I am reliably informed by a number of people that Dr Ben Hine, one of six co-founders of the Men and Boys Coalition – MBC – publicly self-identifies as a feminist. His MBC profile is here. He’s a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of West London. His Profile on the university website is here, his Biography is this:
Broadly, I am interested in the area of applied gender psychology. This is reflected in my two main research interests – prosocial behaviour in childhood and adolescence, and interpersonal violence. I am interested in continuing the work conducted during my PhD in exploring how gender stereotypes and norms influence prosocial behaviour, and whether boys feel they need to carve out a specific ‘niche’ in this traditionally feminine area.
I am also interested in interpersonal violence towards men and women, and how gendered power dynamics influence the judgements and reactions to these incidences, particularly by the criminal justice system, but also by peers and support networks.
So at least three of the six (male) co-founders of the MBC are feminists, and to the best of my knowledge none of the other three publicly identify as anti-feminists. Ideological balance is a fine thing. You have to ask, why doesn’t the MBC website admit – celebrate, even – the ideology that so clearly underpins it? Anyone who visits the J4MB website will swiftly become aware we’re an anti-feminist party, and proud to be so.
Leaving aside the issue of ideology, the inclusion of some people as members of the MBC is baffling. Could someone tell me why the two following women are members?
Jenny Garrett, award winning coach, author [authoress] and business woman:
“I am passionate about helping women [my emphasis] craft the life they want and that mindset starts early. I want the next generation of trailblazing women [my emphasis] to be able to thrive in life and work and I believe that Rocking Ur Teens can help make that happen.”
Sandy Parris, award winning event planner, host [hostess] and author [authoress]:
“As an experienced event planner and host I’m committed to delivering events that enable women [my emphasis] to connect, motivate and inspire each other. As a co-founder of Rocking Ur Teens CIC we’re proud to have created an inclusive forum to support teen girls [my emphasis] to embrace their uniqueness, share, learn, grow and successfully navigate their teenage years.”
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Justice for Men & Boys 
I think we need to know what type of feminism such people subscribe to (and more about his political position generally). There are occasionally decent people who haven’t yet abandoned the term and are perhaps misguided in thinking it’s possible to save it somehow. They tend to be more Conservative leaning, e.g. Christina Hoff Smmers and Julia Hartley Brewer. These tiny number of individuals are also always women in my experience, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a reasonable male feminist, but i suppose he could be the only one on the planet.
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Any and all feminism is toxic to men, it says so right in the name; its all about FEMALES and therefore I just find it impossible to find the equality there!!
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I struggle to figure out why any male would be a feminist. From what I have read, male feminists’ sole role is to STFU and be wholely supportive of any guff the feminist sisterhood come out with.
As regards the MBC bios highlighted; when words like : prosocial, gendered power dynamics, passionate, trail-blazing, enable, motivate, inspire, inclusive etc appear, then the old WAFU alert siren is screaming in my head “warning, warning, public teat being sucked”.
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Any attempt at raising the social and emotional well-being issues of boys and men must be appreciated to a degree, and I personally welcome Dr Hine’s attempts to do so. However, I would suggest that if you want to advance the legitimate cause of mens health in all its forms then an awareness of the anti-masculine feminist political agenda must be acknowledged and taken seriously.
In the interest of boys and men (and women too) in our society Thank You for reading the following words:
Boys Will Be Boys
Over recent years the internet has spawned a new breed of social commentator : The internet Troll. These guys (and girls) are nihilistic trouble makers who vent their frustrations of life at any target they believe will be disturbed or upset by ridicule. Their intent is not to legitimately challenge error but to disrupt and sabotage legitimate activity. In the past these individuals had no voice because in order to speak in public they were required to leave their bedrooms. The problem is that with such easy access to public debate through internet forums and discussion groups anyone who raises a concern or complaint within an online discussion can be dismissed as a ‘troll’. This is a reflection of the dogma of political correctness which uses the same smear technique in an attempt to discredit and silence legitimate freedom of speech. (…sounds like the definition of third-wave feminist does it not?!).
With that statement clearly made, in the interests of free speech and opposition to erroneous practice, I would ask a cheeky and slightly provocative question…
Does the ‘M’ in MBC stand for ‘Mangina’.
Dr Ben Hine’s self-penned personal profile suggests it should. All the clues are there in plain sight :
His affiliation with emphatically feminist females and his embrace of contemporary pseudo-science psychology (with its determined ‘gender studies’ ‘concern’ about all things masculine).
Good Boy Dr Hine! You’ve ticked all the boxes!… Welcome to the Feminist Elite.
Emasculated and easily coerced?…
An anti-masculine feminists dream-boy?…These are the kinds of male role models modern feminists love. Compliant and anti-male.
In all seriousness I hope Dr Hine can take this kind of criticism on the chin and consider his outlook. A society of single mothers has itself spawned an ‘army’ of guys like this… They’ll adopt any feminist trait or sensibility in their nauseous attempt at securing dominant-female validation.
