks a man's "right" to condom-free sex. Therefore, MRAs who preach about men's right to see their children and be involved with them will only get taken seriously when they stop demanding the right to
"legal paternal surrender" aka "choice for men."
After all, any man - married or not - could claim he was tricked when he wasn't, or that he never wanted a child when in fact he did. Granted, with the fall of Roe vs. Wade, it's hard to imagine MRAs demanding CfM anymore. (By the way, I've searched
again and again, and there is STILL no sign that any MRA in the last year has said anything about the increased need for better male birth control or even easier access to vasectomies, which have become a lot more popular. Regarding the Dobbs decision,
they only make say things like: "Good, now women finally know how WE feel.")

4. If men don't want to do dangerous jobs or drive cabs for 70 hours a week, they at least need not to drop out of high school. (Oddly, I don't remember any mention of what fatherlessness does to boys and their futures.) They ALSO need to be very careful
about birth control - see above. Obviously, many men want children and take care not to have them until they can afford them - but if they resent having to risk their lives daily just so they can afford to get married, they need to look harder at their
past decisions in life. Most people ARE born into communities where education is more or less respected, after all.

5. Which brings us to the "glass cellar."

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=glass%20cellar
(Be sure to read all the way down.)

Aside from the fact that plenty of women DO want to become firefighters and combat soldiers, what gets ignored is that women have always done seriously dangerous work, whether it was farm work, factory work, or night shifts at liquor stores. They just
didn't get paid much for it - and often, they didn't get paid at all. So why WOULDN'T they want to break away from both the danger and the minimal pay? "Safe," pink-collar jobs don't typically pay well. (Not to mention that even teaching children/teens
can be seriously dangerous to life and limb - and it isn't even supposed to be dangerous.)

6. On men not going to college as much as they used to: everyone has been pointing out that college is way overpriced and so everyone has to think very carefully about whether it will really be worth it. After all, even many women are reconsidering going
- and even most AMERICANS don't get college degrees. Columnist Katha Pollitt wrote in 2006: "Believe it or not, there are still stereotypically male jobs that pay well and don't require college degrees--plumbing, cabinetry, electrical work, computer
repair, refrigeration, trucking, mining, restaurant cuisine. My daughter had two male school friends, good students from academically oriented families, who chose cooking school over college. Moreover, as I'll discuss in my next column, sex
discrimination in employment is alive and well: Maybe boys focus less on school because they think they'll come out ahead anyway. What solid, stable jobs with a future are there for women without at least some higher ed? Heather Boushey, an economist
with the Center for Economic Policy and Research, noted that women students take out more loans than their male classmates, even though a BA does less to increase their income. The sacrifice would make sense, though, if the BA made the crucial difference
between respectable security and a lifetime as a waitress or a file clerk."

7. Paul Elam (his last name is biblical, for those who don't know - it appears in Genesis, Isaiah, and Jeremiah) wrote an article, circa 2010: "Bash a Violent Bitch." At the end of Jaye's documentary, it's said it was simply a parody of a Jezebel article
called "Have you Ever Beat Up A Boyfriend, Cause, Uh, We Have." Nice dodge. However, if Elam had really wanted to condemn domestic violence, he wouldn't have risked being "misinterpreted" like that; he would have simply reprinted the Jezebel article and
let its awfulness speak for itself - or written about it.

And oddly, Jaye neglected a couple of details; I'm sure these weren't deliberate. Namely, when it came to the subject of paternity fraud, she never mentioned that it's technically LEGAL, though of course other forms of fraud are not. Also, snowflakes are
used as a simile by Elam- and no MRA seemed to say "wait, don't include that!" Hmm...maybe that WAS deliberate on Jaye's part?

Finally, while of course no one knew this awful crime would happen, back then, it's worth noting that MRA Marc Angelucci (he was in the film) was murdered in 2020, by another MRA.

More on that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Angelucci

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

2. In the film, when men list their limited reproductive rights compared to women's many options, they NEVER (even when being interviewed) bring up the subject of campaigning for better male birth control. This is not facetious; Warren Farrell, who is

a big part of the documentary, made male birth control part of his platform when he ran for governor of California in 2003. I can only assume that Jaye would have included the subject had Farrell or anyone else featured in the documentary had ASKED her
to do so. (To my knowledge, even Farrell stopped talking about it many years ago. That likely means that he thinks that even men's rights activists - MRAs - just don't care about it until unwanted fatherhood happens to them, and then they start raging
about their lack of POST-conception rights.)

3. A child's right to be fed and clothed clearly outranks a man's "right" to condom-free sex. Therefore, MRAs who preach about men's right to see their children and be involved with them will only get taken seriously when they stop demanding the right

to "legal paternal surrender" aka "choice for men."

After all, any man - married or not - could claim he was tricked when he wasn't, or that he never wanted a child when in fact he did. Granted, with the fall of Roe vs. Wade, it's hard to imagine MRAs demanding CfM anymore. (By the way, I've searched

again and again, and there is STILL no sign that any MRA in the last year has said anything about the increased need for better male birth control or even easier access to vasectomies, which have become a lot more popular. Regarding the Dobbs decision,
they only make say things like: "Good, now women finally know how WE feel.")


I stumbled on this video from 2022. (Vasalgel is a non-hormonal barrier method for men that is being worked on, for those who don't know.)

"L.R. Fox: Vasalgel, Male Birth Control | Whatever Podcast #2"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKLukTcDfPk&list=PL2uZhEhKQPWYBQ6Fuq_hqHLBvn05JxUEt&index=5

It's REALLY long - almost three hours.

Luckily, there's a nice detailed list of timestamps, so you can jump to almost any Q&A you wish.

I must say, it's quite optimistic, regarding how popular it could become. (I don't know if either man in the video calls himself an MRA.) My long-held theory is that it's taking a long time in part because men in long-term relationships aren't likely to
use it, since they trust their wives and girlfriends, usually for good reason, and men who aren't in LTRs will always be under pressure to use condoms anyway. (STDs are often rampant among people over 50 as well as other age groups.) Also, whenever MRAs
DO talk online about male birth control, they very seldom say they plan on using it; they just want hordes of nameless men to use it and thus restore the patriarchy. We shall see.

