...The Author

Author of Male Matters: Jerry A. Boggs

I am a member of the National Coalition of Free Men (www.ncfm.org), a New York-based men's-rights group that educates the public on discrimination and sexism aimed at men. I am a published writer, having researched and written about gender issues for over 20 years.

I try to post news and views on gender issues several times a week. On occasion I also post my own original commentaries, as well as short book and web site reviews, and other miscellaneous links and items pertaining to gender from the rarely heard "male" perspective.

At times I may re-edit or completely re-write a commentary if I develop new insights or need to correct lapses of logic or other errors I made while in a state of less than total awakeness! For me, there is no final draft.

Unfortunately, we free-lance bloggers, unlike employed journalists, do not have editors or writing coaches to polish our work to perfection. Fortunately, we bloggers do not have editors or writing coaches to censor what they think may offend women, especially the feminist employees waiting for them just outside their door.

In my blog I criticize much of what is put forth by radical, ideological feminists (I include radical, ideological male feminists and exclude the truly egalitarian feminists who are concerned also about men's burdens). But I believe they have as much right to proffer their views as I do mine. My larger complaint is with the mainstream media. When reporting on gender issues, most of the media seem to think only the feminist or female perspective warrants air time. After you have read some of my material, I hope you will realize how unfair and censorious this is, and how opposed it is to the media's own supposed principles of objectivity and balance. Most of all, I hope you recognize how the media's one-sidedness on gender issues subverts the very gender equality the media purportedly advocate.

As for feminism, I accept it and promote it when it means equal opportunity and responsibilities for both sexes. What I reject and oppose is many of the views of such feminist leaders as Gloria Steinem, Catharine MacKinnon, and Kim Gandy, the president of the National Organization for Women. (See "Many Feminist Writers Confuse Feminism and Feminist Leaders.") Although these so-called feminists occasionally present sensible ideas, they all too often behave like misguided religious leaders (and religious fanatics) who interpret their religion to suit their extreme views and uphold it as superior to other religions. These women, and the men who mimic them, are not feminists. They are sexists in feminist clothing, especially when uttering such firebrand statements as this one by a Canadian feminist group: "The relative power of men compared to that of women is profoundly affected by sexist violence against women. Men have, and do use, this violence to get or keep control of women as a display of power." (My blog shows how profoundly sexist and wrong this statement is.)
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Here's what I consider proof that when it comes to gender issues, most of the media engage in an antimale bias that is deliberate. (My proof is other than the “obvious” proof that a man's side to a gender issue is almost always missing in a report; this could be blamed on the media's “innocent” ignorance or laziness. For proof that the media can be politically biased, see "Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased." For an example of a newspaper's typical,  jaw-dropping bias against men, see Adam Jones' report "The Globe and Males." Says Jones, "It is an approach that would leave a reader of humane sensibilities aghast -- if its targets had been female rather than male.")

Media journalists are researchers if nothing else. As such, they are trained to go to the farthest corner, to dig beneath the smallest rock, in their pursuit of facts and opinions to reflect a balanced view.

So if journalists desire the objectivity and balance they claim to uphold and which they have been trained to dig deep for, why don't they do what I, as someone who has had no formal training in research, have done countless times when looking for a balance to something dispensed by, say, Gloria Steinem: do a quick and easy Google search on "men's issues"? Do it yourself and see what you get. In just seconds, a journalist can find a man's non-feminist view, including a scholarly view by prominent gender experts such as Warren Farrell, on virtually any gender issue.

Even the laziest, most ignorant journalist has no excuse for not providing a “male balance” in her gender stories. Her only barrier is an antimale bias. (NOTE: Don't search on "men's gender issues." The word "gender" triggers “women's issues;” that's because most people, including those at Google, think men have no gender issues — thanks to the mainstream media — and have come to perceive a gender issue as a women's or a feminist issue.)

Some readers of Male Matters may come to believe that when journalists say, "The public has a right to know," what they often mean is "The public has a right to know what we want them to know."

Email me at jabbog48152 [@] yahoo.com.

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Tech Note:
Some links in my blog's side panels are MS Word documents, identified by [doc]. If you do not have Word, you can supposedly download a free Word viewer here.

tags: adam jones  media bias  

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