Dateline: Canada
By: Jim Hodgins of The National Post (article now removed)
Via: The Honor Network

Priority News Exchange Program News Item (PNEP)

A federally funded report says “masculinists” are orchestrating a backlash against feminism and blaming women for oppressing and discriminating against men.

The report’s authors claim that masculinists portray men as victims and link feminism with boys’ poor performance in schools, male suicide, loss of male identity and discriminatory divorce and child custody laws.

“A process of levelling the power relationships of men over women is taking hold, not only to mask continued inequality but also to attack some of the gains made by the women’s movement,” says the $75,000 report, School Success by Gender: A Catalyst for the Masculinist Discourse.

The report says “masculinist discourse” aims to discredit feminism and challenge the gains made by women in education, at work and in family life.

The report was written in response to a call from Status of Women Canada, a federal department, to research the subject: “Where have all the women gone? Changing shifts in policy discourses.”

A disclaimer on the front of the report says, “This document expresses the views of the author and does not necessarily represent the official policy of Status of Women Canada or the Government of Canada.”

Among the report’s recommendations is that an organization similar to Hate Watch be established to monitor men’s groups on the Web, that inciting hatred on the basis of gender should be a hate crime and that women’s groups establish a network to counter the masculinists’ views.

Men’s groups listed in an appendix to the report said they were outraged at being “smeared.”

Ken Wiebe, from British Columbia, said his Web site, fathers.bc.ca, was set up as a resource centre for fathers who have had trouble in the divorce courts. He denied it promotes hatred of women and said it demands equality.

“There is no question that I have very little patience for feminists, especially the radical variety of feminism here in Canada,” he said. “But I have a wife, I have daughters. This notion that because we are opposed to the feminists’ political agenda, that that somehow equates to a dislike of women, is just propaganda. That’s some kind of smear campaign.”

Mickey MacMillan, of Kamloops Parents of Broken Families, said he was angry at being put on the “hit list.” “All I’ve ever done is advocate for equal parenting,” said Mr. MacMillan, who represented Canada as a boxer in the 1962 Commonwealth Games.

“I have no agenda against women. I don’t like feminists because I think they’re radical and I think they’re against men, but I don’t think they should try to criminalize me. And my government paying for it, it is a disgrace.”

– Jim Hodgins, of the Canadian Committee for Fairness in Family Law in Ontario,