I'd be curious to learn what motivated many of you to work for men's rights and come to a forum such as this one. As for my own background...

I was very close to my father from a young age. We did all kinds of stuff together...football games, fishing, going to the beach, labor union meetings (he was the president of one)....I was daddy's girl (or should I say, daddy's tomboy). My mother by contrast seemed boring and not much fun. She and my older sister were closer to each other.

When I was 10, I was molested by my mother's brother. She used to use him and my grandmother (whom he lived with) to babysit me. This went on for a few months, and then finally I couldn't take it anymore, and told my parents.

My mother said, "I refuse to believe that about MY brother!" My father said, "Don't be so quick to call your own daughter a liar". The message I got as a scared, abused 10 yr old was, "My mother doesn't care, she won't protect me". My father, on the other hand, took steps immediately to keep that pervert uncle from ever coming near me again.

Dad told my mother that I would not be permitted to be around her brother again. Her only response? "Well, then what am I going to do for a babysitter?" Years later, in discussions with Dad, he was still stunned that that was all she cared about. But then, my mother was always a very selfish woman.

Dad wanted to go to the police about my uncle. My mother said if he did, she would leave him and take everything he had, so he relented.

She then moved out of their bedroom and began sleeping in the guest room. Their marriage went downhill after that. She blamed me; Dad never did.

Years later, Dad, feeling very lonely, confided to me of his loneliness. He told me he met a nice woman at the store where he bought his colognes. I think he was asking my "permission" to cheat. I gave it to him.

Unfortunately, my mother found out. She made his life absolutely miserable. He died a broken man because of her.

BTW my mother was a feminist, pro-abortion, and hated men. I remember as a child, she would talk to me, complaining about how "all men want is one thing". My older sister turned out just like her, with one difference: my older sister has been married and divorced 4 times. Each husband beat the crap out of her, and I personally feel she deserved it (I was kicked off a mostly-female board for saying that; I hope its OK here.)

Some story, huh? But my father was the greatest man who ever lived. He did what a true father is supposed to do: protect his children, even at great cost to himself.

My husband is almost as great a guy as my late father. My father was a great judge of character, and when I was 23, I met my husband. My Dad said, after talking to him for 2 hours, that he seemed like a great guy. He gave permission for me to marry him. We've been married 24 yrs now.

The greatest people in my life were men: my father, my husband, my male friends, and my son. I fight for men's rights for them.

Im here simply becuase I feel no one really cares about men's issues nowadays..

hmm, Im a little afraid to confess it but I have same kind of feelings about when my father hit my mother once......

I believe both men and women can commit evil, I'm not gender biased.
I just want the laws to treat everyone equally, which currently they do not.

And I'd like to see mens groups step up on a political level beyond "fathers rights" and move into "mens rights" as well.

I've spilled my reasons here previously in many, many threads. I won't repeat it all because it already exists... The shorter version is that childhood wasn't pretty, went into fostercare, had a father figure to learn from, became a father - experienced the bias in our legal structures, became AntiFeminist due to learning of the lies and misrepresentations (e.g. the vote). As I learned more, I turned against misandry rather than 'just' feminism, but I still recognise that feminism is the primary agitator of misandry and the family break down services we call the law & government.
However, you're amongst a few brave soldiers who have come here and opened their hearts for all to see the damages inflicted by life as we know it. I think it's helpful to speak of these things - it's almost like sharing it with someone somehow spreads out the pain instead of making it a sharp, pinpoint agonizing pain...takes the edge off it.

I was arrested for assault, and yet all I was doing is engaging in a 2-way shouting match with my then-wife. I found it amazing how mutual shouting ended up being turned around and painted as "assault" even with no contact between the two of us, nor threats. As soon as she got pissed off enough to call 911 because I wasn't acknowledging her, it was like the gloves came off. I couldn't believe the amount of power that was employed against me, all without one shred of proof. Just her word was enough to take absolutely everything: the house (with my continued obligation to pay), both cars, our kids, restrictions on who I could talk to and places I could visit... From a holding cell I pondered the totality of my fate. I was bailed out and finally released after 16 hours in a stiflingly hot, cramped holding cell with maybe 40 other guys, no air conditioning. I had only a wallet to my name as I walked out onto the streets that night at 2 a.m., finally having been released. It was scary and it was solitary. I had no way of calling a friend, save the nearest payphone. No emotional support, and no one to talk to. No shelter. No clothes except what was on my back.

