Austria's Program for the Examination of the Status of Men

This page contains a translation (with annotations by Fathers for Life) of an outline of Austria's program for the Examination of the Status of Men, problem identification and proposed studies and study objectives that will ostensibly address the injuries received by men, children and mothers as a result of the social transformation brought about by women's liberation.

The original source document for the translation is an excerpt from a much larger document: Bericht über die soziale Lage 2001-2002 (Report on the social condition 2001 - 2002), Austria, Federal Department for Social Security and Generations (pp. 172 & 173 contain the translated excerpt)

Introduction

Many people are enthused about what the Austrians are doing, and some of what is in the program outline is impressive. However, there is also considerable reason for concern. Rather than to spend time on an exhaustive analysis and assessment of what the proposed program may and may not do, comments were appended that address concerns relating almost entirely to the context in which the Austrian Program for the Examination of the Status of Men will be operating, as well as to concerns about what seems to peek through, fairly obviously, between some of the lines of the program outline.

In general, there is reason to be considerably less than completely enthused about the Austrian plans. They seem to contain a liberal dose of further intrusion by the State into personal lives and into the lives of families. More on that is provided in the individual footnotes linked throughout the translation of the program outline. The question arises whether it is the government's business and duty to define and implement the rules for what comprises families or whether families still have any power at all to have the government support and nurture the concept of the nuclear family. Here is the drift.

What it all means is that the women's liberation movement won the war against the family, and now men better get used to swallowing the bitter pill, and if not, the State will help them swallow it (e.g.: "It was the goal of this seminar to motivate men to become more aware of their duty as fathers and to increasingly serve terms as fathers." p. 172, 2nd col., end of 2nd par. – what will be tried when that won't provide the desired results, which it very likely won't? What portion of the Austrian male population became motivated to move into the right direction? Did the Austrian birth rate experience a noticeable increase as a result of the seminar that ostensibly had the goal of achieving that?)

The misplaced total enthusiasm I saw expressed by a quite a few people in relation to the Austrian program for making men adapt to the new reality of female domination and control is nothing more than a manifestation of men's acceptance of defeat and of their readiness to accept the terms of surrender forced upon them. The Austrian Men's Program is the blueprint for that, developed by a few people in ivory towers. I know nothing about any of the individuals involved and mentioned, except one. However, it seems to me that for example somebody with a professorship and three doctorates could hardly have found the time to become an expert on the logistics, workings and relationships involved in running a successful, loving, productive and thriving family. It would make me happy and alleviate many of my fears if I were to be proved wrong on that.

The Austrian fathers' rights- and pro-family movements (and anyone else who wants to see the Austrian men's program emulated where he lives) better make certain that they and not their feminist-influenced, -dominated and -controlled government agencies determine who will staff the pertinent government agencies bent on making men adjust their lives to the new feminist-engineered reality. Ten-thousand years of history and evolution of moral traditions related to and taught by families can't be all wrong.

The deliberate deconstruction of the family of which the feminists are so proud is analogous to curing a hangnail by amputating the arm to which the finger belongs that is affected by it. If there was anything wrong with the family model that the feminists and their communist/socialist predecessors and ideological ancestors hated so much, it was nothing that a little respect, love, counselling, fixing and less government interference couldn't have cured.

However, now, as an afterthought, an attempt is being made to have the rest of society – the majority that is not comprised of feminist social engineers and their fellow travellers – come to terms with the havoc, pain and destruction that radical feminism brought upon us during the last four decades and more.

The ironic aspect of that, and it adds insult to injury, is that the constraints that are being applied to the Austrian effort are very rigid and reflect radical-feminist party lines. They will very severely limit the good things that could be done to heal the injuries and injustices that were heaped upon men, children and women who still like men and families that contain them. The annotation I linked to at the end of the first paragraph of the translation will lead you to the results of an analysis of the fundamental constraints under which the Austrian Men's Status Program will most likely be operating.

