Editor's note:- This was contributed by Talon Kanaell. Ms. Shelly Strauss whose home page is here, wrote a rebuttal called "Mirror Image," of "The Men's Manifesto", saying that she felt it was misogynistic and hate-filled. She also claimed she would debunk it using "logic and reason". She failed woefully as Talon's rebuttal of her "rebuttal" goes to show. Here's to hoping her eyes open.

DISCLAIMER:- This is a rebuttal of "Mirror Image", "The Rebuttal of the Men's Manifesto" (hereafter referred to as TROMM) by Shelly Strauss. This is not meant as a personal slur against Ms. Strauss. I found her 'rebuttal' to be full of anecdotal evidence, an amazing complete lack of sources and a clear misunderstanding of the facts that Mr Doyle put forward, though not perfectly, but at least accurately in The Men's Manifesto. I will proceed to debunk her essay paragraph by paragraph using PAR to denote the paragraph and a number to denote the paragraph number i.e. PAR 34; meaning paragraph thirty four. Her disclaimer is numbered among these paragraphs (PAR 1). To see "Mirror Image" follow this link. To see The Men's Manifesto (hereafter referred to as TMM) follow this link.

PAR 4:- Ms. Strauss's assertion that a focus on men's rights is unnecessary because "BECAUSE MEN HAD ALL THE RIGHTS TO BEGIN WITH AND WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND MINORITIES ARE SIMPLY SEEKING THEIR OWN EQUAL RIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" is a very shortsighted one. Apart from failing to provide any valid examples of the rights being denied to women OR minorities at this time (not a hundred or fifty years ago) she also mistakenly assumed that the author is opposed to children's rights. The author of TMM is much FOR children's rights and equality. And even if her assertion were true, it doesn't follow that men's concerns should be set aside simply because in the past men had more rights than women. The origin of the rationale behind this either/or attitude towards men's and women's rights are radical feminist theories that continuously spout the belief that men, i.e. the normal average male, is basically against women's rights, that every (heterosexual) male intrinsically wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant. Needless to say, this is false. However, considering the current 'politically correct' atmosphere, anyone who disagrees is declared a misogynist. Even if it is a woman. Witness Christina H. Sommers, Camille Paglia, Senator Anne Cools in Canada, etc. So for the past few years legislature on gender issues have been written with only the concerns of one side of the issue being presented. It is clear in the areas of family and divorce law, for instance, that men's concerns were not taken into account. This is grossly unfair, no matter how you put it. As Janet Radcliffe Richards says "No feminist whose concern for women stems from a concern for justice in general can ever legitimately allow her only interest to be the advantage of women." Our sons are going to grow up with these laws, and as they become men it would apply to them, and then they would continue to pay for the (supposed) sins of their forefathers. I also noticed Ms. Strauss's attachment of women's rights to minority and children's rights. Obviously she believes the feminist myth that white women played no part in the promotion of slavery in the United States. History, including the accounts of the slaves themselves, decisively proves that belief wrong. I suspect this myth does much to ease the guilty conscience of the middle class white women who dominate the feminist movement. And she also seems to have bought into the feminist myth that men are intrinsically against children's rights too. Apart from being false, this is an unfair demonization of men's character and men of ALL races would find that insulting. This attachment of women's rights with minority and children's right is common among feminist organizations. It is an effective political weapon because they can then accuse anyone who opposes the absurd things they call "women's rights" to be also against minorities and children's rights too.

PAR 5:- I find Ms. Strauss's belief that great works of art, scientific breakthroughs and ingenious inventions are the results of 'idle thought' frankly hilarious. She believes that, apart from other things, women's devotion to survival (I assume men didn't have to survive too) is what kept them from making any of these inventions or scientific breakthroughs. A popular saying is that 'necessity is the mother of all invention'. I doubt the men who designed sewage disposal systems, who found cures to plagues, who studied the forces of nature to better understand and utilize them for human use, who invented the written word, etc. were involved in 'idle thought'. After all, without so-called patriarchal science, many women would still be dying in childbirth. No, I think these inventors and scientists who worked to make our lives easier were definitely not involved in 'idle thought'. Without human inventiveness, 'survival' as Ms. Strauss put it, would be impossible. Humanity owes them a dept too massive too comprehend. Ms. Strauss is probably unaware that she has also insulted eminent female scientists such as Marie Curie who was not I believe, involved in idle thought. And most lesbian feminists would find it insulting that Ms. Strauss is inadvertently including Sappho among those who indulged in 'idle thought'. Also, Ms. Strauss makes the ignorant assertion that in the past, men were educated while women were left ignorant. The truth of the matter back then (as far back as possible), was that access to education was more often than not dependent on a person's class than his/her sex. A woman in the middle class would be nine times out of ten more educated than a working class man. A woman's education normally stopped at elementary school level, but so did that of most men. However that didn't stop Thomas Edison from going about his inventions. True it is that most women never learnt to read until the last 100 years or so, but neither did most men. Mostly the rich, men and women, were educated.

