~ says Kondapalli Shankar aka Ankita who underwent a sex change operation in Mumbai.

Men of India, this is what the future holds for you!!

That is misandry in full force!

Here is the news from Times of India:

He becomes she to get a job!

NAVIPET (NIZAMABAD): Poverty has forced a 24-year-old youth to turn himself into a woman in the district. The youth, a native of Vaddera Colony in the mandal, underwent a sex change operation in Mumbai and returned home recently.

“My family members were shocked and cried for two days when I informed them about the sex change operation,” Kondapalli Shankar aka Ankita told TOI. Shankar went under the scalpel six months ago in a Mumbai hospital.

But what made Shankar transform himself into a woman? He said acute poverty and humiliation by neighbours forced him to migrate to Mumbai in search of livelihood. “Nobody gives a job to a man. So I had decided to become a woman and earn money,” he said. “My immediate priority is to earn money and bail out my poor family from the severe financial problems,” he said. Shankar lost his father Ramchander when he was a small child, and could not pursue education, which made it difficult for him to get any job. He disappeared from the village a year ago. “It took two months for us to trace him out. We were worried when he didn’t call us immediately,” his brother Purushotham, a daily wage labourer, said.

Ankita, attired in a colourful sari and bangles, says she now earns Rs 3,000 a month at a small firm in Mumbai.

INTERNATIONAL MEN’S DAY – 2010

All India Men’s Welfare Association (AIMWA)

International Men’s Day (IMD) is celebrated on 19th November the world over.

This year, on the occasion of IMD, AIMWA is felicitating three positive male role models namely, Dr. Viswanath Gogte, Sri. A.V. Gurunadh and Sri. Gangadhara Sastry for their extraordinary contributions to academic, civic and spiritual education, respectively. (Click here for invitation!)

Why celebrate Men’s Day?

In the recent years, it has become common practice to neglect, ill-treat and demean men in the society. Male bashing (both physical and verbal) and portrayal of men as villains, idiots and inferior creatures is seen as an innocuous way of increasing profits of media houses and other businesses. Discrimination of men under law and violation of their human rights have become synonymous with empowering and protecting women.

Undermining the positive contributions of majority of men and exaggerating the misdeeds of a few has serious impact on the psyche of men and the self-image of young men and boys. Discrimination against men in areas of social services, social attitudes, social expectations and law is very demoralizing to the common men who lead decent, honest lives.

International men’s day is about celebrating and honoring men in our lives for all the contributions, services and sacrifices they make for the well-being of the family and society. It is an opportunity to revive respect towards men and improve gender relations. It is an occasion to promote positive male role models, to reinforce the self-esteem and pride of young men and boys about being male. It is a day to remind everyone of the fact that men are human too and that they desire and deserve love, care and respect just as much as women do.

In an attempt to shed light on the various issues affecting men, All India Men’s Welfare Association (AIMWA) is organizing a conference where experts in various fields will share their observations and recommendations. (See invitation for details!)

* Physical Health of men – Dr. Sudhir, BHMS, Kakinada

The National Family Health Survey does not consider men’s health important – enormous focus on women and children, and the mention of men only in relation to how they should contribute to the health and welfare of women and children, clearly indicates the apathy of the Government towards men’s health. No funds are allocated to conduct research on or develop remedies for diseases specific to men such as prostate or testicular cancers. Since men define their lives largely by their professions and protecting and providing for their families, they tend to ignore illnesses, lead less healthy lifestyles than women, miss getting medical attention in time, and as other stresses in life increase, the diseases catch up with them. Men are more likely to die from heart disease, prostate cancer, stroke, infectious diseases, accidents and suicide. Males have a higher overall mortality rate than females at all ages (roughly 1.6 times greater). It is necessary to understand the genetic, environmental or age related illnesses which can affect men, and provide them with insurance to get the right kind of medical attention at the appropriate time.

Men as protectors – Sri. A.B. Pratap Reddy, A.P. Police Department, Hyderabad

Men as individuals and as a group are expected to protect not just their own respective families, but also, all women and children in the society. Right from the age of 7, a boy is trained to be an “unpaid bodyguard” to girls and women. Accordingly, anytime a girl or woman is in distress, one always sees men rushing to her rescue. The fire department, police, armed forces and all other security forces are filled with men. Even in forces where women are recruited, combat and other risky operations are considered the exclusive job of men. The country pays tributes once a year to all the fallen heroes who sacrificed their lives for the country. We also need to remember that the so-called protector too needs certain kinds of protection and support in order to perform his job efficiently on a daily basis. Government should pay close attention to improving working conditions, salaries, housing and professional development opportunities for men in uniform.