Translated from Bericht über die soziale Lage 2001-2002 (Report on the social condition 2001 - 2002), Austria, Federal Department for Social Security and Generations, pp. 172 & 173

4. Men

The progress of social transformation since the beginning of the Sixties of the 20^th century brought about, too, a far-reaching re-organization of the relationships between the sexes. The women's liberation movement can rightfully claim that with the new definition of female self-esteem [*] it simultaneously and justifiably promoted the continuing development of male role-behaviour and the search for male identity, and that it thereby provided the motivation for a new male identity and an inherent and unique men's movement. The [traditional] male identity and role models became questionable and demand, after analysis and re-definition, the " emancipation" of men. [* Update 2008 05 11: It is strongly recommended to take a look at "SHOULD SCHOOLS TRY TO BOOST SELF-ESTEEM? Beware the dark side", by Roy F. Baumeister]

Emancipation—that of women, too—can succeed only when both sexes emancipate themselves, when both gain a new understanding of identities that have become questionable, find their way to new role-behaviour and new, positive identities. Therefore it is men's duty not to shut themselves out of the social change of the role distribution and instead to actively cooperate in these developments.^[1]

Nevertheless, there is presently a strained relationship between the new demands made of men and the lack of a re-definition of the male role and identity.

The Department on the Status of Men [literally translated, the term becomes " male-political principle department", I imagine that Status of Men comes close enough —WHS], founded in March 2001, shall contribute to resolve this strained relationship and has the assignment to examine the new social demands, the new role-behaviour and identity-profile as well as the actual social and economical conditions of men in connection with the sciences. Hereby can be found, especially with men as fathers and partners, as well as with the male child and youth, many points of contact with women-, youth- and family-politics.^[2] The Department is furthermore obligated to evaluate proposals for laws and administrative orders as well as the cooperation with advisory institutions for men and men-oriented organizations, to achieve the coordination of these institutions.^[3]

Symposiums and Conferences

For the first inventory of actual male problems, ever, in October 2001, the workshop "The used man? – Male Identity in Transformation" (participants: Prof. Dr. Theodor Tomandle, Mrs. Christine Bauer-Jelinek, [RA ?] Dr. Günther Tews, Prof. Dr. Dr. Paul M. Zulehner, Magistrate Martin Christandl, Dr. Allan Guggenbühl, Dr. Karin Jaeckel) was conducted. (transcript of the symposium — in German, PDF file, 260 kB)

In February 2002, as an introduction to the theme Men's Health, the "Men's Health Workshop" (moderator: Prof. Dr. Med. Reinhard Krepler, Medical Director of the Vienna General Hospital) took place, which addressed the structuring and the mission of future dedicated men's health centres at the University clinics as well as the political measures to be demanded for the founding of these centres.

The seminar "Fatherhood Today: Opportunities and Risks in the Process for the Evolution of the Family – Ideas for Family Politics and Intervention" (instructor: Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. Wassilios E Fthenakis, Bavarian State-Institute for Early Childhood Education) was held in May 2001 upon the invitation by the Hon. Federal Minister in conjunction with the BMSG [" Bundesministerium für Soziale Sicherheit und Generationen" translates to "Federal Department for Social Security and Generations"]-internal Steering-Group "Internal Audit". It was the goal of this seminar to motivate men to become more aware of their duty as fathers and to increasingly serve terms as fathers.^[4]

Publications

The scientific study of the basics of unity and divergence of the sexes is within the meaning of a theory of the sexes the prerequisite for coming nearer, step-by-step, to the goal of a partnership between the sexes and to escape the dilemma of the battle of the sexes.^[5]

Therefore a start was made with the creation of a scientific publication focused on the theme "Theory of the Sexes", in which – controversial ones, too – contributions of scientists, predominantly out of the basic and integrated scientific [social-science] areas related to the debate of the sexes will be compiled and at the end of 2002 presented to the public.

Scientific Studies

The status of "Men in Austria" shall be scientifically researched by means of the following empirical studies:

"Male Identity in Transformation?"

It has been largely left scientifically unexamined to what extent the role of men (analogous to women's roles) truly changed and progressively evolved and continues to be in the state of transformation; the studies on hand were up to now nothing more than studies of cross-sections. That research gap shall be closed with the study "Male Identity in Transformation?", and it shall be specifically determined whether constants, too, are identifiable in the relationships between the sexes. This project, slated to be a longitudinal study, will be completed by the end of 2002.