PAR 6:- Why shouldn't the women be included in the men's memorial? Were they not soldiers too? Why should their sex make them any more special? How many of them died in actual combat? Does Ms. Strauss think that black soldiers should have their own special memorial, that they shouldn't be happy to include themselves in the white soldiers' memorial? As for Ms. Strauss's demand to know why women are not allowed to go into combat, I can answer it in two words. Gender norming. It was found that when the basic standard that determines the fitness of a soldier to perform his duty (which is to fight for his/her country), which is determined by the conditions demanded by war, is applied to women, only about 3-12 women out of a 100 meet the standard. Feminist organizations saw this, cried foul and demanded a new standard for women so that more women could be admitted into the armed forces. Unfortunately, this standard is not only different but far inferior to that of men. This standard is also far below that of any other country's fighting force, which are also made of men. It is well known (yet never publicly admitted) by the military that a well organized battalion of female soldiers, trained under the demanded gender-normed conditions can be easily defeated by a similarly organized yet three times smaller battalion of male soldiers. So you have a Catch-22 here, use the higher (male) standards and there are not enough female soldiers but more female generals, or use gender normed standards and you have a bunch of soldiers who are practically useless on the battlefield. And as far as I know, sending a bunch of under-trained soldiers to combat borders on the criminal.

PAR 7:- First of all, to a man, a rectal exam may be more than just 'humiliating' so though Ms. Strauss has a point, I'm not so sure she should judge or just place the cause as "over inflated pride or ego". Second, just because men may not visit the doctor as often as women doesn't mean that they don't deserve the same dedication to their health concerns. If Ms. Strauss had explored the MDA site, just a bit more, she would have found that Mr. Doyle actually meant that breast cancer is the only cancer that predominantly affects women. Also Ms. Strauss's question "�why should the medical field waste it's money seeking a cure that will never be used???" I find very disturbing. Would she be saying the same thing if one of her sons (God forbid) should get affected by this terrible disease? What about those men who take their health seriously? What about the many women whose lives are interconnected with these men? What about their wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, friends etc.? Would they be told that because 'most' men don't go to the doctor as much, the medical field decided it would not 'waste' money seeking a cure? NOTE:- Men take their medicine i.e. cures as much as women do, they just don't see the doctor as much.

PAR 7:- Does Ms. Straus also agree that all female clubs, schools etc. and mother-daughter banquets should not receive any government funding of any kind as well?

PAR 8:- Until Ms. Strauss started talking about allowing women into men's leagues, I agreed wholeheartedly with her but I saw a double standard in this statement "As for women participating in men's sports, if the woman can keep up with the men, then she should be allowed to join the team. If special training is required because she is a woman, she should not. But the opposite should not hold true. Men should NOT be allowed to join women's sports for the simple reason that men are more physically ...capable?...than women." There lies the problem�equality cannot go ONE way when there are two points of view. Her last sentence also accurately illustrates why women are not allowed to go into combat. They would going against male enemies who "are more physically�capable?�" than them. I believe women who can hack it should be allowed to go to combat but those who can't shouldn't be allowed into the military at all, just like the men. As for her last question "�what are the men upset about if a woman places herself at a disadvantage by competing on men's teams?". Well, men like competition and challenges, and it's not exactly competition or challenging to be playing against someone weaker than you. Men actually feel better about a good loss than a bad (undeserved) win.

PAR 9:- Many TV news stations run interviews with professional female basketball players, actually. Ms. Strauss wonders why the male players continue to disrobe even when they know a woman reporter might be coming in. Perhaps some of these men may be in a hurry to get home? Some of them are family men after all. Others may not like being in sweat drenched clothes longer than it's absolutely necessary, maybe? Some interviews can last up to an hour. I found this quote from Jane Chastain, the first female sportscaster in the United States to be a bit more enlightening; "I was never in favor of women going into men's locker rooms... You still will not find any men demanding access... to the females' dressing rooms. They have not allowed male reporters in there. And yet on the other side, in the male locker room, everyone is afraid to say no... I think it shows that men have more respect for women than sometimes women do for men... It makes me embarrassed for my sex, quite frankly."

