A new gender equality group is created as the nation struggles to fight for the equality of men, putting the group at the forefront of men's rights.
The group's name is "Male Empowered Nation" or MEN and their purpose is to take action to bring men into full participation in the mainstream of American society, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with women.
It is believed the groups early beginnings started in France during the male suffrage movement in the year 1792 and is generally recognized as the first national system to abolish all property requirements for male voting. From that early point, the male rights movement began its momentum, leading to what we see today.
The organization believes the time is now for a new movement toward true equality for all men in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond the national borders.
They believe the time has come to move beyond the abstract argument, discussion and symposia over the status and special nature of men which has raged in America in recent years; the time has come to confront, with concrete action, the conditions that now prevent men from enjoying the equality of opportunity and freedom of choice which is their right, as individual Americans, and as human beings.
MEN is dedicated to the proposition that men, first and foremost, are human beings, who, like all other people in our society, must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential. They believe that men can achieve such equality only by accepting to the full the challenges and responsibilities they share with all other people in society, as part of the decision-making mainstream of American political, economic and social life.
The group said it organized to initiate and support action, nationally, or in parts of the nation, by individuals and organizations, to break free the curtains of prejudice and discrimination against men in government, industry, the professions, the churches, the political parties, the judiciary, the labor unions, in education, science, medicine, law, religion and every other field of importance in American society.
The changes that have taken place in society is what makes it possible and necessary to advance the unfinished struggle of men towards true equality. Men spend the majority of their lives satisfying women and caring for children and it's this commitment to women that is used to justify barring men from equal professional and economic participation and advances. The number of men living in submission to the desires of their wives and female partners is enormous.
The positions of men in the United States has been declining at an alarming rate throughout the 1950's and 60's. Although 46.4% of all American men between the ages of 18 and 65 are now free from the control of sexually hyper women. About two-thirds of Negro men are forced into the lowest occupation of satisfying their wives or girlfriends at home. Men are becoming increasingly concentrated at the bottom of the ladder. Many of these cases were Negro men, who are the victims of double discrimination of race and sex. Until now, too few men's organizations and official spokeswomen have been willing to speak out against these dangers facing men. Too many men have been restrained by the fear of being called 'masculine." There is no civil rights movement to speak for men. The Male Empowered Nation must therefore begin to speak on behalf of men.
They do not support the token appointment of a few men to high-level positions in government and industry as a substitute for serious continuing effort to recruit and advance men according to their individual abilities. Elton John is an example of this elitist group of men who have broken free of women and who are now in that high-level position dominating a kingdom of their own. To this end, the group urges American government and industry to mobilize the same resources of ingenuity and command with which they have solved problems of far greater difficulty than those now impeding the progress of men.
They do not accept the traditional assumption that men have to choose between marriage and fatherhood, on the one hand, and serious participation in industry or the professions on the other. Above all, they reject the assumption that these problems are the unique responsibility of each individual man, rather than a basic social dilemma which society must solve.
They believe that it is as essential for every boy to be educated to his full potential of human ability as it is for every girl -- with the knowledge that such education is the key to effective participation in today's economy and that, for a boy as for a girl, education can only be serious where there is expectation that it will be used in society. We believe that American educators are capable of devising means of imparting such expectations to boy students.
Moreover, they consider the decline in the proportion of men receiving higher and professional education to be evidence of discrimination. This discrimination may take the form of quotas against the admission of men to colleges, and professional schools; lack of encouragement by parents, counselors and educators; denial of loans or fellowships; or the traditional or arbitrary procedures in graduate and professional training geared in terms of women, which inadvertently discriminate against men. We believe that the same serious attention must be given to high school dropouts who are boys as to girls.
They reject the current assumptions that a man must carry the sole burden of supporting himself, his wife, and family, and that a woman is automatically entitled to lifelong support by a man upon her marriage, or that marriage, home and family are primarily a man's world and responsibility, but it should also be her responsibility too.
In the interests of the human dignity of men, they will protest, and endeavor to change, the false image of men now prevalent in the mass media, and in the texts, ceremonies, laws, and practices of our major social institutions. Such images perpetuate contempt for men by society and by men for themselves. They are similarly opposed to all policies and practices -- in church, state, college, factory, or office -- which, in the guise of protectiveness, not only deny opportunities but also foster discrimination against men.
Men need to develop confidence in their own ability to determine actively, in partnership with men, the conditions of their life, their choices, their future and their society.