Btw, I found out that Farrell HAS been talking about it in the last year or so - at X. Just not at length.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wednesday, 27 September 2023 at 11:58:07 UTC-4, Lenona wrote:

Forgive me for bringing this subject here, but I do think it's too recent for rec.arts.movies.past-films.

(Don't confuse it with the very different FICTIONAL movie, which was about the 2020 election!)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3686998/

It was directed by Cassie Jaye.

There are nearly 200 user reviews. I hope to read most of them eventually and pick the one that I agree with the most. (Likely one that gives it a 6 or a 7.)

I saw it on DVD. A good thing, too, because one mistake the director made was that every time someone's name and title appeared, it was in a thin red font, and I had to pause the movie and walk toward the screen to read it properly. Honestly - while I

understand not using white or yellow instead, it would have been so much easier to read the first time!

But otherwise, it was filmed better than I expected, I have to say. And at least Jaye was willing to start with a few seconds of the truly ugly side of the website "A Voice for Men." (I'd rather not quote the hideous invented words commonly used at

that site - but she did. Let's just say that even Rush Limbaugh probably wouldn't have used them.)

There were many valid points raised. No one can deny, after all, that men are the vast majority when it comes to wartime casualties, workplace deaths, the homeless, and suicides. Such cases deserve compassion and action, period.

However, there are definitely gaping holes that get danced around.

1. Regarding men's reproductive rights: if men insist on sleeping with women they don't know that well or even trust, why don't they use condoms - AND make sure she's using a diaphragm, since that's the easiest way to make sure she's using anything at

all? It's for his own good, after all. (That goes for married couples as well; a husband can just say "even the Pill has a 6% real-life failure rate, honey, so I'm using condoms for both our sakes." Chances are, the wife would actually be grateful. Or,
if he doesn't like that, he could at least pay for the wife's pills AND a diaphragm.)

2. In the film, when men list their limited reproductive rights compared to women's many options, they NEVER (even when being interviewed) bring up the subject of campaigning for better male birth control. This is not facetious; Warren Farrell, who is

a big part of the documentary, made male birth control part of his platform when he ran for governor of California in 2003. I can only assume that Jaye would have included the subject had Farrell or anyone else featured in the documentary had ASKED her
to do so. (To my knowledge, even Farrell stopped talking about it many years ago. That likely means that he thinks that even men's rights activists - MRAs - just don't care about it until unwanted fatherhood happens to them, and then they start raging
about their lack of POST-conception rights.)

3. A child's right to be fed and clothed clearly outranks a man's "right" to condom-free sex. Therefore, MRAs who preach about men's right to see their children and be involved with them will only get taken seriously when they stop demanding the right

to "legal paternal surrender" aka "choice for men."

After all, any man - married or not - could claim he was tricked when he wasn't, or that he never wanted a child when in fact he did. Granted, with the fall of Roe vs. Wade, it's hard to imagine MRAs demanding CfM anymore. (By the way, I've searched

again and again, and there is STILL no sign that any MRA in the last year has said anything about the increased need for better male birth control or even easier access to vasectomies, which have become a lot more popular. Regarding the Dobbs decision,
they only make say things like: "Good, now women finally know how WE feel.")

4. If men don't want to do dangerous jobs or drive cabs for 70 hours a week, they at least need not to drop out of high school. (Oddly, I don't remember any mention of what fatherlessness does to boys and their futures.) They ALSO need to be very

careful about birth control - see above. Obviously, many men want children and take care not to have them until they can afford them - but if they resent having to risk their lives daily just so they can afford to get married, they need to look harder at
their past decisions in life. Most people ARE born into communities where education is more or less respected, after all.

5. Which brings us to the "glass cellar."

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=glass%20cellar
(Be sure to read all the way down.)

Aside from the fact that plenty of women DO want to become firefighters and combat soldiers, what gets ignored is that women have always done seriously dangerous work, whether it was farm work, factory work, or night shifts at liquor stores. They just

didn't get paid much for it - and often, they didn't get paid at all. So why WOULDN'T they want to break away from both the danger and the minimal pay? "Safe," pink-collar jobs don't typically pay well. (Not to mention that even teaching children/teens
can be seriously dangerous to life and limb - and it isn't even supposed to be dangerous.)

6. On men not going to college as much as they used to: everyone has been pointing out that college is way overpriced and so everyone has to think very carefully about whether it will really be worth it. After all, even many women are reconsidering

going - and even most AMERICANS don't get college degrees. Columnist Katha Pollitt wrote in 2006: "Believe it or not, there are still stereotypically male jobs that pay well and don't require college degrees--plumbing, cabinetry, electrical work,
computer repair, refrigeration, trucking, mining, restaurant cuisine. My daughter had two male school friends, good students from academically oriented families, who chose cooking school over college. Moreover, as I'll discuss in my next column, sex
discrimination in employment is alive and well: Maybe boys focus less on school because they think they'll come out ahead anyway. What solid, stable jobs with a future are there for women without at least some higher ed? Heather Boushey, an economist
with the Center for Economic Policy and Research, noted that women students take out more loans than their male classmates, even though a BA does less to increase their income. The sacrifice would make sense, though, if the BA made the crucial difference
between respectable security and a lifetime as a waitress or a file clerk."

7. Paul Elam (his last name is biblical, for those who don't know - it appears in Genesis, Isaiah, and Jeremiah) wrote an article, circa 2010: "Bash a Violent Bitch." At the end of Jaye's documentary, it's said it was simply a parody of a Jezebel

article called "Have you Ever Beat Up A Boyfriend, Cause, Uh, We Have." Nice dodge. However, if Elam had really wanted to condemn domestic violence, he wouldn't have risked being "misinterpreted" like that; he would have simply reprinted the Jezebel
article and let its awfulness speak for itself - or written about it.

And oddly, Jaye neglected a couple of details; I'm sure these weren't deliberate. Namely, when it came to the subject of paternity fraud, she never mentioned that it's technically LEGAL, though of course other forms of fraud are not. Also, snowflakes

are used as a simile by Elam- and no MRA seemed to say "wait, don't include that!" Hmm...maybe that WAS deliberate on Jaye's part?