PAR 11:- Ms. Strauss here makes the mistake of putting all black people in the same socio-economic position (inferior) and all white people in the same one (superior) as well. One of my friends, a white guy, grew up in a really bad part of town. He was in and out of juvenile hall throughout his teens. I'm black and I grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood. I grew up 'far' more privileged than him. I've got family to back me up in case I fall. He has no one. Both of us are computer engineers. If we both apply for the same job, and both of us are equally qualified, do you think the job should go to me? How do you judge 'need'? Do you see why value judgements based on race are dangerous? Most companies do not ask you to tell them how much you've suffered in your life before they give you a job. Whatever happened to Martin Luther King's famous statement "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."? Does what Ms. Strauss says respect this statement?

PAR 12:- I find this statement "Women statistically make better fighter pilots than men." highly dubious. As far as I know, there have only been two fighter pilots and one? bomber pilot that have been women in the US. The bomber pilot, not really the top of her class, as a pilot or officer, was Lt. Kelly Flinn, whom I think deserved to be booted out of the service. The two fighter pilots were Lt. Carey Lohrenz and Lt. Kara Hultgreen. Lt. Kara Hultgreen is dead. She crashed her F-14 while attempting to land it on the aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. Lt. Lohrenz is no longer a pilot due to being graded as 'dangerous'. Their training officers have revealed that these two women would never have been allowed to become pilots had they been men. Their performance was horrible but the Navy was under pressure to graduate them at all costs. The cost was Lt. Hultgreen's life. Lt. Lohrenz it has been revealed, was even worse than her. Statistically, as fighter pilots, women have a 100% failure rate. I understand that in Britain, the women are doing somewhat better than their female counterparts in the US. As for "�women also statistically make better organizers and the task of choreographing the supplies and deliveries to combat troops is better accomplished by women.", where did Ms. Strauss get this tidbit of information? Can she source it?

PAR 13:- Mr. Doyle says that affirmative action and comparative worth schemes are illogical and grossly unfair. I happen to agree with him, though I do believe discrimination in some measure does exist. I've experienced it, but I still don't think quota settings in employment are the answer. A comparative scheme is even more unfair and besides that, it is preposterous. How anyone can think that secretaries (mostly women) who work in safe offices should be paid the same as "men who labor deep beneath the earth's surface in coal mines year after year"(quote from TMM) is beyond me. By the way, I see nothing in Mr. Doyle's writings that even hints that he thinks that "government and business have been hindered by women," as Ms. Strauss suggests. Affirmative action, yes�women, no.

PAR 14:- Experience plays a crucial role in explaining the wage gap. Over their lifetimes, women tend to work total (far) fewer hours than men do. This is because women are more likely to take time off for family matters and interrupt their careers than men are. Women who are single and without children tend to make very close to, or what their male counterparts make, but women who are married and/or have children tend to take more time off for family matters which hurts their experience and shows up in significantly lower earnings. Note especially that women move out of the work force for long periods (business-wise) during child-bearing and child-rearing years. This reduces the amount of experience they acquire in the workplace and naturally results in lower earnings, quite apart from any possible discrimination. Some evidence of this is provided by data on childless workers, for whom the experience gap should be much narrower, resulting in a narrower earnings gap. This, in fact, is the case: as of 1987, among childless white workers aged 20 to 44, females' hourly earnings were between 86% to 91% of males' hourly earnings. As of 1987, females who were currently working full-time and year-round had, on average, one-quarter year less of work experience than comparable males. Note also that in most European countries and America, working full-time means anything from 1000 (in actuality 910) to 3700 hours per year. The overwhelming majority of the people who actually work the (much) higher number of hours are men. A glaring wage gap is discovered if and only if, work experience, which is normally higher in males even in the mid nineties (and plays a crucial role in hiring and pay), and number of actual hours worked are discarded when comparing the earnings of men and women doing the same work. Put simply, a large wage gap is discovered when the earnings of women and men in the same position are compared without compensating/controlling for these (very essential) factors. A much ignored study in 1995 (or 1994, I think, I'll look for it to cite, if you wish) found that there is only a 2% (maximum) to 0% differential in earnings between men and women when these factors are considered in the calculations. Economists differ on exactly how much, if any, of the remaining gap is discrimination, but it should no doubt be dealt with. These data are important in understanding the oft-cited claim of a "glass ceiling" for women. Promotion in high-powered professional jobs often goes to those who have put in long hours on evenings and on weekends, not to mention experience and degree of excellence. Husbands may be more likely to spend more time at work than wives, for a variety of reasons, up to and including unequal division of responsibilities at home, in which case the source of the difficulty is at home, not in the marketplace. Now it may be unfair to some that in our culture women still end up carrying much of the burden of caring for children and other family matters, (note though, that most women actually make the choice to stay at home and take care of the kids, not as a result of some form of coercion by their husbands) as it is to some that men end up carrying much of the burden of being the primary wage earner in the family, but this is not a problem of companies discriminating based on sex but of individual women and the choices they have made.

