Amnesty should STOP MISANDRY

Hello Mr. Larry Cox

May I take this opportunity to get some clarification on Amnesty International’s global “Demand Dignity” Campaign? This is with regard to the report published here http://demanddignity.amnesty.org/campaigns-en/downloads/About_DemandDignity.pdf

stopmisandry WR6A8 22404

The report spares a considerable amount of space to explain the problems of women and children, even their toilet facilities. I’ve no issues or concerns with that; my concern is that there is no whisper about the problems faced by men and boys! Does Amnesty International have a stated goal to support only those men who are army prisoners?

Why women are disproportionately poor in India?

Militant feminism has gone beyond their limits to accuse and abuse MEN for anything and everything that come on their way without understanding the facts or intentionally hiding the realities. Poverty is not a gender issue; Period. India is a country where majority of people don’t even make couple of dollars a day. This is because of over 200 years of slavery and oppression done by various countries. To add to the misery, not very long after India got independence, our first woman Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, abused the Constitutional provision to declare the state of emergency and freeze the Constitution itself until 1977! It is a long history of oppression and violation of human rights where men were also not able to live in peace or feel safe to go out. The only social security that women and children had was from their own family. Those days no woman has ever been reported to complain about poverty or oppression BY MEN.

Under these hostile environments if some women were not sent to schools, it is wise to believe, that was for their own safety. The generation who really faced the oppression transferred their fear and feeling of insecurity to the next generation. I was born in 1975 and I know how fearful my parents are when it comes to any matter dealing with government and police.

“And if you are a woman in poverty you suffer the double bind of both family and society excluding you from decision-making processes and power.”

What decision on the basis of financial ability can a family of $2 a day make? (Or just enough to buy food and pay rent) They don’t even have any option for what kind of food to buy for dinner!!! It’s only some porridge and green chili for many households! I completely fail to understand what Amnesty International meant by this statement! May be this is not applicable to Indian women. Because Indian women were granted with all the basic needs of life by their fathers and then husbands to the best of their ability; whereas a boy had to start working and bring home money by the age of 10. It has come to the point where even asking women to work is considered as an offense by majority of Indian women!

These are changing now because those who have born after 1980 got education regardless of gender and get jobs irrespective of their gender. But when it comes to the poor the situation is not much different. The constitutional right to elementary education provided by government is good for nothing. Several generations in poverty put them in a stage where they don’t even know how to improve their standard of living. This is not a GENDER issue.

I would like to know the Views of Amnesty International

Here I’m listing out some of the issues that men face and want to know where Amnesty International stands. I will blog some of the sections in this document and will update it when I get response from Amnesty.

1) “When a woman dies her family is impoverished further – through loss of livelihood, unpaid work for the family, the care and education of children.”

This states that family is supported by women but not getting paid for that service. Does Amnesty International recognize the time energy and effort that men put in to a family to bring food, shelter, clothing and entertainment? If so, how much should men get paid for that service?

2) “Women have the right to determine when they become pregnant, but they are often denied access to contraception or to information that would allow them to control their fertility.”

Does Amnesty International recognize the right of a man to decide whether or not to become a parent?

3) Women have the right to the highest attainable standard of health, but they face economic, cultural and social obstacles in access to health care.

4) Women have the right to life, but they die in large numbers because of poverty, injustice and powerlessness – in their intimate relationships, families and communities.

Does Amnesty International recognize the above statements as a WOMEN’S ONLY problem?

5) They face institutional discrimination, which is then replicated on a domestic level. Women and girls may be forced by their families into early or forced marriages, once in these marriages they may be treated as indentured servants, denied adequate food, imprisoned in their homes and denied access to money.

Does Amnesty International recognize systemic discrimination of MEN which are then replicated on both domestic and social level? Men are socially side lined and denied marriage if they are not a CAPABLE PROVIDER. When married they are treated as FREE ATMs by their wives at domestic level and any sort of discomfort in this socially imposed duty will make him legally accountable and leads to arbitrary deprivation of his livelihood and even jail.