I see two feminisms, Right and Left.

The old right-wing mother centered feminism of the late 19th and early 20th century. This centered on the Matriarchal home (where mom was not only the center of the family, but the center of the universe) the mother often saw him as the "Little-man" but felt a duty to pump up his ego so that he will be sucessful so she can raise HER children as is her divine right. There were Big Men too, like Henry Ford (a mega-matrichalist)--but how many. Mqny if not most of the great artists of the time were rebelling against the Matriarchy too--Hemmingway and Picasso --good examples.

Heres a little childrens poem, I think it was from an old school reader:

Father's in charge

as everyone knows,

But what mother says

is what goes.

Here women get their power through being mother--it is Matirarchal. Being a 'women' in this scheme is less than being a man (a married one anyway)--but attaining the rank of mother is to attain a sort of goddess status. With a man being her servant. It was the womans obligation she learned early to preen his ego and keep him horny and shamed (with the church helping her) about sex. Promise Keepers is a Little Man's revivial.

Again, this is current Right Wing Matriarchal Feminism (RWMF). Still alive and well.

Interregenum: The men's wing of 20th century leftism was the trade union movement that had in America deep roots in European Marxism. It was a men's movement that was crushed brutally in the 20's and 30's (read the depressing, but instructive Pulitzer Prize novel Ironweed--or see the movie with Nicholson and Streep; also instructive is the Steve Martin version of Pennies from Heaven that shows well the plight of the Matriarchal Little Man and how men serve the mother goddess by paying lip service to God and Jesus and brutalizing each other (every MRA should see this movie! The times have cycled back around IMHO). Woody Gutherie was a kind of men's rights activist against the mother's boy middle class Little Men and country club types. The Grapes of Wrath, especially the novel, is in many ways a men's rights story--it has deep compassion for men (won the Nobel I believe) The Republican party was the party that women related to in those days. The Democrats were the working man's party. (The Democrats--the party or slavery, the party of civil rights, always flip over just before collapsing by picking a large suffering group to champion--they may well be MRM"s future--believe it or not. But not until they collapse.again.

Leftist feminism of the '60's is not Matriarchal--it is Gynarchal and anti-Matriarchal. Contemporary feminists want to be godesses without having to become Mother godesses. The Patriarchy they are always going on about is not--repeat NOT (that's NOT as in N-O-T) any kind of a patriarchy whatsoever--it IS the old MATRIARCHY--this whole gender war coming out of the sixties is about the new Gynarchy Feminisim vs. old Matriarchy Feminism.

Patriarchy is really the rejection of the old Matriarchal insistence on having a husband before you can 'have it all" and be a godess. Gynarchists (rule of women) are at war with Matriarchalists (rule by mothers). Having to have a husband at all is Patriarchy. Having to rely on his service of course is the real problem--WHY CAN'T I BE A GODESS WITHOUT HIM (unless I want one, that different). Gynarchists want CONSORTS not HUSBANDS.

Don't get me wrong, there is a Patriarchal yang to the Matriarchal yin in America (or really the non-Napoleonic, Anglo-sphere generally). After the war there was a Patriarchal period that was created by the 1940's war propaganda and the

comradeship largely exclusive of women that the war created (facilitated in no small measure by the many Dear John letters and by the rise of very anti-Matriarchal, non-feminist female archetypes--such as Marilyn Monroe--who loved men and didn't really like women much-which was very empowering to men(we have the opposite situation now). Against the hubris (ie Viet Nam) of this Patriarchal spike was the rallying point of the whole sixties--but it isn't what is going on now. Now is about Gynarchy vs. Matriarchy (Patriarchy is a foo-foo dog in mother matriarchy's lap, has been for over 200 years, that occasionally slips his leash and runs around before being leashed up again).

Note: I also want to say that 90% + women are not part of any of this, they are against it, the way most men are against DV, don't have anything to do with it and generally resist its temptations of power. Most of them, like men, feel helpless to do anything, and are waiting for men to stand up and do something about it and are confused as to why we men don't. I've heard women say it a thousand times.

I tell them it is easier said than done.

In the fifties the far left after having been trounced brutally in the '30's and co-opted by the moderate liberal modernist Roosevelt Democrats and under Truman (a democrat) became socially, let alone politically, anathema. It was more or less illegal to be a Communist. The way an utterly defeated movement rises is by creating front groups. For example,

start an enviromentalist organization, go on a genuine crusade for the enviroment, but slowly work your leftist (or right wing if you are a neo-Nazi like that Father's Manifesto nutcase whatshisface dude, who tried it with Father's Rights) into the way enviromentalism is percieved and conceived (you deconstruct it conceptually from what it is, and reconstruct it so than Communism and Enviromental is are one in the same thing, inseparable). A communist journalist name Betty Goldberg (who was childless, married to a wealthy NY editior name Carl Friedan and lived in a big house with servants) set out to create a front organization for housewives--who were--with some justification--feeling rundown.

The rest is history.

Feminism as we know it, was born in the Lesbian Separtist, man-hating, gynarchal (anti-matriarchal--thus anti-family, rightly understood) second wave. It seems in subsequent waves--especially in the Reagan '80's it has largely liberated itself from its Marxist roots (indeed, Feminism has replaced Marxism), but has taken over the project it originally fronted--and through the Democrats, academia (which is still has the Marxist to some degree attached) and the simpering coroporate media and adverting industry the gynarchalists have taken over the liberal/left side of the sex war between Traditonalist/Matriarchal Conservatives and Gynarchal/Leftists.

The question is, where is the MRM?

How are we going to organize all our various issues together?

Who are our friends and allies?

IMHO, the Men's Right's project will not succeed if we go at it alone.