I had the pleasure of interviewing Warren Farrell for the Pendulum Effect yesterday.  He’s the author of such books as The Myth of Male Power, Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? (co-authored debate) and Why Men are the Way They Are Whether you agree with everything he has to say I hope most would agree he has made invaluable contributions to dialogue on just about every area of gender.  The conversation went long - and I didn’t dare cut it off - so we’ll be dividing it into two parts and airing it as Episodes 2 (available Jan 16) and 3 (available Jan 30).  It will be an excellent primer for those who haven’t considered these issues or don’t even know what is a men’s issue.  Here’s a small sample of the areas and questions we covered.

Health:

Dr. Farrell, when you researched gender and health, you came to the conclusion that there were some 34 neglected areas of men’s health.  Can you describe which are the most significant?  And if they are so significant how were they missed?

Fatherhood:

Why do you believe men need a birth control pill?

Do you believe there is sexism in the custody decisions in family courts?

Boys:

Author Christina Hoff Sommers paints a disturbing and bleak picture in her book The War Against Boys which focuses mostly on our short changed boys in public education.  My question for you Dr. Farrell, is there really a War Against Boys?

Violence:

Let’s talk about stranger violence.  I think most people have an easier time accepting that men are at least equally or more often the victim in this case.  But when it comes to non domestic violence, aren’t men also more likely the perpetrator and doesn’t that in a sense justify it or at least make it less important an issue?  Aren’t men just used to aggression?

Legalized Sexism

You say that violent crime sentencing lengths are more dependent on sex then any other difference.  In fact, you quote the average prison sentence for spousal murder as 17.5 years for men, while it is only 6.2 for women.  Is this not accounted for by the accused history or the severity of the crime?

History

I’m curious as to how things came to be where they are now.

Men’s Activism:

Let’s move ourselves into the future for a moment.  You’ve said “There should be neither a woman’s movement nor a men’s movement, but a gender transition movement.  A gender transition movement would help both sexes make the transition from our genetic heritage of rigid roles to our genetic future of more flexible roles.”  How feasible is this at the current time?  How do we get there?  Is it necessary to have a men’s movement first?

How can we be responsible activists?  How do we avoid coming across as only harping on feminism or anti-women?