Over the next couple weeks I got into a hotel, got a car rental, a replacement cell phone, eventually a low-rent apartment. By this time I had some financial support from family who lived out of state. I got an attorney, but even he only listened to my story insofar as he could defend me. He asked me to write everything down from memory while it was still fresh; I poured out my soul on paper, many pages, in fine detail. Now I think this was a mistake, because it bound his avenues of effectively representing me (the less you tell your lawyer, the better). It was hard finding someone to listen to me in these times; even my lawyer was shooting me down (after I had paid his retainer, of course).

I eventually worked out a deal where I only had to pay a fine, plead to a minor misdemeanor, take some anger management classes (a year's worth), and be on probation. I had never committed a crime til then, nor since.

The anger management courses were the real eye-opener. The director was really good at identifying abusive patterns. I felt validated whenever she did, because it sounded like she was describing my Ex to a tee. All the abusive behavior -- especially verbal and emotional abuse, but also financial -- it was like SHE KNEW my Ex. As the weeks went on, however, it became apparent that when any man in the class referred to his wife or girlfriend as a person perpetrating abuse, the tables were turned against him. "Sure, abuse against men happens" went the line of thinking promoted by the director, "but the responsibility is yours." This was a hard pill to swallow -- that it is wrong to abuse, but (morally) your fault to have endured it.

It became apparent that any men who endured "abuse" (and this characterization was always snickered at or belittled) only had one option: leave your home. Essentially give up everything you have, and leave. Let your kids remain with your Ex, leave the house to her, forget about counseling (if counseling's purpose is to reinforce the marriage or relationship). Just give it all up, and go away. That is the only valid avenue offered to abused men, as presented in the program I attended. It bothered me.

I carefully studied the required criteria for graduation from this anger management program. You had to "accept responsibility" for the events leading to your arrest. Blaming any other party (even for the actions of the other party) was considered "blaming the victim" and thus grounds to disqualify you from graduation for at least another week. Only when you accepted full blame (not just responsibility, but blame) were you allowed to graduate. This was a subtle distinction, and they never actually used the word blame. But everyone who failed to accept actual blame was always denied the right to graduate; it was a pattern that played itself out over that entire year, and I knew it to be true. I had been in that program for 52 weeks, a total of 104 hours, and knew the drill. So on my final night, I told the director and the class exactly what was expected of me. And I graduated.

After that, I began reading. I read, and read, and read. I read numerous books, academic journals, history of the law as relates to domestic abuse; I read about the Duluth Model of batterer intervention programs, and its history; I read about the state of the law both federally and locally. I soon realized that any man who wants independence and personal rights could only have it if he lived a bachelor lifestyle and never cohabited with (lived with) any woman. Any man who wanted a family was expected to surrender all his possessions, any right to be involved with his kids, and much of his future earnings -- in the event of a breakup with a woman who was intent on waging war. I realized that all of civilization was in the hands of women, if you define civilization as encompassing the intact 2-parent family. Any woman in such a familial life can end that arrangement at any time, and take everything. The law backs her up on this, and 3rd-wave feminism trains her mind toward narcissism and sexual/financial infidelity. It's like the culture is meant to break up that family, and the law is meant to reinforce the resulting aftermath (which is financial/emotional/familial devastation for the man, and total security for the woman).

I became acquainted with MRA-related forums and blogs, and created my own Web sites to fight the current system:

1. DontMakeHerMad.com
Promotes surveillance to fight false allegations and expose/document abuse against men

2. DVstats.com
Search engine of 4 decades of peer-reviewed and published research demonstrating the mutuality of domestic abuse, demonstrating that it is not just a male problem for which only males need to change behaviors

Still, that was not enough. I realized that just blogging and posting to forums was not enough, because this only provided an outlet into which the energy and drive of men affected by this system could be contained and neutralized. To be truly effective as an MRA, I couldn't just bitch and moan on Internet forums, I had to get active in changing the law.