Finally, while of course no one knew this awful crime would happen, back then, it's worth noting that MRA Marc Angelucci (he was in the film) was murdered in 2020, by another MRA.

More on that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Angelucci

Until a woman can weight 200lbs and not be grossly obese, there will be NO gender equality. Until women have enough drive to match the drive of a testosterone-driven male, there will be no gender equality. Until women can develop the same (at birth)
urge men have to investigate technology and propel the human race forward, there will be no gender equality. Until women can as a group, intellectually-match men, which they do not, there will be no gender equality. The concept is ridiculous. It's
like expect a male Black Widow spider to fight-back after mating, it will never happen.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sunday, October 1, 2023 at 11:09:12 PM UTC-4, RichA wrote:


The common theory is that men tend to be either very smart or very dumb, while women tend to be in the middle, which is why we still don't have a female Einstein. (And super brains are all too often not a good substitute for common sense.)

However, it's also a fact that a lot of women used to be discouraged from going to college - even women whose families could afford to send them to college. (Well into the 20th century, it was believed that even READING "too much" was dangerous to girls'
fertility and sanity!) On top of that, girls were taught that boys didn't want to date girls who could actually compete with them intellectually, in or out of school, and one could only hide one's good grades for so long, so it was probably better not to
do that well in school, they said.

So we're still breaking away from that (in the lower classes, anyway, plus those countries like Japan that are still known for hostility to women), and we have to wait and see the result.

Rumor also has it that boys are desperate to find areas in life where girls don't go, and now that girls are encouraged to read, boys are running away from reading and toward football and violent video games. Obviously, that doesn't do boys any good -
and anti-intellectualism doesn't make boys want to be around smart girls, either.

We owe countless thanks to all the inventors who have advanced society. However, we've also got to the point where physical strength isn't nearly as important as it once was. Also, far too much of modern technology results in big-time pollution. What's
more, everyone knows the U.S. is a leading polluter, and so the average baby born in the U.S. will become a serious problem, as an adult, to the future of the planet. My point is that we can't keep revering/consuming technology in frivolous ways as we do,
just as we can't afford to shop for things we don't even care about every time we're feeling a little bored or lazy - one has to save money for all sorts of emergencies that we can't even imagine, sometimes.

As I hinted above, we COULD use a lot more researchers in reproductive technology.

Of course, we may have to PUSH girls more than boys when it comes to getting them to take interest in the more important STEM fields. However, we need all willing hands on deck when it comes to developing technology in ways that will actually do future
generations a lot more good than harm.

Btw, we DID have a female Mozart, at least. She was his older sister, named Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart and nicknamed Nannerl. She was quite talented, but we'll never know how much, since her father refused to let her advance her musical studies -
because she was a girl!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

The common theory is that men tend to be either very smart or very dumb, while women tend to be in the middle, which is why we still don't have a female Einstein. (And super brains are all too often not a good substitute for common sense.)

However, it's also a fact that a lot of women used to be discouraged from going to college - even women whose families could afford to send them to college. (Well into the 20th century, it was believed that even READING "too much" was dangerous to girls'
fertility and sanity!) On top of that, girls were taught that boys didn't want to date girls who could actually compete with them intellectually, in or out of school, and one could only hide one's good grades for so long, so it was probably better not to
do that well in school, they said.

So we're still breaking away from that (in the lower classes, anyway, plus those countries like Japan that are still known for hostility to women), and we have to wait and see the result.

Rumor also has it that boys are desperate to find areas in life where girls don't go, and now that girls are encouraged to read, boys are running away from reading and toward football and violent video games. Obviously, that doesn't do boys any good -
and anti-intellectualism doesn't make boys want to be around smart girls, either.

We owe countless thanks to all the inventors who have advanced society. However, we've also got to the point where physical strength isn't nearly as important as it once was. Also, far too much of modern technology results in big-time pollution. What's
more, everyone knows the U.S. is a leading polluter, and so the average baby born in the U.S. will become a serious problem, as an adult, to the future of the planet. My point is that we can't keep revering/consuming technology in frivolous ways as we do,
just as we can't afford to shop for things we don't even care about every time we're feeling a little bored or lazy - one has to save money for all sorts of emergencies that we can't even imagine, sometimes.

As I hinted above, we COULD use a lot more researchers in reproductive technology.

Of course, we may have to PUSH girls more than boys when it comes to getting them to take interest in the more important STEM fields. However, we need all willing hands on deck when it comes to developing technology in ways that will actually do future
generations a lot more good than harm.

Btw, we DID have a female Mozart, at least. She was his older sister, named Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart and nicknamed Nannerl. She was quite talented, but we'll never know how much, since her father refused to let her advance her musical studies -
because she was a girl!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

And I trust you agree with this well-known female journalist:

"I'm not a snob in the usual sense. I'm not a MONEY snob, I'm not a FAMILY snob. I'm a snob in other ways. I'm an elitist. I do not think everyone is created equal. In fact, I know they're not. The Constitution doesn't mean everyone is as good as
everyone else, it means that everyone should have the same LAWS as everyone else. It doesn't mean that everyone's as smart or as cute or as lucky as everyone else. People have distorted the whole idea of democracy."

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Mon, 2 Oct 2023 09:49:46 -0700 (PDT), Lenona <lenona321@yahoo.com>
wrote:

On Sunday, October 1, 2023 at 11:09:12?PM UTC-4, RichA wrote:

The common theory is that men tend to be either very smart or very dumb, while women tend to be in the middle, which is why we still don't have a female Einstein. (And super brains are all too often not a good substitute for common sense.)

However, it's also a fact that a lot of women used to be discouraged from going to college - even women whose families could afford to send them to college. (Well into the 20th century, it was believed that even READING "too much" was dangerous to girls'

fertility and sanity!) On top of that, girls were taught that boys didn't want to date girls who could actually compete with them intellectually, in or out of school, and one could only hide one's good grades for so long, so it was probably better not
to do that well in school, they said.

So the solution was to put all focus on educating girls and ignoring
the issues and needs of the boys. The result is a a disaster and
women are STILL complaining.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 7:17:52 AM UTC-4, NoBody wrote:

So the solution was to put all focus on educating girls and ignoring
the issues and needs of the boys. The result is a a disaster and
women are STILL complaining.