"New Risk Group Male Victims of Divorce – financial and socio-economic implications" [end of page 172 —WHS]

This empirical study will assess the financial costs of alimonies and the personal, social, and socio-economic consequences incurred by men as a result of divorce and separation. Furthermore, the rules for family- and marriage laws as well as the procedural- and tax-laws (of selected) states in the EU will be compared.

"First Austrian Report on Men's Health, with specific consideration pertaining to Health Care"

Although statistical assessments show that the state of health of the Austrian population improved during the last decades and the life-expectancy increased, the life expectancy of Austrian men is in the year 2000 nevertheless still markedly less than that of the women. The sciences base that on that men only then react to symptoms of disease if these can be made to agree with their male self-image, on account of which men don't recognize symptoms of psychological and physical diseases as clearly as do women and are not as readily willing to seek out a medical doctor.^[6]

Because the Vienna Men's Health Report for 1999, too, identified that with respect to male health and life expectancy much might be achieved through prevention, this study shall for the first time comprehensively determine to what extent life and health of Austrian men is being endangered through diseases, risk factors and stressful circumstances, and shall equally determine the causes and motives for this male health behaviour and study their consequences. The existing and desirable further preventative measures are to be enhanced.

"Men's Work in Austria"

Through the last years, as a result of increasing social awareness, a number of counselling services for men came into existence, and some smaller services that had already been in existence for some time managed to establish themselves somewhat better. The demand for special support for men increased. In Austria there exist, besides offices for counselling services for men as well as offices for family-counselling services that focus on men's issues, additional, very differentiated initiatives with differentiated goals.

It is the goal of the research work under way to elicit those formally organized services, organizations, associations and other initiatives who support, advise and inform men with respect to their problems and to include and depict the activities of those organizations within the framework of a 1^st circumstance analysis. Furthermore, a comparison shall be made to Germany and Switzerland, and a requirements-definition analysis is to be made that provides concrete proposals for action for policy makers,

"Risk Factors that Promote Men's Suicides"

According to official statistics, Austria has, after Finland and Hungary, the highest suicide rate in Europe.^[7] In 1999, 1,555 persons committed suicide, the proportion of men was just short of being three times as high (1,226) as that of women (429). Per 100,000 inhabitants, just short of 29 men committed suicide. It is remarkable that women committed three times as many suicide attempts than men, but almost four times as many men as women kill themselves.[That must be an error. It should be "almost three times as many men" —WHS] The statistics indicate furthermore that men of all age groups are at risk.

Because the research projects undertaken up to now examined only a few specific age groups, this study will analyze all risk factors for all age groups of the Austrian male population.

"Outcomes or Development Disturbances due to Father Absence"

During the last decade, the number of children who on account of divorce or separation grow up separated from one parent — mostly the father — increased continually due to the escalation of divorces. The number of children who grow up in so-called sole-parent families rose accordingly. Three years after the termination of a marriage, 75 percent of the children no longer see their father not even regularly and 40 percent not at all anymore.

Because according to the fundamental principles of psychology the father possesses life-long importance for the development of the child's psyche into an adult, the long-term father absence experienced by children also causes long-term psychological consequences for the eventual adult.

The goal of this study is to comprehensively analyze the already available international literature relating to this theme, so that future research projects involving development disturbances and/or consequences due to father absence can be written up according to goal-oriented [principles] and be disseminated.^[8]

Information and Legal Counselling

Many requests regarding information relating to inquiries about the law are being directed to the Department for male-political principles. Those requests for help in the problem areas of child support and denial of visitation rights receive special attention….[end of page 173]

Contact information:

You can try to write to them in English, but German will be better, although I have been told that they do have people there that do speak English.

Theo Richel, who posted the original excerpt from which the translation was made stated:

If you contact them, they are very much willing to send you the Proceedings of the October 2001 meeting and the CD-ROM. They told me that they wanted to know which texts were interesting enough to be translated into English).

