“Let’s combat the pay gap! Sexual harassment! Glass ceiling! STEM inequality! Ignored heroines! Rape culture! Sexist language! Pressure to be pretty! Down with the patriarchy!”
“Uh… What about male lifespan, work casualties, military deaths, the draft, parental fraud, traffic accidents, suicide victims, homicide victims, homelessness, imprisonment, drug abuse, family courts, work hours, concrete floor, educational attainment? Shouldn’t we at least talk about that too?”
“Yeah, that’s all the patriarchy! See? It’s a system that oppresses both #women and men. We feminists work to dismantle it. It’s in men’s best interest, too. Aren’t you a #feminist?”
“Sure I am — if it’s about equal treatment of both sexes under the law, and about removing any discrimination on the basis of sex.”
“Then you’re against the #patriarchy, too.”
“Well, I would prefer a word that is less divisive and doesn’t suggest that #men are the problem… I don’t think ‘patriarchy’ really means what you just said. But if we have to unite under that banner… so be it! Down with the patriarchy! Down with sexism!”
“Well said! See? We’re in this together! Let’s combat the pay gap! Sexual harassment! Glass ceiling! STEM inequality! Ignored heroines! Rape culture! Sexist language! Pressure to be pretty!”
“Wait. What?”
@tripu I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with you based on this, but the work deaths stat was kind of a shock when I first heard it. iirc men are something like 16-17x more likely to be killed at work?
@tripu how the fuck is work deaths a sex equality issue? what's your solution, make sure more women die at work so it's equal, yay, we're done? No, the solution is to make sure less people die in general and that has nothing to do with their sex. Yes if the cultural inequality is decreased you might expect that statistic to also become more even, but that is just a side effect to observe as a curiosity. Same goes for most of your other "men issues" that is literally just mortality, or things like homelessness, imprisonment or drug abuse for same exact logic, the solution to those problems is not in equality of sexes. That leaves you with parental fraud and family court, you may talk about those things in this context... obviously these are very important problems that affect majority of people throughout their lifetime... major major things yes, and not at all a side effects of different issues...
sidenote: objective devaluation of men's lives stem exactly from the same logic as objective valuation of women's, and yes it is patriarchy
“What’s your solution, make sure more women die at work so it’s equal, yay, we’re done?”
I’ll ignore the captious question.
“No, the solution is to make sure less people die in general and that has nothing to do with their sex.”
That is very cute. How did I miss that simple solution? Nobody has to die!
Now let’s talk about the real world.
My point is that the same people who defend female quotas, public campaigns to increase the visibility of women, subsidies for feminist initiatives, tax exemptions when hiring women, more funding for research in female illnesses, special treatment for females in male-dominated fields, etc. — those same people should be asking employers to better protect their male workers specifically, campaigning to get insurance companies to give male workers better quotes or coverage, donating safety equipment for men in hazardous industries, pressuring to get laws passed to alleviate the physical toll in male-dominated manual labour sectors, etc.
I personally do not support the former, and thus I do not support the latter. But if someone is in favour of special measures for women, they should be in favour of special measures for men where that makes sense, too.