How do you know it's ALL focus?

(There can be plenty of other reasons for boys to fail, after all, even when most of the adults involved are truly trying to help.)

And who exactly is focusing only on girls' education?

Certainly not the parents of boys - and even parents of girls often have sons as well.

And teachers et al certainly don't want to see the drop-out rate for boys to increase - that would be bad for the TEACHERS' reputation.

Yes, the boy crisis is real. Warren Farrell wrote a book in 2018, called

"The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It"

From Amazon:

"What is the boy crisis?

"It's a crisis of education. Worldwide, boys are 50 percent less likely than girls to meet basic proficiency in reading, math, and science.

"It's a crisis of mental health. ADHD is on the rise. And as boys become young men, their suicide rates go from equal to girls to six times that of young women.

"It's a crisis of fathering. Boys are growing up with less-involved fathers and are more likely to drop out of school, drink, do drugs, become delinquent, and end up in prison.

"It's a crisis of purpose. Boys' old sense of purpose—being a warrior, a leader, or a sole breadwinner—are fading. Many bright boys are experiencing a "purpose void," feeling alienated, withdrawn, and addicted to immediate gratification.

"So, what is The Boy Crisis? A comprehensive blueprint for what parents, teachers, and policymakers can do to help our sons become happier, healthier men, and fathers and leaders worthy of our respect."

(end)

Very commendable-sounding. However, I couldn't help but notice something that matches what I said before:

"Boys' old sense of purpose—being a warrior, a leader, or a sole breadwinner—are fading."

The implication there is that if a man is not the SOLE breadwinner or leader, he's being unfairly hurt. As in, men shouldn't have to be partners with women, in the home or at the workplace; women are supposed to follow. (However, for all I know, Farrell
didn't write that sentence. That often happens, in publishing.)

It also indirectly reminds me of what a certain very well-educated man (born in 1968) once said: "A man shouldn't have to do housework when there's a woman around."

Somehow, I doubt he would say that a woman shouldn't have to earn her own living when her next-door neighbor is a man. (I would have been flabbergasted even if he had been born 20 years earlier.)

Btw, when I'm reading customer reviews, I always find it worthwhile to read the more articulate dissenters - especially when a particular book gets mostly adulation at Amazon, as that one did. (There's nothing very scientific about the average Amazon
customer rating, after all - it doesn't necessarily represent what the masses think.) The same goes for any old favorite book, since I want to be cautious and figure out any possible pitfalls before passing on a favorite to someone who hasn't read it yet.

That method also works well at the IMDb, of course.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 3 Oct 2023 06:56:53 -0700 (PDT), Lenona <lenona321@yahoo.com>
wrote:

On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 7:17:52?AM UTC-4, NoBody wrote:

So the solution was to put all focus on educating girls and ignoring
the issues and needs of the boys. The result is a a disaster and
women are STILL complaining.

How do you know it's ALL focus?

(There can be plenty of other reasons for boys to fail, after all, even when most of the adults involved are truly trying to help.)

And who exactly is focusing only on girls' education?

I'll change the word "all" to "primary". There's plenty of evidence
of the results:

OPINION

Boys in crisis: Schools are failing young males. Here's what needs to
change in classrooms
Imagine being bombarded with a chorus of, �Pay attention. Stop
fidgeting. Don�t touch that!� Yet, that�s what many boys experience in
school each day.
Christopher Brueningsen
Opinion contributor

In a recent New York Times essay, �It�s Become Increasingly Hard for
Them to Feel Good About Themselves,� Thomas Edsall reviews a variety
of research studies highlighting the plight of young men in the United
States. As a front-line educator who has worked in boys� schools for
30 years and served as the head of a boys� school for the past 20
years, I�ve been an unhappy witness to this dilemma.

Data supports the claim that boys are falling behind, and dramatically
so. For example, there is a growing gender gap in high school
graduation rates. According to the Brooking Institution, in 2018,
about 88% of girls graduated on time, compared with 82% of boys.

For college enrollment, the gender gap is even more striking, with men
now trailing women in higher education at record levels. Last year,
women made up 60% of college students while men accounted for only
40%, according to statistics from the National Student Clearinghouse.
College enrollment in the United States has declined by 1.5 million
students over the past five years, with men accounting for 71% of that
drop.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/10/09/boys-falling-behind-how-schools-must-change-help-young-males/5913463001/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 7:27:29 AM UTC-4, NoBody wrote:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/10/09/boys-falling-behind-how-schools-must-change-help-young-males/5913463001/

I read the whole thing.

Good points, to be sure.

But oddly, there was no mention of the very likely problems caused by PARENTS who allow boys to spend so much time on screens.

Maybe ADHD is mostly the fault of parents?

A century ago or more, boys and girls used to be HIT by teachers for fidgeting - and parents were supposed to accept that.

Seems the pendulum has gone a little too far in the opposite direction.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Lenona

1. Regarding men's reproductive rights: if men insist on sleeping with women they don't know that well or even trust, why don't they use condoms - AND make
sure she's using a diaphragm, since that's the easiest way to make sure she's using anything at all? It's for his own good, after all.

The same applies to women and furthermore, it's the woman who will be pregnant for 9 months and give birth to the child and if the guy isn't interested in being a dad,
the best she can get from him is 20-some years of (probably intermittent) child support payments.

SHE'LL be the one raising that kid, getting up at 2:00am to feed and change diapers,
taking unpaid days off work to take the kid to the doctor, or teacher conferences,
sports teams, cooking & cleaning, etc.

If the goal is to prevent unwanted children, then women can't be allowed to choose
to have a kid they can't afford, then hit up the dad to pay for it.

Their body, their choice. Amiright??

3. A child's right to be fed and clothed clearly outranks a man's "right" to condom-free sex.

Again, this applies to the women just the same. It ain't the Victorian era, these
gals aren't be ravaged by callous brutes and left to walk the streets of White Chapel trying to scrape by, there are now more women then men in collage and any gal who wants a job, can get one and almost all have one.

The difference between women's and mens reproductive rights, is that the woman ALONE can choose to have or not have a kid, while the man will get stuck picking
up the check for her exclusive choice.

