Arf! You'd think he was writing in the late 1880s or something. I'm surprised phrases like 'painted harlots' and 'wanton strumpets' didn't make it on his list.

Too bad he wasn't. Dr. Freud would have fun psychoanalyzing Dr. Makow.

I can appreciate some of the points he's trying to make here, but Dr. Makow is very bad at matching up cause and effect. Frumpy blue jeans, for instance, means that the person inside them is a bad dresser... not necesarily a lesbian.

I actually sent a lengthy email to Makow some years ago, after reading another of his online rants. Reason I went to the trouble to write to him --- as you say -- was the rank, bitter, twisted, misogynistic bile that dripped from virtually his every sentence.

Since then, I haven't bothered much with his stuff. It's always the same: the 'bad guys' are creating divisions between male and female, are emasculating males, are encouraging females to usurp male roles, etc. etc.

I don't know about the Disinfo element. I'll have to think more about it.

Really, though, is there ANY woman, let alone women plural, of whom Makow does approve ?

If you were to take the time to compile his numerous online rants it would read like the worst examples of fundamentalist religious misogyny.

On and on and on. The old drip-drip technique. Brainwashing. Programming .. ' women are bad, mad, evil, stupid, weak, cunning, not to be trusted, not to be relied upon, not safe with power in their hands, power hungry, man-hating, child-hating, devious, corrupt, immoral, etc.

Over and over and over.

Sure, he lays a thin groundwork of questionable justification for it, but not to the point his readers might actually start thinking about that at the expense of the 'women are bad' message.

And I'm sure there are males out there who absolutely lap it up and rank the guy as some sort of hero. Divorced men who refuse to pay child-support .. men who justify their hatred of women because their 'ex' did them wrong, for example .. men who seek other men with the same mind-set. These, surely, are Makow's intended audience ? A sort of 'misery loves company' type group ?

I used to browse a now-defunct forum whose members were primarily American. And I was sickened by their Makow-type attitudes. These men were rabidly anti-abortion as just another excuse for dehumanising women.

And the language they used to describe women was foul beyond belief. Yet many of the women they described in this manner were those they'd chosen to marry and bear their children. But when their wives for whatever reason left them, these men referred to them in terms you wouldn't even use for diseased animals. And they boasted about being paid 'off the books' in order to avoid paying child-support.

I quite often asked them where their children were sleeping that night. Had their children eaten that day. To whom were their children turning for affection and recognition in lieu of a father's presence and attention ?

And I asked why they believed women should sacrifice their life in order to raise, support and educate their children .. while the absentee fathers sat in comfort before a computer, connected to internet, with all the time in the world to disparage females, with other like-minded absentee fathers.

Like Makow, these men had nothing positive to say about females.
Only criticism. Foul, vile criticism. They hated, literally hated, half the world's population .. the female half.

They pretended to be anti-abortion.
I asked if the reason they claimed to be so 'pro life' was because the impregnating of females was a means via which certain males could financially, emotionally, socially and otherwise cripple women's lives, careers, ambitions, freedoms, choice, etc.

Wow. If they could have smacked me down or shot or stabbed me through their internet connection, they would have done.

Their hypocrisy was beyond startling .. it was toxic.

There they were, happily referring to women generally in four letter language for choosing (some women) not to have a child ... yet at the same time, these same supposedly 'pro life' males refused (and it was gleefully expressed) to support those children whom their wives and de-factos, girlfriends etc. HAD chosen to bear !

It appeared these men had impregnated women (most had children by a series of women) because doing so was their primary means of asserting their wish to dominate, control and destroy.

They'd used their semen as a weapon .. a weapon against women.

And the children they'd fathered ... were bullets.

Once the bullets had been fired at the target, these men had no further use for those bullets.

The bullets were of no concern to them.

It was the target .. women .. whom they'd wanted to destroy.

Then you'd come across the same posters in other threads, writing lascivious comments about under age girls and boys who sold themselves.

I asked them how often it occurred to them .. when they read of young kids being murdered and used .. that these same children might be their own.

At which point, the four letter insults were hurled at me.

These men, in my opinion, are Makow's target audience. They share what appear to be Makow's misogynistic views. They live to criticise women.
And like Makow .. it's never enough. All the rants are never enough -- can never quench their hatred of women.

Which, to me, implies they are (including Makow) closet homosexuals (in my personal opinion).

I mean, where is Makow's ideal female ? Does she even exist ?

Is she submissive, i.e. 'weak and stupid' ?