Now it is several years since my arrest. I have regained much of what I had lost, but at great cost (both emotionally, and financially -- not to mention the toll everything took on my family and kids). I am still fighting it out in court. But I have come to realize that the source of a man's rights comes from non-cohabitation, and non-breadwinner status.

I wish that men would realize the power that they possess, if they just refuse to accept the rules that society expects of them:

• To get married and have a family
• To love their family by being away from it, being a breadwinner in a factory/field/cubicle while the woman stays home (to coin a phrase descriptive of women, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world")
• To accept equal status in the family with a partner who is not committed (nor expected) to share in bearing equal burdens
• To accept the notion that fixing relationship problems means the man accepting blame and saying, "I'm sorry for [whatever problem], Honey" while the reverse is not true
• To concede that any divorce or breakup must have been principally caused by the man, in his quest to enforce male privilege through "patriarchal terror," and to accept that any resolution entails male acceptance of blame.

Only by rejecting all 5 of the above societal expectations can a man be truly free, a master of his destiny. But what a price he must pay -- he can't have a family if he wants to retain his independence. The choice is between:

• the emotional fulfillment he gets within a family (by sacrificing his rights and independence), or
• the financial and emotional independence of a solitary bachelor lifestyle (by forgoing the love he would have received in a family).

It's a bleak outlook, but the latter choice is the only rational choice that men are left with (until the laws on divorce/family/cohabitation change).

In my view, reform of family laws is the root of what needs to change. When future generations are raised with a guarantee of active paternal involvement (instead of fathers being exiled to the periphery of family life), only then will empathy toward both males and fathers bubble up through the political and judicial system and result in meaningful policy changes.

That's my odyssey through the system, which resulted in my becoming involved/interested.

Before I found out about anti feminism, or knew about feminism in much detail, I always felt discriminated against. I've been violently assaulted by my female siblings many times, only to feel like if I went to the police over it, I'd some how get in to trouble because of the bias against men. I've also seen other men being violently assaulted by women only for the police to do nothing about it.

I then began reading about feminism, and anti feminism online, and found this forum, and blogs.

This is why I am here. I am sick to death of women being able to violently assault men and walk free with no punishment. It angers me to no end.

Men always seek to tell the truth.

This space is one among many where that may happen once in a while.

It is not complicated at all.

Merely something completely foreign to women's basic nature.

Oh, my story?

Now why would an alleged troll w/ infractions disclose anything?

That cracks me up!

Reminds me of Monty Python's "Spanish Inquisition" skits...

Beyond silly....

I have a number of different reasons for being here.

The first is personal and relates to childhood experiences: three different fathers, three different families, physical and mental abuse from my two step-fathers, and a mother who went out of her way to ensure that my biological father was denied all access rights. I was brought up to believe that my natural father wanted nothing to do with me, only to discover that in fact he'd fought tooth-and-nail in the courts - and lost.

The second concerns my marriage and divorce. My ex-wife was a walking contradiction who demanded 'leadership' from a 'real man' but was psychologically unable to accept direction from anyone other than herself, and psychologically manipulative to the point that I sometimes questioned my sanity. She was also a ruthless careerist who willingly allowed me to sacrifice my postgraduate studies so that I could get a job and fund her own, and walked out of the marriage as soon as she'd got what she wanted.

The third concerns my experience at university. I studied Sociology & Politics, and many of my lecturers and tutors were radical feminists who never missed an opportunity to turn a seminar into a sixty-minute version of Orwell's 'Two-Minute Hate', with men as the object of derision. The sociology half of my degree in particular was little more than feminist propaganda masquerading as 'scientific truth'. And the most terrifying aspect was that NOBODY questioned any of it. Everybody lapped it up.

I'm here because I believe that I'm a product of feminism, that feminism destroys families, that feminism produces dysfunctional women who are trapped between their own inherent biological drives and the nonsense with which their heads have been filled, and dysfunctional men who are insecure, uncertain, cowed, and basically emasculated by a 'female-friendly' (i.e. male-hostile) world that tells us we're obsolete and have no inherent value.

Not everybody will reply, as a very similar thread entitled: Why are you here? was started recently.
why are you here???

That's shocking. It sounds like a story from a North Korean political re-education camp.