Men as providers – Sri. Manoj David, President, National Litigant Bench, Chennai

Men and boys are always expected to be and conditioned to become protectors and providers. Even though more women are entering the job market and defying their traditional roles within the family and the society, resulting in reduced employment opportunities for men, the society refuses to free men of their traditional duties of protecting and providing for women, children and the aged. Men who cannot provide for the family are considered incapable, unmanly and unfit for marriage and having children. So, men often undertake some of the most risky and challenging jobs in the society and put their lives at stake just to be a provider. Financial hardships drive thousands of farmers, artisans and providers of crucial services to commit suicide. Treating men as ATMs and expendable commodities is nothing but abuse of their human rights, which must be opposed by individuals, society and Government.

Emotional Health of men – Dr. Praveen Chinta, MBBS, DPM, MRCP, Hyderabad

Boys are discouraged from expressing their pain and feelings from the age of 7-8 yrs. This leads to fear of self-expression and even numbness to abuse for the rest of their lives. Men find emotional confrontations extremely painful when they grow up as they are no longer good at articulating their emotions. A lot of men take refuge in addictions like smoking or drinking to combat stress. Most men enduring emotional turmoil in marriage contemplate suicide and a substantial percentage of them (around 56,000 a year) actually commit suicide. Twice as many married men, compared to married women, commit suicide every year. Scientific research is necessary to understand the emotional health issues of men, especially the Indian male. There is a need for psychiatrists and psychologists to specifically focus on issues pertaining to men.

Men in old age – Smt. Kamakshi, Secy. Senior Citizens Forum, Hyderabad

While men in the “productive” age bracket are subject to the pressures of professional competition, family issues and financial problems, one expects that they would be relatively stress-free during their post-retirement years. However, due to the breakdown of the joint family system, and the advent of nuclear family and individualistic culture, more and more aged men are suffering from anxiety, loneliness, financial hardships and despair. Many aged men also suffer neglect and abuse in their homes, but they appear to be better adjusted than women in similar situations, because men in general are not expressive about their emotions. Overemphasis on professional and family responsibilities at the expense of their own health, and the ensuing stress could be the reasons why life expectancy of men is much lesser than that of women. As the physical and emotional health of aged men depends, to a large extent, on their lifestyles during their younger years, men need to maintain a healthy lifestyle so that they are more resilient and capable of coping with the challenges posed by age and age-related diseases and disabilities.

Men and anti-male laws – Smt. Rama Subhadra, Mahila Satta Legal Cell, Hyderabad

Many laws have been made in the last 60 years in the name of protecting women within and outside the home. These so-called pro-women laws such as IPC Section 498A, Domestic Violence Act, adultery laws, laws against rape and sexual harassment and family laws (divorce, maintenance and child custody) aggravate problems rather than mitigate them. These discriminatory laws are anti-male and anti-family, and serve as weapons that promote family destruction and large scale human rights abuses against men, women and children. They are tools of blackmail and extortion in the hands of unscrupulous women, law enforcement personnel, lawyers and judiciary. There is an urgent need to eliminate discrimination against men under law, make all civil and criminal laws equally applicable to men and women, and also to ensure that strict penalties are imposed on those who misuse the laws.

Respecting male sexuality – Smt. Uma Challa, President, All India Men’s Welfare Association, Hyderabad

Sexual arousal is easily discernible in men, whereas it is not obvious in women. As a result, men constantly face the allegation of being obsessed with sex. It is also believed that men always indulge in sex voluntarily, whereas women are thought to take part in sex either to fulfill the sexual or emotional needs of men or because they are forced to do so by men against their will. Male sexuality is often attacked to break a man down emotionally. Sexual exploitation and rape of men/boys by women is not acknowledged as an offense, and in fact it is considered as a non-existent problem. Today, male sexuality is ridiculed, insulted, misunderstood, undermined, disregarded, criminalized and everything but respected. Proper awareness on male sexuality is very important for both men and women. Provisions and laws for protection against sexual assault and abuse are as necessary for men as they are for women.

AS women clamour for equality, some men are also gearing up to fight for their rights. And what they too want , is equality.

“There are 24 laws that are women-centric in our system,” says Frances Anthony, convenor of the Tamil Nadu Chapter of the All India Men’s Welfare Association (AIMWA).

“Women misuse the law and use their children to threaten the father. The laws are making ours a fatherless society,” he adds.
Just a week ahead of Father’s Day, this group of men proclaimed a national boycott of the Family Courts and submitted a memorandum and a petition to the Principal Judge of the Family Court, with an appeal to make the law gender-neutral.

Leading the group on Friday was Kalaiselvan, who has not seen his son for the last 12 years. “I got married in 1997 and filed for divorce in 2002.

Our son was born in 1999.