Is she suppressed, i.e. 'unsuited' to basically any position requiring initiative and strength ?

What does Makow's ideal woman wear ? A gingham pinafore and a headscarf ? A neck to knee sack ? A Jackie Onassis Chanel suit (ooops .. sorry .. that would take too much of 'the man's money'. Ok. A hand-made Jackie O suit perhaps .. made from hand-spun wool gathered from the woman's budget-priced sheep in the backyard).

What does Makow's ideal woman do with her life ? Does she keep her head facing the floor as she slaves to keep her man and brood happy ?

For if she goes to work, then Makow regards her as a 'pseudo man, usurping the male role' .. even if she's going to work to provide bare necessities for her family.

I honestly can't imagine there exists a woman who would satisfy Makow's exacting expectations.

Which makes one ask .. is there a Mrs. Makow ?

But most importantly ... who on earth does Makow imagine himself to be ?

I have a mental image of him, and of those men who spend their lives in forums with like minded misogynists ... criticising women at the same time as those women are doing their job for them because they .. those men .. refuse to support, protect and care for their own children. I visualise those men as small, bitter, hate-filled, lazy, irresponsible, useless wastes of space.

No, I don't read Makow any longer. I regard him as verbal poison.

Dock6,

Thank you for your well-thought out reply. I wrote that because I have seen Dr. Makow's articles quoted here on ATS a few times in the last week. I wanted to bring to light that he is a less than credible source.

While I do not want to speculate upon Mr. Makow's personal motivations, as I do not know him personally, he has stated that he has been divorced twice and married his third wife, who is from the Philipenes, specifically because she is what he consideres "traditional."

And I'm sure there are males out there who absolutely lap it up and rank the guy as some sort of hero. Divorced men who refuse to pay child-support .. men who justify their hatred of women because their 'ex' did them wrong, for example .. men who seek other men with the same mind-set. These, surely, are Makow's intended audience ? A sort of 'misery loves company' type group ?

A while back I started a thread on ATS detailing my opinion that the alleged "Conspiracy against men" and "Court Bias against fathers" was due much more to the attitudes and actions of men as a whole than it was an organized conspiracy--for instance, that men tend to underreport spousal abuse and are typically not the ones that leave in an abusive relationship.

I was surprised by how most of the people that posted responded with overt hatred and said that I was just spouting out proganda and must be an insecure femenist. They ignored completely the premise that I set out in the original post!

By this time I think "Abused but ignored men" is a false truism that our society has latched on to and refuses to release now, because it is a convenient excuse. Recently there was a thread here in which the OP complained that he was milked for child support and wasn't allowed to see his child, but later on posted that he wouldn't want his child support to be used to pay for the electric bill because the child's mother would also benefit.

If it wasn't that that kind of attitude seems to be so prevelant I would write Makow and those like him off as bitter men trying to rationalize their own shortcomings, but I think they really do have a detrimental effect to society as a whole.


He might as well write an article saying "No really does mean yes!" and be done with it.

[edit on 4-11-2008 by asmeone2]

Asmeone2

What today's 'anti-feminists' or whatever they're called forget or choose to forget, is that there have always been strong .. very strong .. and capable women.

Widows, for example, who somehow managed to support and raise large broods of children back in the days when there were no 'jobs', let alone careers, for women. My great-grandmother worked 14 hours a day in one of the 'dark, satanic mills'. She left before dawn and trudged through deep snow, worked all day and trudged back again, once more in the dark. Fed her children, put them to bed. Had a few hours sleep sitting in a chair before the fire, then up at 2 am. .. did the baking etc. and then set off for work again. Six days a week. No running water. No electricity. No convenience foods. Raised two boys who survived Gallipoli, France and Egypt in WW1 and went on to raise their own familes through the Depression, and did it well. That poor woman lived to nearly 80. Less than five feet tall. Hands like a man's from all the work.

Yes, she did a man's job. And a woman's job too. And there have been millions like her, unsung heroines, strong, capable, resourceful .. because they had to be.

It was the same in WW2. Women went to work in the factories and did hard, dangerous work while the men were off fighting.

And it's the same today. Women are serving burgers and cleaning motel rooms to earn the money to put food on the table. Their children's fathers are nowhere to be found. They're lurking behind computer screens making excuses for themselves and pretending to solve the world's problems instead of supporting and raising their own children. Or they're marrying a new wife and producing new children without a backward look at the family they left in their wake.

When it's convenient, men expect women to be strong and resourceful.

When it's not convenient, those strengths are criticised.

Women are expected by men to be able to switch it on and off.

What I really deplore are those, like Makow, who pit men and women against each other and work ceaselessly to widen the gap between the sexes.

Makow claims to oppose this, yet he's one of its chief proponents.

Men and women complement each other. They both have strengths and weaknesses. They make a good team. It's destructive to both sexes when they pit themselves against each other, based on gender.

There are women out there right now, herding cattle, chopping wood, skinning food for the pot .. and all to help their men and keep their families going. And there are men who right now are not only earning the bacon but cooking it too.

Some men are justified in being bitter about women, just as some women are justified in the low opinion they have of men.

But Makow's stereotypes only seem to cut one way. He blames all women for the failings of both males and females. He seems to be implying that if women wore cotton frocks and remained in the kitchen, all the world's ills would be solved.

He seems keen to ignore the fact that women stayed in the kitchen for hundreds of years, yet their men still strayed ... still came home drunk and beat their wives .. still molested their children .. still gambled .. still walked out on their families. And that was long before child-support legislation, long before women were able to enter the workforce in any capacity other than as drudges who did other people's washing for a few pennies a week.

There were as many if not far more fatherless children and orphans two hundred years ago as there are now.

Women have always outnumbered men when it comes to single-parenthood. It's the women who've kept the children with them in the vast majority of cases. And it's never been easy. Far easier to up and leave and start again as a single man.

Yes, I've seen countless men claim in forums that the 'reason' they won't pay child support is because they'll 'be damned if I'll give that b...tch a cent', even though they know that by withholding child support, they are dooming their own children to a sub-standard existence.

They want women to 'pay'.

Pay for what ? For being women ? Yes. Pay for being women. Pay with their lives and pay in misery for being women.

Pay for inciting male lust.

Not a far step from fundamentalist Islam's edict that Muslim women should wear a shroud so that men will be spared the task of controlling their own lust.

But even there, is the lie.

For it's not the subduing of their own sexual lust that's at the bottom of it.

It's lust of a different kind. The lust for power and control.

And because trying to control each other would be a full time job and would entail personal danger, men instead choose to exert power and control over women -- who are smaller and weaker and less prone to physical violence and retaliation than men.

So it's bully tactics. They dominate women because its easier and promises more success.

And religion is used as 'justification'. The male God is utilized as a tool by bullying males to suppress females.

And Makow, with his self-righteous preaching about 'good' and 'bad' women, is simply vocalising his own shortcomings.

What all these misogynists fail to grasp is that women comprise half the world's population. They don't have to seek mens' validation. They don't need mens' permission to do anything at all.

Makow seems to be living in a fantasy world .. a world that has never existed. In his world, women are naturally 'inferior' to men. He seems to suffer from a Doris Day complex, where women's only worth is that which men bestow upon them, where women should be decorative and submissive to the 'superior male' and should giggle continually in the hope of concealing their brain.

Well, Mr.Makow .. Doris Day in reality was always a strong, independent and resourceful woman. In reality, it sounds as if you'd be scared to death of her .. a woman with opinions, a woman who expected men to be men or stop wasting her time -- and a woman who wore jeans, way back in the 50s.

And here's another tip Mr.Makow ... asian women are amongst the strongest, most resourceful of all .. especially those who've made it to the West. They know how massive the Western male's ego is and they're prepared to pander to it .. as long as it suits their own purpose.

Western women on the other hand are far more honest and straightforward. But you don't like that, do you? You .. who professes to be so honest and straighforward yourself.

Fortunately, the majority of Western males do appreciate intelligence, humour and honesty in their women. So your convoluted ravings go unread by them.

The only way forward is for men and women to go from right here, right now .. towards the future, working in harmony and mutual respect.

You, Mr.Makow, seem to believe the only way forward is backwards .. to a time that never existed apart from as a misogynists' wet dream.

Marsha Law,

I fully recognize feminism's dubious origins. I wouldn't denythem for a second.

However the thread is not about that--it is about the way that Dr. Makow perverts the entire spectrum of issues regarding feminism.

It would be one thing if he was calling for equal respect for both genders, but he's calling for a male-dominated society. I don't see a lick of difference between the "improvements" he calls for and the "problems" that he is trying to solve, the only difference is who's on top.

I wouldn't bother with the emails. I think it would be like debating with a religious person. I'll wager from the voracity of his articles that he needs to think of things as he does as a security mechanism and isn't going to consider your points.

