Bashing Fathers on Father's Day

As father's day approaches this weekend, the columnists have already started lecturing fathers on how they should improve and carry out their responsibility. See the appended column below. Can you imagine someone writing such columns demeaning Mothers on Mother's Day?

The American society is infected with what Pradeep Ramanathan called masculophobia. Ramanathan defines masculophobia as the fear, suspicion, and rejection, of maleness, of masculinity. It encompasses everything from the male-bashing that is so prevalent in today's society, to the feelings of being ashamed of one's maleness that many men have. http://www.ncfm.org/pradeep.html

If one wants fathers to assume more responsibility, they should remove the government from the family structure and allow the father to have some authority. As it stands in our current family structure, the father only has responsibility, no authority. All the authority rests with the mother or the State.
If the father has any authority it is de facto authority granted by the mother, or the state. Responsibility without authority makes one a slave.

Patriarchy used to be a respectful word. Now it is a dirty word.

"In a patriarchal society all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent." Catherine MacKinnon

"Under patriarchy, no woman is safe to live her life, or to love, or to mother children. Under patriarchy, every woman is a victim, past, present, and future. Under patriarchy, every woman's daughter is a victim, past, present, and future. Under patriarchy, every woman's son is her potential betrayer and also the inevitable rapist or exploiter of another woman," Andrea Dworkin, Liberty, p.58.

More hateful quotes about men here; http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/quotes.php

It's time for men to stop cooperating. It's time for men to withdraw. It's time for men to withdraw more than their dick. It's time for men to withdraw their enthusiasm. It's time for men to have a WOE (Whoa) program, a "Withdrawal of Enthusiasm". When men are treated as equals to women by the courts then men will call off their WOE program. Let the courts operate without men's production, if it can.

Charles Tolleson

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080609/cm_usatoday/aministersfathersdaywisdom;_ylt=AlM_BUyhDblhh5iSyJuebsus0NUE

A minister's Father's Day wisdom
Mon Jun 9,
By Oliver "Buzz" Thomas

What do Sigmund Freud, Jesus and Moses have in common? They each believed in the importance of fathers. Freud said that nothing in a child's life is more important than the security and protection afforded to it by a father. Moses listed honoring our fathers as one of God's Big Ten, and Jesus used the concept of a loving father as his central metaphor for understanding God. Be they good or bad, dads mark us for life. Most men, to their credit, set out to be good fathers, but the distance between intentions and results is considerable. Along the way, lots of us get lost, give up or simply run out of gas.

As a minister, I'm sorry to report that the Bible has little to offer in the way of positive role models for fathering.

Oliver "Buzz" Thomas is a minister, lawyer and author of 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs the Job).