User:QIM/American Union of Men
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The American Union of Men is a men's movement organization founded by Tom Smith, also known as QIM, in the mid-1980s that is one of the first anti-feminist and masculist organizations. Tom Smith's "Masculist Trinity" forms the ideological base for the organization and is an early ideological influence in the men's movement. He was the Santa Barbara county campaigne chairman for Warren Farrell in his run for Governor of California in 2003. Warren Farrell was on the NOW board in the early Seventies and the leading academic and published developer of Masculism.
The AUM claims to be a "leftist" group, but leftists, feminists and progressives are critical of groups such as the AUM which claim to be leftist or progressive, but which support gender roles and other non-leftist concepts. Progressives, in general, believe each individual should be able to establish their own role in society, not have one imposed based on their gender. For this reason, as well as their position on taxation and other issues, progressives would generally characterize the AUM as a rightist organization.
Tom Smith, in support of AUM being Leftist, would say that feminism supports "mandated sexual equality" thereby "imposing" it's own brand of sex roles. AUM's position on taxes is consistent with progressive support of government social programs and graduated income taxes, but in the context of "complementarity" and legal recognition of sex differences. AUM also supports disability rights, liberal criminal justice reform and a new vision of unions, all traditional leftist-progressive advocacies. It maintains that one powerful leftist advocacy like feminism can't be the sole definer of progressivism and that it's attempts to do so are precisely why the Left has become outdated and irrelevant.
See also
External link
- "AUM" Newsgroup (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aum/?yguid=22765296)