Address Details:

Männerpolitische Grundsatzabteiling
Bundesministerium für Soziale Sicherheit und Generationen
Franz Josefskai 51
Vienna
Austria

Tel +43171100
Fax: +43171100
Web Site: http://www.bmsg.gv.at
E-mail: V6@bmsg.gv.at [They told me that they, naturally, invite to be written to in English. —WHS]
           broschuerenservice@bmsg.gv.at [This is the address to contact if you order specific brochures, but you should best know exactly what it is you wish to obtain.
   An alternative way by which to order information material is to go to their Ordering Page (Bestellservice) , to the entry field in the upper-right corner that states " Suchbegriff", to enter "Bestellservice" in that window and to hit "Enter". That will take you to a page from which you can select specific subject areas that will each provide you with a list of available documents.
   Check off the desired document if you wish to have a hard copy, and click on the button at the bottom of the page that reads "Auswahl bestellen".
   The documents that are available online are shown in red type face.]

_________________

My Notes:

This first paragraph in the outline of the Austrian men's program contains the fundamental constraints for the rest of the policy outline:

Feminists are entitled to the havoc, pain, destruction and death they brought to society.
Feminists have an inherent right to determine the constraints to which men must adapt.
Feminist have a right to demand that men adjust their identity and the roles men must play in society.
The traditional male identity- and role models became questionable and therefore require to be forced into the direction set and prescribed by the radical-feminists' women's liberation movement.

There you have it. Although men were never asked about any of that and were deliberately excluded from the debates and planning that brought all of that about, if you are a man (or even if you are a member of the overwhelming majority of women who like men, never saw much wrong with the way things were, and who yearn to return to the good-old times), don't complain, don't refuse to cooperate with the re-engineering of society and the systematic deconstruction of the family. Cooperate! Accept that it is your duty to adapt! You will be sorry if you don't play ball.

However, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the assumptions as to the validity of the rights and justifiability of feminism and the havoc it wrought are questionable to a far greater extent than the time-honoured fatherhood- and family traditions ever were that were in place for all of the duration of civilization prior to the rise of radical feminism to a place of dominating and controlling power. More about that in the remaining annotations.

Regardless of whether the concerns about those ideological constraints are justified or not, there is also a practical limit as to what can be done according to the resources allocated to the effort. Although a division in the Department has been created for the effort, the staff assigned to the mission slated 55 hours per week to work on it (look for "Abteilung 6" in this document - it's in German). That may not be much, and perhaps not much can be achieved with the allotted time, but it is much more than had ever been allotted to the area of concern previously – exactly nothing. A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.