Though I have been given rights to visit and see my son by the court, I’ve not set eyes on my son since he was born
it’s been 12 years now,” he says. Kalaiselvan alleged that he lost his job as a civil engineer in Kuwait because his wife complained about him to the company . “She misused the judicial system, filed a dowry harassment case against me and I spent 25 days in jail without bail. Even now, she refuses to obey the courts. I have appealed to the court many times saying she must be booked for contempt for not allowing me to see my son, but the courts remain silent. The dowry harassment case is still on and I have no job and no hope of seeing my boy anytime soon,” he grieves. The men in this organisation say they were not against women or trying to deprive the fairer sex of their rights. “Women are not victims in all cases. In the 21st century, women are equal in their families. They have an equal voice.

But they’re misusing these laws and turning their husband into ATMs to withdraw money when they feel like it,” says Frances.

S Hariharan, an employee of a telecom firm, agrees and says, “I have not been given visitation and customary rights of my two children by the courts. It has been three
years since I last saw them.”

The solution, he says, is to play it carefully. “When we gave him the petition, the principal judge of the Family Court, Ramalingam, told us that the society needs to change. He agreed that laws are misused by women in many cases. He suggested that couples should go in for judicial separation until the child turns 18 after which they can file for divorce.
Judicial separation allows visitation rights for the father as well. Fathers too feel the pain when they’re separated from their children,” Hariharan says.

Link to the newspaper view

Anyone who had a brush with the family court system in India knows the following general rules of thumb:

• A woman will get divorce on demand irrespective of the veracity of her claims or what the man wants.
• A man seeking divorce must survive 6 to 15 years of trial (by fire) knowing well that the odds are stacked against him.
• A woman will get maintenance from her husband, no questions asked.
• A mother will get full child custody irrespective of what the father or the child wants.
• A father must pay child support many times beyond his capacity even if he never gets to see his child.

In short, a man is a walking ATM-cum-sperm dispenser.

Most people know what it is to be robbed of their hard-earned money but one must be really damned to suffer the pain of being robbed of one’s babies or of fatherly love.

Family courts have developed an entire menu of ways to prevent fathers from being a part of their children’s life and vice versa. These range from preventing physical proximity and hindering even precious few telephone conversations, all the way to breaking the man’s spirit but leaving him with enough desperation and frustration to commit suicide.

Even in the few cases where family courts show generosity in granting fathers the rights to visitation and telephonic contact with children, the courts are quite liberal with mothers who violate these rights.
It is surely no surprise that way more divorced men end their lives than divorced women.

One can say with confidence that feminists have successfully “sensitized” (read bullied) the family court system to be “committed to the cause of women” and to stretch to any lengths for the “cause of women” (read wives), even if it is to the detriment of the rest of the family members.

While we may never plumb the depths of feminist ideas, or confront them without holy water or some such thing, we do know this – Feminists want women to be free of marriage, family, motherhood and anything that involves compromise. Destroying marriage and family, treating children as a by-product of woman’s right to sexual expression, and rearing children with the State as the father is the formula for “true equality”.

Of course, the above formula requires you to assume that “the cause of women” equals “the best interest of children”. Make that one assumption and we’re all good.

Forget about all the scientists crying hoarse about how the lack of a male parent affects the normal growth and development of children, apart from all the social ills these children are likely to face and cause.
Ignore the fact that most violence against children after divorce is committed by their mothers, in large part due to depression and substance abuse.

Turn a deaf ear to what the children may really want, and a blind eye to the other progenitor, the male with nothing but love and longing for his offspring.

Agreed! Rights of non-custodial fathers and their estranged children are but hurdles along the way to a feminist utopia, which is paved by the family courts, but guess who’s footing the bill for the trip. Not just the non-custodial fathers but tax payers like you and me too.

As the feminist juggernaut bulldozes the family justice system leaving behind glaring biases, broken marriages, shattered families and battered souls in its trail, we are not far from reaching a fatherless feminist utopia with few resources and severely damaged children unable to grow into healthy adulthood.

Those who want the juggernaut to stop, speak now or forever hold your heads in despair!

The All India Men’s Welfare Association (AIMWA) it appears, has a series of grouses to be addressed by society at large: that men have always been portrayed as the tough sex, and so boys are trained to hide their emotions; men are treated as ATMs and ‘sperm donors’ and are thus exploited, the world persistently asks women what their problems are, but doesn’t bother about men…

Ever since Independence, women have been mollycoddled by ministries and commissions, but none have been instituted for poor Adam. Statistics have it that a man commits suicide every nine minutes, double the ratio of women ending their lives, worldwide – which shows that they have reached the end of their tether. It is these issues that AIMWA will address, say men’s activists.

Demand father’s rights

It also has more serious issues on hand: the taxation disparity and unfavourable custodian rights of fathers. Vivek Deveshwar, counsellor and founder-member of AIWMA, said: “Most fathers are deprived of custody of their children and only mothers get the right. Even after that, mothers feel insecure and snatch visitation rights from men. Where is the justice? There is not even a quasi-constitutional body to hear our problems and protect us.”