Dock6, you are a very intelligent person, and I will try to reply to some of your concerns.
I am what you could call an anti-feminist.
The distinction here is - are you happy to be a woman, or do you want to be a man?
When they did tests with little children, little boys show different behavior than little girls. Old societies accepted this difference and modeled the whole social system around them. This has lasted for centuries. All of a sudden, the whole model is wrong, and "modern" society claims that women should do same things as men. Fine. Who is going to take care of children? If you go to work, your child has to go somewhere and be influenced. By whom? By "modern" books, "modern" teachers...your children are not yours any more. You are at work, trying to act like a man, fight like a man, make decisions like a man. But, what will your children learn from all that?

My conclusion is that this "modern" system is made to create zombies who will do what corporations and bankers want them to do. The whole "feminist" movement is nothing but the destruction of family. Family is no longer needed, just like yard is no longer needed to have chicken (cages will do). We are the ownership of the corporations and they model our lives. Women are far easier to manipulate, that is why male behavior is forever under suspicion. Males are encouraged to soften, to not lead, to not have opinion, to basically give up on everything that feels normal for a grown up male.
I don't like the direction this world is going. Not at all. And any woman, proud to be a WOMAN (not a male-like feminist), should not like this. Women are capable of many things, but their biggest talent is - family. Some of them can be Queens, some even scientists. But, if we lose mothers and wives, we will no longer have anything. We will be zombies.

Bringing up an old thread, perhaps...

But I agree with Greshnik. It's sad that a family can no longer survive on one income. The parents, or the mother, is no longer afforded the ability to raise her own children. Which goes right along with keeping families not as close as they were, and children growing up being raised by strangers do not have the old morals and respect that earlier generations did.
Some would even say they have no work ethic, are lazy, and disrespectful to everyone.

I respect women who just want to stay home and raise their children. Unfortunately, many are single and cannot... Or even if married, a household cannot get by on one income alone anymore.
I am pretty sure this is what those in power want.
Families are no longer close as they were, and they have free-reign to shape young minds however they see fit. Especially to support and continue the status quo.

Can't have people thinking for themselves and deciding to overthrow an unfair and unjust system!

I am a stay at home mom... But only because I am lucky to be able to work online. No, am not a disinfo agent! Although I bet it pays better...

I have no interest in trying to be a man. I just want to be supportive to my man, and help him keep the bills paid and family fed. A lot of times for parents, that means going without yourself.
It's really a lot of hard work.

Makow is right on eveytime i have ever read his stuff
you got to ask yourself how you base your beliefs
on fundamentals that GOD set forth for a basis of society or
what has evolved by way of osmosis in our new world view

LostNemasis and Greshnik,

I think a woman can be happy as a stay-at-home mom or as a career woman, the problem is when she tries to do both at the same time, or does one when she wants to do the other.

But besides that, one thing that Dr. Makow does NOT talk about and should, if he is actually interested in a fair examination, is that most of his proverbial "womanoids" do not actually want to be men, but are simply working a job because that's what they have to do to survive.

He neglects to take into account that most of these woman are not career-hungry domineering individuals putting their prestige before their family, but just individuals trying to keep their family afloat when dad's income isn' enough.

A huge portion of those women don't even HAVE a "dad" to fall back on. Contrary to Dr. Makow's paperdoll stereotypes single women are NOT all sitting back on their laurels trying to squeeze child support dollars out of their children's fathers. He seems unable to understand that in cases where the mother must raise the child on her own, she is simply incapable of staying at home with them.

I do not like his apparent attitude that a woman is morally corrupt or has gender issues if she has to work to support her family. Men AND women have their flaws; many of Dr. Makow's percieved "problems" with women stem from those women being cheated or harmed by the men in their life.

He seems unable to read his history books and learn that this "golden age" wheret the mom stayed at home did not actually exist as he thinks it does. Even in the 50's which seeems to be his barometer many of the lower-class women worked "pink collar" jjobs, and a decade before that, during WWII, women were the workforce. THey built tanks, flew airplanes across the ocean to supply the troops with supplies, and served in the armed forces as nurses.

Good thing we had all those women with a gender identity disorder around to help us through the war!

Prior to that, in the 20's, 30's, and beyond, many women worked as servents, laundresses, seamstresses, and more. During the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s and 1800s it was common for women to work in factories (and in deplorable conditions.) Children also worked in these conditions; I guess they wanted to be men, too.

I would like to also point out that prior to this, before the advent of technology began to bring people together, men also worked "at home." Entire families lived off of their plots of land, think 'Little House on the Prarie," and both gnders began to move away from the homestead as times changed.