Women-, youth- and family-politics are fields that are all thoroughly dominated and controlled by feminists and family-hostile ideologists. There is at the very least a great danger than when all of the social re-engineering is done, men's role will be firmly entrenched as being nothing more than beasts of burden, sperm donors and wallets or checkbooks. It remains to be seen whether the predominantly female staff in the Department who will make the effort of determining the Status of Men and what shall be done with it will be able to keep feminist ideology out of the business of the Status of Men.
We used to have good partnership between the sexes. There never was the dilemma of the battle of the sexes before the feminists created it. That was when men were still respected and when society still functioned under the firm belief that any society without well-functioning families would be nothing more than a chaotic conglomerate of high-tech savages. That was when families had not yet been systematically deconstructed and when moral standards were still being taught within families and handed over from one generation to the next, instead of becoming a succession of special morals of the day imposed upon us by the State, with new morals being introduced and rammed down our throats more and more rapidly as time goes by.
Much the same general strategy was used by the Third Reich to consolidate the multitude of German youth-organizations that existed then into the Hitler Youth, thereby to achieve total logistic and ideological control of all German youths. Let's be realistic and very, very careful as to what this sentence states. It provides in essence a mission statement for the Department of Social Services to exercise censorship on all proposals for new laws and administrative orders affecting men and furthermore gives it virtually total control not only with respect to which endeavours and organizations it may wish to cooperate with but also which of those are deserving of funding.
   The problem with that is not so much that pro-male organizations can be excluded from being funded, but that anti-male efforts of all sorts can easily be the only ones who will receive funding and government support, just as is being done right now, only more intensified. The mission statement is essentially a prescription to extend the pro-female and anti-male policies of the government from women's issues into men's issues as well. There is only one way to prevent that from happening. That is by staffing the department only with officials who received approval by men's and fathers' rights organizations and to furthermore establish clear and measurable goals that will benefit men within the context of the greater good to society. That is quite different from merely remodeling men to make them better servants for the feminist ideal for women.
   "It was the goal of this seminar to motivate men to become more aware of their duty as fathers and to increasingly serve terms as fathers." (My emphais —WHS) That sounds suspiciously as if the disposability of fathers has now become official government policy. Not only that, but does it not seem that the Austrian government hopes to promote the idea of men being fathers at the most for the duration of the upbringing of their children? Once a man is a father he will remain a father for the duration of his remaining life, but not so according to the Austrian government bureaucracy.
   It appears that not only have the social engineers taken a long time to come to terms with the fact the "male problem" got totally ignored during all of the social engineering that was done to implement the ideology of women's liberation, but that now instead of making men equal to women they are attempting to push them into a corner with clearly defined boundaries and to keep them there.
Yeah, yeah, Hitler had similar goals. Women who gave birth to seven or more children received the "Mother's Cross", which some such prolific mothers actually proudly wore. Men got nothing out of it, though, not even to be exempted from military service. The general public soon caught on to what was behind the drive to increase the production of children with whom to conquer and to populate the Reich. A slogan about it came into wide-spread use "Komm, wir wollen reiten, Kinder machen fuer den Fuehrer". ("Come, let's ride and make children for the Leader".)
As to the Austrian strategy of having men accept and adapt to female domination, isn't it great to see the State become so concerned about men, now that they refuse to breed in numbers sufficient to maintain the population? Alas, it appears that men don't breed too well in captivity.
   Men were systematically vilified for almost forty years, robbed of their right to sit at the same table to eat a meal with their children, robbed even of the right to have families at all, relegated to their new role of sperm donors and wallets, fit for nothing but to maintain women and "women's children" in the life-style those had become accustomed to. Now at long last men are being asked to become aware of the new reality, after they were deliberately kept out of all discussions relating to it. Men are being asked to accept their new role and are being urged to "serve terms as fathers " in a society in which marriage is no longer an enforceable contract for a life-long mission but a transient, alternative life-style option.
   I am afraid that it will take a little more than merely holding men's noses to the grindstone to make that work to everybody's satisfaction. It takes society's respect for men. There can be neither an appreciable number of heroes nor of fathers who wholeheartedly embrace the duty of having to serve terms as fathers unless respect for men exists once more.
   By now, after more than a generation of deliberately vilifying and slandering men, 10,000 years of civilized traditions can no longer be drawn on to make it happen that men eagerly accept the new role and re-modelled identity of fatherhood under the constraints imposed upon them by the brave new world that the feminist social engineers created for them. However, respect for men needs to be created now out of nothing, so to speak. Families require fathers to be whole and functioning, and without well-functioning families there cannot be a well-functioning society or civilization. Without respect for men there can most certainly not be well-functioning families nor fathers that will be permitted to remain part of them.
   That will be a tough assignment, so tough that at least the two pages dealing with men's issues in the Austrian government's paper from which I translated the main text shown above didn't even mention the absence of respect of the sexes for one another, neither did it mention the absence of self-respect by men, although it did mention women's self esteem. I guess that the latter is truly important in a paper discussing men's issues. We must make sure that men are aware of the constraints under which they are expected to exist.
   Interestingly, the outline for the men's program touches on men's duty to accept their new role, a role that must be adjusted to women's role without requiring any concessions from women. How can anybody be so blind? How do they expect to avoid "the dilemma of the battle of the sexes" if no negotiations of the conditions of men's and women's co-existence are permitted, when men are being told in fact to accept unconditional terms of surrender?
   Furthermore, the outline touches on men's duty to "serve terms as fathers", but nowhere is it mentioned whether that is to be fatherhood within the presently existing constraints under which fatherhood is permitted to exist (pay up, shut up, and never mind any demands for a meaningful role in the upbringing of children, with a minimum of perhaps a couple of hours of visitation per month or per year or perhaps never after divorce or separation, and only then if the mother decides that is permissible). It will be fatherhood that men are being forced to provide along with all of the other services to society and sacrifices they make, for as long as is convenient in each individuale case, at the discretion of the woman being served.
   Nowhere is it mentioned that for men to be willing to take on their duty of being real fathers, some conditions and guaranties must be met. It must not be permissible to kick them out of their families at will. Truly productive, nurturing and loving fatherhood can function only within and not without families, never mind all of the obsessing with making men pay and having them put in a stint of playing at being fathers.
   An ever increasing number of men and women never learned to be parents. An increasingly larger number of men only learned to be feminized, and increasingly larger numbers of women never learned to trust and love men through their fathers. I'm afraid that Humpty-Dumpty fell off the wall. That fear is fueled by the fact that the outline of the Austrian men's program mentions families only within the context of family politics, having men adapt to the requirement for continuing evolution of the family, family counselling, and within the term "family-law". The program appears not focused on men's needs but on the requirement to make men adjust to the brave new world feminists created for them. After more than a generation of active social engineering that deliberately excluded men from many aspects of society in general and marginalized them, men have now become an afterthought, a problem in need of solving.
   We raised thousands of sheep on our farm. When we began with that, many years ago, it took us only a year to learn that ewe lambs who did not experience good mothering from their mothers would be bad mothers in turn – with a probability of about 80 percent. It took us another year to learn that we had to mercilessly cull any and all bad mothers to be able to make our operation productive and profitable. How long will it take the many people in Austria's ivory towers who now wish to hold men to "their duty to serve terms as fathers " to realize that without fathers in their lives, children – boys and girls – cannot be expected to become good parents as adults?
   And guess at whose feet the blame will be laid when things don't work out in any given marriage, when the outcomes in children don't improve over time.