And finally, at risk of being erroneously labelled a ‘troll’ I would remind Dr Hine and his seemingly feminist backers of an affectionate phrase often used compassionately in defense of the typically masculine :
‘Boys will be Boys’.
How about we accept and celebrate that fact instead of apologising for it in the interest of feminist social acceptance, Dr Hine?
Yes indeed – Boys will be boys… but you can’t say that if you want to be a Doctor of Psychology of course…not in this day and age.
-sdw
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I am also interested in interpersonal violence towards men and women, and how gendered power dynamics influence the judgements and reactions to these incidences, particularly by the criminal justice system, but also by peers and support networks.
I honestly don’t understand how anyone can be a self professed feminist after writing the above paragraph. Its not as if he is not an intelligent person. He is either not self aware or he is disingenuous.
“Leaving aside the issue of ideology, the inclusion of some people as members of the MBC is baffling. Could someone tell me why the two following women are members?”
Because they are the token representation for the supposed ideal of women ( the “you go girls”).
Some how people think that these people are some how qualified to speak on the issue( although they have that right as a member of public) merely for being in business or writing.( notice how the description had to be over emphasized beyond what they are, as we do with celebs). They may be good at what they do , but it doesn’t mean they are good at this issue.
I quite happy for them to do this because the MBC will continue to undermine itself.
Isn’t it the same argument thrown at philip davies by the feminists ?
the ones who decide that only women have a right to speak about women issues.
Difference is that davies believe it or not wants a balanced playing field for this and actually made some effort to research the facts.
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“Men’s rights activists must wake up and realize that the time for trying to counter the hypocrisy with rationality – with essentially male arguments, using facts and truth, in the hope that sense will prevail – is not going to make any difference to the relentless feminist long march on men” -Herbert Purdy ICMI-16 https://youtu.be/PjAnRar9p4M
“Everywhere you look—everywhere you look!–there are feminists pushing their way to the front of the line demanding women’s “fair share” of all of the goodies, the good stuff, the loot, the booty, the cookies. Even if women don’t need it. Even if women don’t deserve it. And even if somebody else needs it and deserves it more.
And they get it, because we give it to them”. -Karen Straughn (GirlWritesWhat)
Ignore your rights and they will go away.
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Hi Clayton.. can you clarify what you mean by ‘ignore your rights and they will go away’ please. You mean we will lose our rights if we do not stand up for them?.. Or do you mean if you ignore ranting feminists they will go away…?
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I attended Dr Hine’s talk on domestic violence on 15th December and – I may be naïve here – all the statistics he gave were spot on and much of his expressed attitudes to the lack of attention given to male victims were in tune with those on this site. I was surprised when he said he “identified as a feminist”. He seems to have fallen for the “gender is a social construct” narrative and thinks, in all honesty it would seem, that to solve men’s problems we need to undo the “social expectations” placed on them. In reality, such social factors have little influence of our sense of gender, which exist at a level below that of societal labelling. In recent decades much of psychology has taken a deplorable turn. It has abandoned the psyche, the personal sphere formed by family relations in the early childhood years and which precedes any social articulation, and deals instead only with post-articulated senses of selfhood (or as Dr Hine has it, “self-schema”). These are by definition social constructs (because embedded in a common medium) and have little impact on how men experience their sexuality, which stems from early childhood experience and from innate sexual characteristics made manifest at puberty. Dr Hine will never solve the problems of men and boys as long as he talks of “gendered power dynamics” instead of exploring how it feels to be a man in a female dominated culture.
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boggojones.. cheers for your insight re Dr Hine’s talk on domestic violence. It’s patently obvious that we are affected by our environment and our relationships; no Phd is necessary to figure that one out. If you put a duckling with an adult female cat the cat will nurture it and the duckling will follow the cat around. We all know this. So, boys growing up in female dominated environments will often either follow and adopt feminine traits for inclusion and validation or react against those traits in an attempt to demonstrate and identify with what they believe to be masculinity (..particularly in the absence of strong reassuring male leadership as an example). Time spent in secondary schools seems to bear this out. Often in an attempt to be ‘manly’ some boys perceptions can lead aggressive behaviours which, as we know, generally are not the overall default mode of authentic capable masculinity.
The unpleasant thing about modern anti-masculine feminism is that it appears to want to write a ‘gender script’ for the next generation in regard to gender and orientation. To them it’s all about choice.. If you ‘want to be’ heterosexual, homosexual, metrosexual, transexual, pansexual, bisexual or any other option sexual you can think of the modern feminists view suggests that it’s up to you. In their world it’s like a trip to a pick’n’mix sweet stall..with the least favoured frowned-upon option being that of masculine/heterosexual (white) male. Lesbian and bi-sexual female options are currently on Special Recommended Offer. Modern feminists would, it seems, like eventually to phase out the heterosexual-masculine option altogether, but this would leave them lacking… they need that particular group to act as scapegoat for the inevitable occasions when life doesn’t go according to plan.
That’s not me jumping on the victim bandwagon, it’s a view I have developed through direct experience and observation. Kind of laughable if it didn’t lead to such identity confusion and unhappiness among so many disaffected and insecure young people in our society today.
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