Aside from the fact that plenty of women DO want to become firefighters and combat soldiers

And they're uniformly bad at at. The "glass ceiling" may be a thing in the white
collar world, here in the blue collar world, women do only a fraction of the work
men do yet get the exact same pay and benefits.

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On Monday, 2 October 2023 at 12:55:47 UTC-4, Lenona wrote:

The common theory is that men tend to be either very smart or very dumb, while women tend to be in the middle, which is why we still don't have a female Einstein.

And it is the 2%, the geniuses that drive humanity forward.

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On Sunday, October 15, 2023 at 2:30:34 AM UTC-4, RichA wrote:

On Monday, 2 October 2023 at 12:55:47 UTC-4, Lenona wrote:

The common theory is that men tend to be either very smart or very dumb, while women tend to be in the middle, which is why we still don't have a female Einstein.

And it is the 2%, the geniuses that drive humanity forward.

While the huge masses of REALLY stupid people keep dragging it back.

Think of "crabs in a bucket."

(I don't know if real-life crabs DO want to pull back those crabs that try to escape or whether they're actually trying to get pulled OUT - by the leader.)

But I will say that I don't necessarily believe, as many do, that the movie "Idiocracy" will come true.

For those who don't know, the premise was that stupid people can't help but have far more children than they WANT to have, so the population of even semi-smart people will disappear in a few centuries.

Why don't I believe it? Because in the U.S., at least, the birth rate is at 1.64 per woman - which presumably includes all the women who never give birth.

While infertility (in both sexes) plays a part in that incredibly low figure, I think it also indicates, at least, the ability of even not-so-smart COUPLES to say to their doctors: "Please give us foolproof contraceptives; we can't afford another kid and
we don't CARE if our religious leaders don't approve of birth control!"

(For those who don't know, the Southern Baptist Convention, for one, is not kind to anyone who refuses to have children at all - even celibates. Or so the Rev. Albert Mohler suggests, in his writings.)

After all, a woman has 30 years of fertility, so if she wants only two children and a husband for life, she still has to PREVENT pregnancy hundreds - yes, hundreds - of times. Do the math. Hint: Most men are not interested in a marriage in which they
have sex only once a week.

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On Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 6:12:16 PM UTC-4, Ed Stasiak wrote:

If the goal is to prevent unwanted children, then women can't be allowed to choose
to have a kid they can't afford, then hit up the dad to pay for it.

WHOSE goal? The man's, the woman's or the law's?

I was clearly talking about those cases where, in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, the two adults suddenly don't agree on what to do.

People aren't robots; they change their minds all the time. This is why, whether you're male or female, if YOU'RE the one who doesn't want a pregnancy, it's YOUR job to make sure it doesn't happen.

What's more, as I already said, any man - married or not - could claim he was tricked when he wasn't, or that he never wanted a child when in fact he did. That can't be allowed.

Not to mention that the vast majority of Americans believe that ALL kids, wanted or unwanted, should be supported - and that dads should pay as much as possible before asking help from the taxpayers. (After all, that system benefits many dads as well,
when you think about it, since that way, they're not supporting the children of women they don't even know.)

A century ago, even married men who abandoned their wives and children could get away with it, since it was commonly assumed that bad things didn't happen to good women. I assume no one really wants to put children in THAT position again.

And no politician who wants to stay in office is going to support or even allow a legal paternal surrender law, since that would cause the real abortion rate to skyrocket - even if that spike were only temporary. You don't want THAT on your political
record.

As it happens, the NYU journalism professor, feminist, and Village Voice columnist Ellen Willis wrote in 1985:

"...yes, it's unfair (to unwilling fathers) that all the men whose sexual activity hasn't happened to result in unwanted fatherhood can say, 'Tough luck, buddy, but it's not my problem.' "

(From what I could infer, Willis was saying that unwed fathers should be entitled to more help from the state.)

Their body, their choice. Amiright??

Not exactly, in a nation where abortion access will likely disappear in half the states - and access to safe, efficient, affordable contraception (especially for POOR women) is likely next on the chopping block.

Also, there's a reason that very few single 21st-century American women who give birth to unplanned children choose adoption. Namely, choosing adoption often shatters a birth mother for life.

(And it's been said that if anyone de-stigmatized single motherhood, it was the anti-abortion crowd.)

The difference between women's and mens reproductive rights, is that the woman
ALONE can choose to have or not have a kid, while the man will get stuck picking
up the check for her exclusive choice.

See above.

Aside from the fact that plenty of women DO want to become firefighters and
combat soldiers

And they're uniformly bad at at. The "glass ceiling" may be a thing in the white
collar world, here in the blue collar world, women do only a fraction of the work
men do yet get the exact same pay and benefits.

Source, please?

From what I hear, automation is equalizing the sexes more and more - as in coal mining, for example.

Who can blame blue-collar women for wanting to do the same well-paid jobs their blue-collar husbands do?

After all, what if HE suddenly gets crippled at work, and the insurance isn't enough for the family?

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Lenona

Ed Stasiak

If the goal is to prevent unwanted children, then women can't be allowed to choose
to have a kid they can't afford, then hit up the dad to pay for it.

WHOSE goal? The man's, the woman's or the law's?

It's in everybody's best interest to prevent unwanted children, women's, men's and
society's in general. It's the whole point of having birth control methods.

I was clearly talking about those cases where, in the event of an unwanted pregnancy,
the two adults suddenly don't agree on what to do.

People aren't robots; they change their minds all the time.

Except the man can't change his mind, the decision to have a child is wholly up to
the woman and if that's what she chooses, the man has to pay for HER decision for
the next 20-some years.

The reality should be that if the woman still wants a kid and the man does not, the guy ought to get paid a stud fee for his services.

This is why, whether you're male or female, if YOU'RE the one who doesn't want
a pregnancy, it's YOUR job to make sure it doesn't happen.

Again, only women get pregnant and only women can choose to have that kid and that
being the case, the lifetime financial costs of having that kid must be the woman's
responsibility alone and thus it is her responsibility alone to insure birth control
is used .

A chick can ask a guy to use birth control but if he doesn't want to, she's not somehow
still required to have sex with him and take the risk an unwanted pregnancy, then hit
him up for years of child support payments (with married couples, both assume the
responsibility).