See also a more extensive discussion of the experiences we gained in raising sheep. It relates those experiences to human circumstances. More importantly, see Note 8 for a link to a summary of the pathological outcomes in children who are being forced to grow up without having their natural fathers present in their lives.

Absent universal recognition of the need to eradicate the problem of fatherlessness, there cannot be any or at best only marginal success with the strategy outlined by the Austrian government and interest groups. "Fatherhood Today: Opportunities and Risks in the Process for the Evolution of the Family " – there are risks all right. The risk takers will be men and the risk they are expected to accept is greater than that experienced by playing Russian roulette with every second chamber loaded.
   It is too bad, because although otherwise the opportunities could be great, the rewards for society would be even greater if only there were some respect, enough respect to make heroes out of bums and fathers out of second-class citizens.
See? Right from the start it's all men's fault; science says so. It's men's fault that they take on the risky, dangerous and deadly jobs that cause a fatality- and serious-injury ratio of 19 men to every single woman job casualty. It's men's fault that social programs, literally in the hundreds of millions of dollars (even in Austria), were lavishly handed out to women's causes to improve the lot of women. It's men's fault that the majority of sex-specific research funding goes to studies of women's health issues. It's all men's fault because they don't complain as easily as women do. Science says so!
That is not quite so according to the World Health Organization. The WHO data (which are compiled from data provided by official sources in each country) shows that Austria's suicide rates rank as identified in the following table for European countries that have suicide rates as high as or higher than Austria:

Suicide rates in selected countries Source: World Health Organization(1999 data)
Country	Males	Females
Lithuania	73.7	13.7
Russian Federation	72.9	13.7
Estonia	64.3	14.1
Latvia	59.5	11.8
Hungary	49.2	15.6
Belarus	48.7	9.6
Slovenia	48.0	13.9
Finland	38.7	10.7
Ukraine	38.2	9.2
Croatia	34.2	11.3
Republic of Moldova	30.9	6.2
Switzerland	30.9	12.2
France	30.4	10.8
Austria	30.0	10.0

The study outline relating to the consequences of fatherlessness appears to deal objectively with the problems caused in children as a result of the ideologically driven women's liberation movement and the associated divorce epidemic that threatens to devour not only our children but also all of society as surely as the very similar feminist goals of state-sponsored systematic deconstruction of the family made important contributions to the destruction of the empire of the USSR, its economy and those of all countries that were under its control.
A great wealth of information relating to the consequences of fatherlessness is available on the Internet. For a good beginning, it will not hurt at all to read the summary of the consequences of fatherlessness with respect to the outcomes in children of divorce that Karl Zinsmeister of the American Enterprise Institute wrote more than ten years ago: Fathers: Who Needs Them? (Comprehensive publication details for the article are missing for the copy of the article at that address. It is being attempted to obtain them.)
A comprehensive reading list and many links to study reports pertaining to the subject of fatherlessness is accessible at this web site, at http://fathersforlife.org/Table_contents_f.htm#Fatherlessness

Suicide rates in selected countries

See also: