#mikebuchanan

Ever heard of Justice for Men and Boys (and the woman who love them)?

Yes, this is an actual political party headed by Mike Buchanan; a man who prefers to refer to feminists as radical and militant feminists. Buchanan has put together an 80-page manifesto on behalf of the Justice for Men and Boys (and the woman who love them) party. I trawled through the 80 pages, and it seems that this man deems the majority of independent woman as radical and militant.

(Note: I used the word ‘majority’ to tie in with Buchanan’s basis of using generalized statements as fact).

I would firstly like to say:

Dear Mr Buchanan,

Woman went through centuries of oppression, just to spite you with paternity fraud, and to take all of the jobs that should be for men. We got you and we are so deeply sorry

Xoxo

  Anyway, back to the manifesto. It’s almost as hilarious as the cover of his book.

Despite a few sparse mentions of gender equality, this is definitely not the priority of the manifesto. The dude even makes it clear that men are of precedence with the Logo for J4MB. Check it out below and take from it what you will.

I particularly like the way that the three profiles change from a stern-faced-male-blue, to a dainty-female-pink (because we must adhere to the colour of our gender!!). The female face almost seems to be longing and pouting in the direction of Buchanan. Sassy and offensive!

Buchanan believes that ‘the rights of a woman to self-determination must end where the rights of the unborn child begin.’ This statement was the first of many in the document where my little-dainty-female-pink jaw dropped to the floor.

In the document, which focuses so much on the principle of marriage and the importance of the male role within a family, does Buchanan not realize that women gave over their self-determination a long time ago? I mean, during marriage, a female is passed from one man to another. The woman is walked down the aisle and given by their fathers, to their husbands.

Mr Buchanan, I hate to break it to you but recent times are just the beginning of women realising they can have self-determination. I’m sorry if you don’t like it.

Now I can value the importance of a strong and supportive family structure, but Buchanan goes on to have a dig at homosexual couplings, stating that ‘taxpayers are subsidising sperm banks for single women and lesbians’. If he’s really talking about family structures here, then why did he use the word lesbian? Is he saying that two men caring for a child would work out better than two women?

This manifesto is an extremely strange document, which makes drastic shifts between Buchanan seeking sympathy for men’s helplessness, and then declaring their importance as role models and decision makers. He states that ‘men collectively pay 72% of the income tax collected in the UK, women are effectively replacing men as partners, with men as taxpayers.’ But you know, it makes a lot of sense for woman to want to replace men when Buchanan also states that ‘men are naturally disinclined to talk about their problems.’

I mean all women just love to talk about their problems. That’s just all we talk about. Look at me now, I’m talking about my problems and I’m a woman. Care for me, I’m a woman. LOVE ME LOVE ME.

It also makes sense that men pay more income tax than women because still, males are often paid more. You can’t argue this, it definitely still happens. I earn £7 per hour and men in my workplace, with the exact same job earn £7.20.

Sorry to involve my own problems, but I feel, that as a woman, everyone cares about my problems. You see, according to Mike Buchanan, people don’t mind me talking about my problems because I’m female. Whereas ‘Males learn to become stoic at an early age because they learn that females are automatically deemed intrinsically valuable and deserving of care, while males aren’t.’ Funny because that thought never crossed my mind until you stated it as fact in your manifesto. Also funny, because my current problem is mainly you, Mike Buchanan.

Another contradiction included within the document is Buchanan’s references to the physicality of men. He states ‘men have no choice but to take on the additional burden resulting from their female colleagues’ typically lower fitness levels’. Buchanan also states:

‘Men are much more likely than women to work full-time (and overtime), suffer stress, drink alcohol above recommended levels, smoke cigarettes, and eat a poor diet. Men suffer increased levels of obesity and higher body mass indices. These sorts of factors are often accentuated by men’s work-centred lives.’

I really don’t know what to say about this. I guess, when I ask male colleagues to move stock for me (because genetically, I was built smaller than them and I can’t reach), I was also asking them to stuff their faces with fast food and smoke 20 cigarettes.

This whole situation makes me even more suspicious of our political system. I understand that there are inequalities between men and woman – but I’m sorry mate, we are all people and there are all parts of us that have been oppressed. As a young white female, I have been conditioned to believe that my primary role in life is to reproduce and care for the men and children around me. If I fell pregnant Mr Buchanan, you are telling me that I no longer have whole rights to my body. Yet, if you impregnate a woman, you are saying that (and I quote):

‘The state should only require a man to have financial responsibility for a child if he’s previously signed a legal declaration that he’s willing to support a child who results from the sexual relationship in question, and a paternity test has proven him to be the child’s biological father.’

This proposition of making fatherhood a contractual agreement is almost as obscene as the fact that aside from motherhood, I have been conditioned to believe that being the centre of male attention through provocativeness is the primary route of having my voice heard.

We are seeing change for the first time, and J4MB is backtracking this progression in gender equality. Even today, the Sun newspaper temporarily ended the infamous page 3 spread that normatively features scantily clad females suggestively splattered across the paper. Although the feature has since returned to the paper, it helped raise awareness to the issue. I remember looking at the sun as little girl and wondering why there was an array sexy lady’s, but no naked men. Women are only just starting to reclaim their bodies that were never yours in the first place.

I get the sense that Mike Buchanan believes all feminists are the same and that all feminists hate men. The news is, we don’t. A lot of my hostility towards sexist men is that you don’t have to fight for ownership of your body.

On Page 74 of the Manifesto, Buchanan writes ‘Sexism causes far more harm to men and boys than to women and girls.’ It is completely beyond me how in 2014, a man ignorant and yet powerful as Mike Buchanan is completely blind to the fact sexism causes harm to everyone. The difference is simply that the sexism of woman is so commonplace; we are now numbed to it.