PAR 16:- Ms. Strauss is perhaps not familiar with the complete meaning of aggression. Another part of aggressiveness exists, the part the Random House College Dictionary defines as "vigorously energetic, especially in the use of initiative and forcefulness; boldly assertive." The majority of men, in the majority of times, use their greater natural aggression this way. And as for household tasks, who fixes the car, mows the lawn, cleans the gutters, paints the house, does the DIY etc.? Maybe equal share of housework is not so far off�hell, it might be closer than we think.�

PAR 17:- Ms. Strauss here equates HER experience as the experience of 'most' married women. Countless studies are showing that many career women CHOOSE to stay home when they get pregnant, by their own choice, not by anything else. This puts more pressure on the husband to provide for the family. He works more overtime, he is motivated to do everything in his power to get noticed, often displaying feats of brilliance and ingenuity. Surprise! Surprise! He makes much more than a female counterpart in the same position. Feminists see this and cry "Discrimination!!!". Also, a large percentage of working mothers are reported as saying that they work only because they 'have' to, not because they want to. Ms. Strauss is also probably unaware of the current school trends in the US. In 1997, 54.1% of full-time college students are women and 69.3% of part-time students are women. By the year 2007, it is projected that women will make up 55% of full-time and 71% of part-time college students. In as far back as 1992, women received 52% of biological science bachelor's and master's degrees, 67% of law bachelor's degrees, 47% of business bachelor's degrees, 47% of mathematics bachelor's degrees, and 33% of physical science bachelor's degrees. The argument that women were not educated as much as men 100 years ago is not relevant NOW.

PAR 18:- Here, Ms. Strauss, displaying her complete knowledge of the male of the species confidently asserts that "MOST MEN DON'T WANT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BEING THE SINGLE CUSTODIAL PARENT!!!!!" Unfortunately, she qualifies and provides as her only proof of this sage statement her personal experiences and those of her friends (who might have different stories). I find this not only shortsighted but insulting. Another highly insulting statement, which she backs up by her personal experience only again was "�most men want to be with their kids when it is convenient for them and when it doesn't interfere with the plans they already have." Countless surveys have found that the number one wish among working men is that they had more time to spend with their families. Among my married and cohabiting friends this also holds true. But the most disturbing statement in this entire paragraph is this one: "And the men who DO seek custody of their kids, in ALL of the cases with my friends and family, the reason has not been because they are concerned for the kids but because they are angry at their ex-wife and are seeking to hurt her by taking away her children. In other words, they seek custody out of spite." I know it is not my place to judge Ms. Strauss's experiences, but I noticed that she didn't take note of the fact that in all the cases, the children may be the man's too. And perhaps there is a side to the story, the man's side, which she hasn't heard?

PAR 20:- I wonder if Ms. Strauss finds it odd that the same judge who sentenced Mary Kay LeTourneau who was 36, to (three?) months for sleeping with a 12 year old boy earlier that year sentenced a 44 year old man to 4 years in prison for sleeping with a 15 year old girl? I wonder if she is concerned that women are constantly being given less punishments for committing the same crimes as men. As for women who kill their husbands in their sleep and then claim in court that they were 'defending' themselves, I also think a lot of these women are lying. Some are definitely telling the truth but a LOT of them are just cold blooded killers. The husband isn't there to defend himself, is he? It's her word against no-one's. Who do you think the courts would believe? Does she find the VAWA discriminatory? Why should a crime against a woman be taken as more serious than a crime against a man? Is this equality under the law?

PAR 22:- While Mr. Doyle's statement was definitely stupid, not to mention insensitive, it is true that some rapes cause no physical harm. Some women refuse to or cannot struggle (perhaps because there is a knife or gun at their throats) and no physical harm is caused. Some rape victims have been known to have orgasms during their ordeal. It makes no difference though, rape is still rape and a horrible crime. I do not think Mr. Doyle was also talking about "being�stabbed, beaten, bruised or otherwise maimed as well." This is an unfair accusation on Ms. Strauss's part. Ms. Strauss also uses her personal experience with her ex-husband here to casually discard the fact that men suffer acute mental anguish in divorce, putting it down to "pride and selfishness". I'd like to say here that I think her ex-husband's side of the story may be just a little bit�different?�from hers.

PAR 23:- It is definitely true that men are FAR more times the victims of violence than women. However, feminists are always quick to assert that a crime of violence against a woman is gender motivated. In 99% of the cases this is not true, but no-one said so for fear of being labeled 'anti-women', which enabled them to get the discriminatory VAWA passed. Ms. Strauss also seems to suggest that violent people ought to feel a certain connectedness to people of their gender. She doesn't seem to know that this type of connectedness, any type of connectedness, is absent in violent people.