What Does President Obama Mean For Men?

The men who voted for President Obama may want to pay close attention.

As a primer for this commentary, I recommend:

How Capitalism Turns Intimate Relationships Into a Battle

Where the Boys Aren't

Never Mind the Boys

Behind that familiar face, the crisis of men and boys

Boys Will Be Boys (a video)

President Barack Obama is clear about one thing: he goes to bat for women. That's aptly demonstrated by his immediate signing off on the White House Council on Women and Girls and on what I call his "Ledbetter Payback Act," in reference, of course, to the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which I believe is a promised payback to feminists and women for their vote.

He may also help men --- some men, at least — in an incidental way with such programs as the construction jobs he hopes to create with his plan to rebuild the infrastructure. (But judging by how feminists are getting most if not all of what they want from him [See June 21 update], they may get from him the requirement that the infrastructure contractors hire mostly women because the construction business is already mostly men.)

But other than the construction jobs, how, in the direct and selective manner in which Obama helps women, will he help men, especially black men, who need as much help as black women and more help than white women, who are, usually, the main beneficiaries of governments' gender-aid programs? (See, for example, "Why Workplace Affirmative Action is Failing Blacks.")

To date, no evidence indicates that Obama will single out men for help in any direct and selective way. For men, so far, Barack Obama represents business as usual.

Why do I say this? Here's one reason:

President Obama's choice for surgeon general initially was CNN's chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, who declined the offer. In addition to obviously having the necessary qualifications, the liberal, politically correct — but otherwise nice! — Gupta may have won Obama over with such statements as this: “Medical myths die hard, and one of the biggest is that heart disease is a problem mostly for men. That's not even close to being true: according to the American Heart Association, more women than men die from heart disease in the U.S., and 1 in 3 women is living with it today." (Yet in 2003, when he perhaps was less politically correct, he said this: “Virtually all stress-related diseases — from hypertension to heart disease — are more common in men.”)

If Gupta's statement did at least partly influence Obama's choice of Gupta for surgeon general, perhaps Obama thinks, “Anyone who wants the sex with the healthier, longer life to have an even healthier, longer life is automatically a friend of mine.” (For the fact-based, shocking real picture of the sexes' heart disease, see "Women's Advocates Wrong About Why More Women Than Men Die of Heart Disease." As you read, especially the part about black men, think about Gupta's statement “That's not even close to being true.“)

Here is another reason:

Consider President Obama's pending Paycheck Fairness Act. This act, like the recently passed Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, will likely be fast-tracked to appease feminists and female voters. The act will establish “a competitive grant program to develop training programs for women and girls on how to negotiate better compensation packages....” (More)

These programs will obviously discriminate against men by excluding them, the discrimination emanating from the political party that openly, frequently, and proudly claims to oppose discrimination of any kind! The programs presume that every male, no matter how young, has all the negotiating skills he'll ever need. Try telling this to the nation's unemployed young men, especially young black men, who have the highest unemployment rate!

By the way, the Paycheck Fairness Act likely would not encourage women who want higher pay to seek work with higher pay. Instead, it promises to hand over to women equal pay for “similar” work predominantly done by men, resurrecting the failed “comparable-worth” concept of some years ago. Once implemented, the Paycheck Fairness Act would take the burden off female workers to cross-train into better-paying but undesirable “male” jobs. To get equal pay, a woman in a construction company's safe, comfy secretarial position would not, if all goes according to plan, have to apply for the yucky, out-in-the-elements, physically hard, dangerous “male” construction work rebuilding the infrastructure. (See "A Critical Look at 'Pay Equity' For Women.")

Here is still another reason:

On Father's Day 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama could have called upon us to try to understand the complexities conspiring to keep men out of the world of children (about those complexities, see Warren Farrell's book Father and Child Reunion), as he would do when speaking of the complexities that have kept women out of the world of work. Instead of calling for that understanding, instead of praising fathers at least once a year on their special day, he seized the easy political opportunity, in the old ideological feminist fashion and exactly like the “mean old, white male Republicans” he promised not to mimic, to bash black fathers, the least powerful and most disenfranchised group in the country:

“Any fool can have a child -- that doesn't make you a father. Too many fathers are missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities. They are acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families have suffered because of it. You and I know this is true everywhere but nowhere is it more true than in the African-American community.” (Even as he was admonishing fathers to spend more time with their children, Obama was campaigning for a job that would virtually guarantee him less time with his.) More...

Still another:

Consider President Obama's afore-mentioned White House Council on Women and Girls.

“The purpose of this council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy,” Obama said in a statement. “My administration has already made important progress toward that goal. I am proud that the first bill I signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. But I want to be clear that issues like equal pay, family leave, child care and others are not just women’s issues, they are family issues and economic issues.” (For the record, many if not most of the ideological feminists to whom President Obama is beholden define “family” in “family issues” as a woman and her children. By saying “they are family issues,” Obama, I suspect, really doesn't have men in mind. If men are helped, it's purely incidental.) More...

As for “matters of public policy,” does Obama think every man, including every black man, is treated fairly in all matters of public policy? What about domestic violence policy? What about reproductive-rights policy? What about the Selective Service policy? What about health-care policies, since men die sooner and at higher rates of the ten leading causes of death? Explore Male Matters for other policies that treat men unfairly.

And yet another reason:

Reflect on President Obama's choice of vice president, Joseph Biden. Biden co-founded the unconstitutional Violence Against Women Act — as if no woman ever commits violence against a man, and as if women were not the safer sex! (See "An Open Letter to the Judiciary Committees on the Violence Against Women Act.")

To truly grasp President Obama's bias against men (just as some women are biased against women), reflect on his Father's Day speech about men “shirking their responsibility” in the world of children. Now picture Obama's speech with a gender reversal, not a reversal in which women shirk responsibility in the world of children — for that would not be a true reversal -- but one in which women shirk responsibility in the world of work. Suppose that on Mother's Day 2009 Obama had the brazenness, the insanity, to rail against mothers who refuse to work or who don't return to work after a reasonable period of maternity leave. Suppose he said, “These mothers have abandoned their responsibilities. They are acting like girls instead of women. And the foundations of our families have suffered because of it. You and I know this is true everywhere but nowhere is it more true than in the African-American community.” How fast would Democrats turn on him, disowning and ostracizing him from the Democratic Party? Of course, none of this would never happen. Obama, like all presidents before him, knows with great certainty which gender of the ox to gore for political purposes. (Go here for his soothing praise of mothers on Mother's Day.)

President Obama's demonstrated bias for females raises the question Male Matters has long asked: Why do feminists want female politicians — such as Hillary Clinton — when male politicians — both Democrat and Republican — always come down on the side of women on gender issues, always can be counted on to be more favorable to women and less so to men than possibly the most ideological feminist?

As far as men are concerned, President Obama doesn't stand for the change he so successfully campaigned on. Rather — let me be clear, as he would say — he stands for business as usual.

What's sad about all this is that far too few people, especially men, will protest Obama's discriminatory programs, and so over the years the programs will only grow in number. Would we be surprised if we learned that many men today suspect that politicians are deliberately creating -- piece by piece, policy by policy -- a government and perhaps soon a society that relegate men to second-class citizenship, all the while doing so pleasingly and disarmingly under the guise of eliminating the “second-class citizenship” of women, the healthier, wealthier, longer-living, more educated sex?

(You may now want to reread some of the articles linked to at the beginning.)

tags: obama  antimale discrimination  paycheck fairness  black men  ledbetter fair pay act  

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