What's more, as I already said, any man - married or not - could claim he was tricked
when he wasn't, or that he never wanted a child when in fact he did. That can't be
allowed.

Marriage is a contract and any kids born to a married couple are automatically the
responsibility of both parents, with the final decision to go thru with the pregnancy
remaining wholly the woman's. The guy accepted this when he put a ring on her finger.

The issue is of unmarried people, where men are tricked into becoming fathers, as
the woman has a guaranteed legal right to pawn off much of the financial responsibility
onto him without his agreement. On top of which, the woman can also receive tax payer
funded welfare to help her out, in what was wholly her decision.

French law for example, bans paternity testing, effectively allowing a women to point
at any random man on the street and name him the father, compelling him to pay child
support for a child SHE ALONE chose to have.

Not to mention that the vast majority of Americans believe that ALL kids, wanted or
unwanted, should be supported -

And I agree. It's not the kid's fault, after all.

and that dads should pay as much as possible before asking help from the taxpayers.

When did the mother ask the tax payers if we wanted to help out, when she and she
alone decided to have a kid she can't support?

(After all, that system benefits many dads as well, when you think about it, since
that way, they're not supporting the children of women they don't even know.)

Tax payers spend bazillions of dollars on welfare and social service programs that
are mostly about helping raise children of single moms, who CHOOSE TO BE single moms and Western culture stupidly encourages this practice by providing that support.

A century ago, even married men who abandoned their wives and children could get
away with it, since it was commonly assumed that bad things didn't happen to good
women.

But our child support laws are still from a century ago, despite there being all kinda
birth control options available and all women being able to get jobs.

I assume no one really wants to put children in THAT position again.

The percentage of kids being raised by single moms has never been higher specifically
because woman can choose to be a mom without assuming much of the financial requirements and that is disastrous for the children and our society.

https://i.postimg.cc/LsqHVpwv/Single-Parenting.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/MGhzPL8w/Single-Moms.png

And no politician who wants to stay in office is going to support or even allow
a legal paternal surrender law, since that would cause the real abortion rate to
skyrocket - even if that spike were only temporary. You don't want THAT on your
political record.

I'd suggest it would result in a huge decrease in abortion, as women would now be
on the financial hook for paying for that kid and so would insure that birth control
is used and be much more careful in their choices of partners.

As it happens, the NYU journalism professor, feminist, and Village Voice columnist
Ellen Willis wrote in 1985:

"...yes, it's unfair (to unwilling fathers) that all the men whose sexual activity hasn't

happened to result in unwanted fatherhood can say, 'Tough luck, buddy, but it's not
my problem.' "

Except it didn't just "happen", the gal CHOOSE to have that kid and sock the guy with
the bill, even back in 1985.

Not exactly, in a nation where abortion access will likely disappear in half the states

Agreed, abortion is wholly the woman's decision and the government shouldn't be involved.

- and access to safe, efficient, affordable contraception (especially for POOR women)
is likely next on the chopping block.

Nonsense, in the West birth control is easily available and would easier if government
provided free birth control, which is FAR cheeper then forking out years of welfare for
bazillions of single moms.

Also, there's a reason that very few single 21st-century American women who give birth
to unplanned children choose adoption. Namely, choosing adoption often shatters a birth
mother for life.

See my position above; abortion is a right.

(And it's been said that if anyone de-stigmatized single motherhood, it was the
anti-abortion crowd.)

Are you kidding me? Turn on The Lifetime Channel, damn near every chick on will be a
plucky hero single mom, it's effectively a Hollywood requirement nowadays.

And they're uniformly bad at at. The "glass ceiling" may be a thing in the white
collar world, here in the blue collar world, women do only a fraction of the work
men do yet get the exact same pay and benefits.

Source, please?

35+ years and counting of working blue collar jobs.

From what I hear, automation is equalizing the sexes more and more - as in coal mining,
for example.

There is still plenty of standing, stooping, walking and lifting in the blue collar world, which
you're clearly unfamiliar with.

Who can blame blue-collar women for wanting to do the same well-paid jobs their blue-collar
husbands do?

They're not being blamed for wanting a good gig, they're blamed for doing a shitty job while
getting the same pay as a man.

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On Saturday, October 28, 2023 at 7:54:02 PM UTC-4, Ed Stasiak wrote:

Lenona

This is why, whether you're male or female, if YOU'RE the one who doesn't want
a pregnancy, it's YOUR job to make sure it doesn't happen.

Again, only women get pregnant and only women can choose to have that kid and that
being the case, the lifetime financial costs of having that kid must be the woman's
responsibility alone and thus it is her responsibility alone to insure birth control
is used .

Except that the majority of voters don't feel that way, as I already hinted. Even most men.

As a well-known civil libertarian said: "I value self-reliance, but I don't expect it of children."

It reminds me of how some MRAs complain about the statutory rape laws. That is, they don't really want female predators to be punished as well - they just want the laws abolished, period.

As if fiercely protective parents of underage teens and preteens are ever going to change their minds. Those parents like the law just fine. I.e., no, it is not too much worrrrrk to do a Google search on a stranger who looks "old enough" but who isn't on
social media.

A chick can ask a guy to use birth control but if he doesn't want to, she's not somehow
still required to have sex with him and take the risk an unwanted pregnancy, then hit
him up for years of child support payments (with married couples, both assume the
responsibility).

But if the law were changed, it would only be a matter of time before married men could abandon their children as well and not support them. If it's OK to abandon an out-of-wedlock child who didn't ask to be born, why WOULDN'T married men eventually have
the same right? Granted, it's kind of a moot point - again, most voters are not going to change their minds.

Btw, women who have nowhere to go often ARE "required" to have sex. It's kind of their rent. Whether they're single or married.

The issue is of unmarried people, where men are tricked into becoming fathers, as
the woman has a guaranteed legal right to pawn off much of the financial responsibility
onto him without his agreement. On top of which, the woman can also receive tax payer
funded welfare to help her out, in what was wholly her decision.

See above. Besides which, it's well-known that poverty breeds crime.

