Framingham Man Writes Book About Frictions Between Men & Women

Is It Really Like 'Fraternizing With The Enemy'?

By MassNews Staff
June 2002

A Framingham man has written a new book with the title, - Fraternizing With The Enemy: A Book on Gender Issues For Men ... And for Women Who Care About Men.

He claims to take a non-partisan, non-religious approach from a male point of view.

Sure, he says, there are some male talking heads already - Bill Bennett and others who speak from a Republican Party/Christian right perspective, opposing the Democratic Party/feminist left view.

What we need is a source of unbiased expertise on gender issues from a male point of view, says author John J. Xenakis, who claims to be that expert.

"There are many things that men and women don't understand about each other, but almost all commentators on gender issues are women.

"We need more men expressing male opinions on gender issues," says Xenakis "That's not to say that all men agree with each other, just as not all women agree with each other. But a male view is distinctly different from a female point of view, and both views need to be heard."

Astounded by Many Young Women

He also believes that men have to be extremely cautious today. "I've been truly astounded by the number of young women, even women who don't call themselves feminists, who have a contemptuous view of marriage."

He first discovered this fact in 1994 when he was having lunch with three female friends, all divorced women. "They were all absolutely bubbling with excitement about a new book," he says.

"The book, - Flying Solo, says that women are miserable when they were married, but now they're perfectly happy living by themselves or just with their kids.

And if a woman wants to have sex, she can have a date or spend the weekend with her boyfriend. But for the rest of the week, she's much happier being on her own."

This same message is found in books and magazines targeting women, and it's expressed frequently by women in discussions.

According to author Danielle Crittenden, "The habit of viewing marriage as a raw deal for women is now so entrenched, even among women who don't call themselves feminists, that I've seen brides who otherwise appear completely happy apologize to their wedding guests for their surrender to convention. It's as though a part of them still feels there is something embarrassing and weak about an intelligent and ambitious woman consenting to marry."

A couple of years ago, Xenakis started an online forum discussion asking women, "Is anyone willing to defend marriage?" In two years, not one woman has said, "Marriage is good for women," but a number of women have posted messages saying that marriage is nothing more than "serving the needs of a man" or "spending your life pleasing some man." Some women compare marriage to black slavery.

Trivial Reasons

In our modern world, it's often the woman who wants the divorce, often for trivial reasons.

What reasons do mothers give? If you listen to TV, you'd be pretty certain it's because most men are batterers and abusers. But research shows that most mothers seek divorce for far more trivial reasons: "Losing a sense of closeness," and "serious differences in lifestyle" were the two most commonly stated ones.

Women who give reasons like these for divorcing their husbands often tell how much happier they are, how much more freedom they have, how they can do whatever they want and so forth. What they rarely mention is that money is a big factor. If her husband is responsible and works hard, she can collect lucrative child support payments from him. He then becomes the person who funds her carefree lifestyle, often by working multiple jobs so that she doesn't have to do any work at all.

Listening to stories of mothers who got divorces for trivial reasons like these is like watching one of those war movies where you see the good guys win, but somehow you never see the body parts, the blood, the gore, dead and mutilated bodies, since they're always dead or dying off-screen.

Disaster for the Children

By divorcing their husbands, these mothers are making it much more likely, according to research, that their own children will be harmed. Well-publicized studies have shown that children living with single mothers are more likely to become abused, abusers, teen-parents and criminals. Child abuse statistics show that mothers are more than twice as likely to abuse their children as biological fathers, and most child sexual abuse is perpetrated by mothers' boyfriends.

The fact that we arrived at this situation shows why we need to have more male experts discussing gender issues. The claims that marriage is a form of slavery are obviously silly, but women pundits have no reason to dispute them, and men pundits simply avoid discussing most gender issues - evidently for fear of getting their wives angry at them.

What's the Solution?

What's the solution to the problem of so many mothers filing for divorce for evidently trivial reasons?

"As a society, we need to find ways to make divorce less attractive for mothers," says Xenakis. He believes that means giving many mothers less money and making it easier for fathers to get custody of the situation.

"We don't have to go overboard on this," he says. "If we lowered many child support payments just 10% or 20% to be in line with other states, or if we found ways to give fathers custody of the children just 10% or 20% more often, that would send a powerful signal to women that mothers need to have a good reason to get divorced."

The experience of welfare reform provides a dramatic example.

"We had the welfare entitlement for three decades, and for three decades, we paid teenage girls to have babies and dump the fathers, which is what these girls did, in massive numbers," he points out. "In the black community, over 70% of all black babies are born out of wedlock, meaning that black fathers are being discriminated against at least as much because they're fathers as because they're black. President Clinton supported welfare reform to reverse this trend, and the number of teen pregnancies has gone down dramatically in the last decade."

But now child support has replaced welfare as a woman's easy path to get an income by having a baby and dumping the father.

Information and Advice

Xenakis's book contains information and advice for both policy makers and individual men - and for women who care about men.

Subject areas include the following: marriage, rape, sexual harassment, child abuse, domestic violence, feminism, divorce and custody - even dating services.

The 440-page book is based on 15 years of research, and hundreds of interviews with men, women, feminists, experts, as well as extensive literature research, and is packed with facts, figures and information, with hundreds of footnotes and an extensive index.

"Fraternizing With The Enemy" is available from Amazon and other online bookstores. It's website is www.fraternizing.org. John J. Xenakis can be reached at John@fraternizing.org.