warrenfarrell

at the u of toronto, as i understand it, the organization that sponsored me, called the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE), had been sponsoring other speakers on boys and men's issues. The Socialist Workers' Party's feminist group apparently did not like that the U of T had anything on campus that supported men's issues in this manner,and had begun ripping down posters of previous speakers. When I was invited, that was "the straw that broke the camel's back" and it catalyzed a poster-ripping down campaign like I've never seen and a more than 100-person protest that formed a feminist human blockade of the door to prevent people from hearing me. In the past, this had only happened to me once in a much more minor way, when, right after The Myth of Male Power came out, four people protested me outside Town Hall in NYC. I persuaded the organizers to give them free admission, and they became supporters after the talk. This group was not in that league! The police wouldn't let me near them, and after I saw the videos, I'm glad I took their advice!

Many Canadians have felt ashamed of their behavior, deeply apologizing. I love Canada, and do not feel like a victim. The video of their swearing, etc has had a quarter million views, and introduced many people to my work who had never previously known of it.

It was when i was doing the research for Father and Child Reunion that i did a meta-analysis of what i felt was much of the best research worldwide on what works best for children raised in a non-intact family. comparatively, yes, it is true children raised by single dads were better off than children raised by single moms on more than 30 different measures of success (psychological, such as lack of depression; social, such as empathy; physical health; academic). However, this does not mean that men are better as dads than women are as moms, since the men who are primary caretaker dads are on average older, have more education, more income and are more self-selected. They are the 2013 equivalent of the 1950's woman who overcame all the obstacles to become a dr. or lawyer--highly motivated and self-selected. When socioeconomic factors are controlled for, the children raised by dads do better still, but not as much better, and you still have the self-selection gap. Father and Child Reunion is filled with the hundreds of studies on which this is based. Check out ones by Christoffersen, and the ones by Sandufer from Harvard and many others.

important to remember is that the children who do best are ones in an intact family. especially when the mom and dad treat each of their contributions as necessary. moms tend to protect more; dads tend to encourage "get up and try again" some more. children need both the love and empathy and the encouragement to not give up. fortunately both genders can learn both skill sets if only they begin by valuing what the other sex tends to offer.

excellent questions. thank you.

i'll give you some bottom lines, then some depth: bottom-line, i did this research when my research skills as a new Ph.D. were in the foreground and my raising two daughters was in the future. had i and my wife helped raise two daughters first, the intellectual interest would have evaporated. life teaches; children teach you more. :)

now, for some depth. i haven't published anything on this research because i saw from the article from which you are quoting how easy it was to have the things i said about the way the people i interviewed felt be confused with what i felt. i have always been opposed to incest, and still am, but i was trying to be a good researcher and ask people about their experience without the bias of assuming it was negative or positive. i had learned this from the misinformation we had gotten about gay people by working from the starting assumption of its dysfunction.

the next thing i learned is how easy it is to confuse the messenger with the message, especially when the article is not being written by you, but about you.

what i love about this interview style is that it allows me to say what i feel in some depth, rather than have one summarize what i feel in a way that doesn't represent it.

i'm going to take this answer to the deepest level i can in a brief space. every society that has survived has done so based on its ability to persuade its sons to be disposable-as-needed: disposable in war, in work, or, if they died in work or war and were a dad, disposable as a dad. if a society survives based in part on its sons' disposability, the investment in not questioning that goes deep.

second, the feminist movement has catalyzed and pioneered infinite levels of contributions for our daughters, and that should never be reversed (here i feel differently than Christina Hoff-Sommers though I respect her contributions). but feminism undervalued the family, often demonized men, and assumed that patriarchy was a system designed by men to benefit men at the expense of women. I feel that is not accurate; that the dominating force is survival, and moms raised children and dads raised money or risked making rules that only they should have to die in war to allow for a future that would be better than the one they had. When I say that, some feminists call that misogyny rather than think about it and enter into a constructive dialogue. unfortunately, the worst offenders are women's and gender studies departments that don't question the male dominance theme.

In brief, i define power differently--as control over one's life. historically, our grandparents didnt have rights, both sexes had obligations and responsibilities, and both sexes goals were to make their children's lives better than theirs. that's just the tip of the iceberg, but i hope it helps!

most activists in any area--left or right; women's or men's-- read and develop friends who reinforce what makes us feel validated. technology makes this non-growth-producing trait more convenient than ever. the challenge is that it often takes this focus to be motivated to do things, and the activists' non-centered approach can lead the more moderate into feeling unheard at their national meetings, eventually withdraw,etc.

the best solution? developing the listening skill-set i discuss in a post below; experimenting with the possibility that, for example, the women and men's rights people have something valuable to offer and a best intent of making gender relations better. listening with that best intent in mind creates a much more rewarding life, much more intimacy and leads us to being much more often listened to.