Also, at the Bratfree forum, yummynotmummy said, about 10 years ago:

"I'd like to see some mechanism by which men can get out of an oops situation, in theory, but in practice, how do you prove it was a real oops situation? I meet plenty of duhdies (daddies) at work who get their wives upduffed, then get turned off by them
and start shagging a secretary or whatever. A paper abortion could be used by that kind of a------ to get out of responsibility for a life they wilfully created, but then they changed their mind because they found a younger, slimmer, non-moomy model.
They would get to self replicate (og job done) but then have none of the responsibility for it, leaving the women with the c--- work, and skip off into the sunset with new thing, by claiming they were oopsed. While I agree with the principle that nobody
should have to raise a child whose existence they did not consent to, I'm pretty sure it would be abused."

French law for example, bans paternity testing, effectively allowing a women to point
at any random man on the street and name him the father, compelling him to pay child
support for a child SHE ALONE chose to have.

Yes, of course that's wrong. Fraud is fraud.

(After all, that system benefits many dads as well, when you think about it, since
that way, they're not supporting the children of women they don't even know.)

Tax payers spend bazillions of dollars on welfare and social service programs that
are mostly about helping raise children of single moms, who CHOOSE TO BE single
moms and Western culture stupidly encourages this practice by providing that support.

Um, most of those women didn't choose to become single mothers even before becoming pregnant.

Yes, some do. But far more were simply desperate for love and believed the men who said they would at least support them should they get pregnant.

Not to mention children of divorce. Just because most divorces are initiated by women doesn't mean they didn't have good reasons to divorce. (For example, would YOU stay married to a spouse who was addicted to prostitutes? I knew a couple like that.)

A century ago, even married men who abandoned their wives and children could get
away with it, since it was commonly assumed that bad things didn't happen to good
women.

But our child support laws are still from a century ago, despite there being all kinda
birth control options available and all women being able to get jobs.

No, they aren't that old. I couldn't help but notice that there wasn't any real, political pro-male-contraception literature that I know of (other than feminist demands) before the mid-1990s.

Why did the change happen then?

Very likely, it's because that's when child-support laws started to grow real teeth, courtesy of certain politicians.

And I was reminded of a civil defense engineer, I think it was, who, in 2013, had the gall to say:

"Fact: No woman in the Western hemisphere need bear a child if she doesn't want to."

Clearly, he hadn't heard of Ireland (back then).

Or Chile, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama, Belize, Bolivia...the list goes on.

And if you're a poor American woman, getting SAFE, effective birth control that is FEMALE-controlled isn't that easy. Especially in rural counties.

(There are also many reasons a woman's doctor will order her not to use hormonal methods - look it up.)

And no politician who wants to stay in office is going to support or even allow
a legal paternal surrender law, since that would cause the real abortion rate to
skyrocket - even if that spike were only temporary. You don't want THAT on your
political record.

I'd suggest it would result in a huge decrease in abortion, as women would now be
on the financial hook for paying for that kid and so would insure that birth control
is used and be much more careful in their choices of partners.

It's a moot point, as I already made clear. Voters won't change their minds, especially now that Roe has fallen.

And even before then, plenty of women were brainwashed into believing that abortion was never acceptable - and some were also taught that giving up a baby for adoption was also wrong, believe it or not.

As in "you have to pay."

- and access to safe, efficient, affordable contraception (especially for POOR women)
is likely next on the chopping block.

Nonsense, in the West birth control is easily available and would easier if government
provided free birth control, which is FAR cheeper then forking out years of welfare for
bazillions of single moms.

See what I already said about birth control. Besides, red states aren't about to do the logical thing and make it easier for poor women to get their hands on it. When have they ever done that?

Also see what I said about the Southern Baptist Convention and their hostility to those who refuse to have ANY children. Yes, it's been said that they've lost more than a million members over the last 16 years - so they're panicking a bit, since
recruitment isn't working.

But:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/religion/2023/05/09/southern-baptist-convention-membership-declines-in-2022/70199505007/

Quote:

"There are currently 13.2 million members and 47,198 churches in the SBC. More than 180,000 people were baptized and average weekly in-person worship attendance was 3.8 million people."

That's bound to have quite a lot of political clout, still. My point is that the states of Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Kentucky and Mississippi will likely be heavily influenced by the SBC to be hostile to birth control.
Even for married couples.

(And it's been said that if anyone de-stigmatized single motherhood, it was the
anti-abortion crowd.)

Are you kidding me? Turn on The Lifetime Channel, damn near every chick on will be a
plucky hero single mom, it's effectively a Hollywood requirement nowadays.

I was clearly talking about society as it was decades ago - as in, the 1980s or thereabouts. Of course, once it WAS destigmatized, back then, by the anti-abortion crowd, there was no turning back.

From what I hear, automation is equalizing the sexes more and more - as in coal mining,
for example.

There is still plenty of standing, stooping, walking and lifting in the blue collar world, which
you're clearly unfamiliar with.

Wrong again. I do a lot of that (with heavy boxes of books), since it's my volunteer job, and too many men and women around here have bad backs or are just too skinny or too old.

And the director has called me a "mainstay."

At any rate, even Fox News doesn't seem to be very loud on that subject. By "very loud," I mean to the point where even non-watchers of Fox can't help but hear about it.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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See what I already said about birth control. Besides, red states aren't about to do the logical thing and make it easier for poor women to get their hands on it. When have they ever done that?

Also see what I said about the Southern Baptist Convention and their hostility to those who refuse to have ANY children. Yes, it's been said that they've lost more than a million members over the last 16 years - so they're panicking a bit, since

recruitment isn't working.


Correction - the membership dropped by more than THREE million between 2006 and 2022, which was almost 20%. That's bound to scare the leaders.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/sbc-suffers-largest-drop-in-membership-in-100-years-report.html

Quote:

...According to Lifeway, total SBC membership went from approximately 13.68 million members in 2021 to 13.22 million members in 2022, noting that the “457,371 members lost is the largest single year numerical drop in more than 100 years.”

“In total, Southern Baptist churches have suffered membership declines of about 3% annually the past three years,” stated Lifeway, adding that the 2022 membership was the lowest SBC membership number since the late 1970s.

The current membership is well above the approximately 7 million reported in 1950, though it is a few million below the peak membership of approximately 16.3 million reported in 2006...

