Roy Hollander: a sad, strange little woman-hater
August 29, 2008I took the opportunity the other day to ditch my mandatory security lecture in favor of a talk given by one Roy Den Hollander, a NY lawyer crusading against the feminist movement in defense of men’s rights. Bwog discussed this speaking engagement before.
The topic of his talk was nominally a discussion of what he calls his “trilogy of anti-feminist lawsuits”; while he did spend a lot of time talking about these I thought it was fairly clear that he was here primarily to promote his larger agenda, which evidently has something to do with women’s campaign to enslave the minds of men and the armed uprising that men (lead, presumably, by Hollander himself) will form to reclaim what is theirs.
I imagine that many men (or “guys”, as Hollander would say; he talked about “guys” and “girls” throughout the talk) feel that feminism has gone to far, perhaps even a few to the same extent that Hollander himself does, so what I find much more interesting is the manner in which he proposes to address the issue. So, the lawsuits:
Complaint against the existence of a Women’s Studies program at Columbia University
This was the easiest of his arguments to break down. Hollander has two theories. The first, which he himself admits is extremely tenuous and will probably get thrown out in Court, is that feminism is a religion (evidenced by its practitioners belief in information unsupported by fact and their participation in self-detrimental behavior as a result of the religion, though he was unable to provide any serious examples of either), and thus teaching it in a school violates the Establishment Clause, which he quoted incorrectly. As Columbia already offers a number of religion classes, it is not obvious why finding feminism to be a religion would render it unteachable.
The second argument hinged on Title IX, which mandates equal opportunity for men and women in schools receiving federal funds. Because Columbia offers Women’s Studies, it must either also offer Men’s Studies or (preferably) abolish the Women’s Studies program. I pointed out to him that Columbia does not offer a women’s varsity football team without violating of Title IX, and by extension it should not be necessary for there to be Men’s Studies provided that men at Columbia receive equal educational opportunity across the board. He insisted that the existence of Women’s Studies means that men cannot receive an equal education because women derive more benefit from the class than men do, for instance in networking opportunities. I noted that networking was possible in other classes and asked if he could suggest any other benefits, to which he replied that there were many more that I could look up on his website at my leisure. Then (this was the most gratifying moment of the talk) the thoroughly-prepared members of the Women in Science Council, who hosted the talk, handed him a paper copy of the website and invited him to read that section to the audience. There were no other examples. I just remembered that he also mentioned the opportunity to interact with academics in the field of Men’s Studies, of whom there is (according to Hollander himself) one. Ultimately, I think it was made fairly clear that that argument had little substance.
Complaint Against the Violence Against Women Act
The second lawsuit asserts that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) unconstitutionally allows alien women to acquire citizenship by making false accusations of violence against their husbands. In short, foreign women who divorce their husbands before becoming naturalized can retain the opportunity to become citizens if they have been abused. This (at least according to a woman in my NSOP group whose father is an immigration lawyer) is indeed true; what doesn’t check out is Hollander’s description of these proceedings. Apparently the accusations are made without the knowledge of the husband, who is given no opportunity to rebut them; that testimony is then entered into a government record which is supposedly accessible to anyone except the accused. I have been unable to find any evidence of this.
Complaint against “Ladies’ Nights”
This is the tricky one, but I still disagree. The bars are sued for letting women in free while making men pay, based on an early lawsuit in which two women successfully sued a club for denying them entry. I’m uncomfortable assuming that denial of entry is equivalent to differential pricing (Hollander makes absolutely no distinction between the two). While a friend pointed out to me that if Ladies’ Nights are acceptable than so is charging minorities extra (or discounted) rates to get in, I am resolutely in favor of affirmative action and consider this to be a necessary, if admittedly uncomfortable, side effect.
Finally
The reaction that Hollander’s talk ultimately provoked was not anger or indignation, but pity. He is a man who clearly feels trodden upon by the rest of society, who at some level obviously understands that he will never win any of his fights. While I don’t agree with what he says it is hard not to feel sympathy, if not empathy, for a man who has exhausted his fortune in a fight he cannot possibly win.