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On Tuesday, October 31, 2023 at 8:31:47 PM UTC-4, Lenona wrote:

At any rate, even Fox News doesn't seem to be very loud on that subject. By "very loud," I mean to the point where even non-watchers of Fox can't help but hear about it.

To clarify: I meant that Fox News isn't that loud on the subject of "equal pay for unequal work" when it comes to well-paying blue collar jobs. I.e., maybe that scenario isn't really that common?

Anyway, here's something else Ellen Willis wrote, in the same 1985 essay (the title was "Looking for Mr. Good Dad"). In this passage, Willis was answering those who argued that abortion rights did nothing but make it easier for men to abandon children.

Quote:

"(Operation Rescue's Juli Loesch's) view of men reminds me of George 'It's a Jungle Out There' Gilder's: Basically men are moral cretins who have a 'tenuous hold' on parental responsibility and feel justified in walking out on a three-year-old child
because it could have been an abortion. To imagine that they might hang around because they care about their children or partners, or that they're capable of empathy with a woman's need to control her fertility, is to mistake the nature of the beast."

(You understand, of course, that Willis didn't agree with Loesch or Gilder; she was being sarcastic.)

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I forgot something important.

If an unwilling father's only post-conception right is to sue for full custody and then demand child support, well, no man has to go through the DIRECT ordeal of abortion or childbirth. (Not to mention all the awful long-term postpartum effects on a
woman's body that no one likes to warn women about.) Sounds like a pretty fair trade. Even happily pregnant women are known to complain that it isn't "fair" that they have to do all the work of pregnancy and birthing. Well, biology isn't fair; children
deserve support; and taxpayers should only have to pay so much - such as having to help pay for schools they don't use. Or public transportation (which saves a lot of lives). Or roads they don't drive on.

Not to mention that in the post-Dobbs era, a man will soon, in MULTIPLE states, be able to prosecute a woman for having an abortion against his will.

Also, if anyone is responsible for making abortion - and unwed motherhood - an "industry," it's those people who want to make it hard for adults to GET birth control of any kind. Clearly, that ain't Planned Parenthood. Or feminists.

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On Fri, 03 Nov 2023 08:58:45 -0700, Lenona wrote:

I forgot something important.

If an unwilling father's only post-conception right is to sue for full custody and then demand child support, well, no man has to go through the DIRECT ordeal of abortion or childbirth. (Not to mention all the awful long-term postpartum effects on a

woman's body that no one likes to warn women about.) Sounds like a pretty fair trade. Even happily pregnant women are known to complain that it isn't "fair" that they have to do all the work of pregnancy and birthing. Well, biology isn't fair; children
deserve support; and taxpayers should only have to pay so much - such as having to help pay for schools they don't use. Or public transportation (which saves a lot of lives). Or roads they don't drive on.

Not to mention that in the post-Dobbs era, a man will soon, in MULTIPLE states, be able to prosecute a woman for having an abortion against his will.

Outlawing abortion is a crime and is just like the laws that
establish "Sanctuary" areas for illegal immigrants.

Ready to accept that illegal immigration is a threat to legal
abortion? Immigrants are overwhelmingly against abortion, and the
Immigration Lobby is well aware of it.

Missing in this thread is any reference to Paternity Fraud.
A clear reform away from this would be routine paternity tests
with newborns.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Sat, 11 Nov 2023 14:48:22 -0800, Pluted Pup wrote:

On Fri, 03 Nov 2023 08:58:45 -0700, Lenona wrote:

I forgot something important.

If an unwilling father's only post-conception right is to sue for full custody and then demand child support, well, no man has to go through the DIRECT ordeal of abortion or childbirth. (Not to mention all the awful long-term postpartum effects on a

woman's body that no one likes to warn women about.) Sounds like a pretty fair trade. Even happily pregnant women are known to complain that it isn't "fair" that they have to do all the work of pregnancy and birthing. Well, biology isn't fair; children
deserve support; and taxpayers should only have to pay so much - such as having to help pay for schools they don't use. Or public transportation (which saves a lot of lives). Or roads they don't drive on.

Not to mention that in the post-Dobbs era, a man will soon, in MULTIPLE states, be able to prosecute a woman for having an abortion against his will.

Outlawing abortion is a crime and is just like the laws that
establish "Sanctuary" areas for illegal immigrants.

Ready to accept that illegal immigration is a threat to legal
abortion? Immigrants are overwhelmingly against abortion, and the
Immigration Lobby is well aware of it.

Missing in this thread is any reference to Paternity Fraud.
A clear reform away from this would be routine paternity tests
with newborns.

Ok, you did mention it in the first post: "And there are some odd details. Namely, when it came to the subject of paternity fraud, they never
mentioned that it's technically LEGAL, though of course other forms of fraud are not."

Paternity Fraud is not legal, it only has not been prosecuted.
Fraud is one of the most under-enforced portions of the
criminal code.

Besides the law, if paternity tests were routine with newborns,
paternity fraud would be easier of discovery by making it
unusual to not get a routine paternity test.

Refusing a routine paternity test should be unusual, not
asking for one in the first place.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 6:30:53 PM UTC-5, Pluted Pup wrote:

Ok, you did mention it in the first post: "And there are some odd details. Namely, when it came to the subject of paternity fraud, they never
mentioned that it's technically LEGAL, though of course other forms of fraud are not."
Paternity Fraud is not legal, it only has not been prosecuted.
Fraud is one of the most under-enforced portions of the
criminal code.

Funny, I could have sworn the family lawyer Robert Franklin (who has/had a blog at the National Parents Organization and who has worked for fathers' rights for years) said it WAS technically legal.

Since there's more than one public figure with that name, here's his photo (he may be 80 by now, I don't know):

https://rocketreach.co/robert-franklin-email_53764240

He lives in Utopia, Texas (west of San Antonio).

Here's an interview (I have to run and can't read it right now):

https://mensrights.com/mandatory-dna-testing/

Besides the law, if paternity tests were routine with newborns,
paternity fraud would be easier of discovery by making it
unusual to not get a routine paternity test.

Refusing a routine paternity test should be unusual, not
asking for one in the first place.

Some MRA said that would backfire - I'll check later.

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