"Women don't have to fight for men's rights."

Based on this tangent in another thread, I figured this kind of approach could use its own.

This has a very similar feel to that kind of approach. While gender issues aren't the only context in which they're used, the approach does seem to tend towards them.

Yes, one's within their rights to focus more on women not getting top jobs in business than on men being more likely to be left homeless. Not exactly in line with my own priorities, but it's not obliged to be. In practice, though, as was pointed out in the thread, the issues are so interconnected that one affects the other ANYWAY, so addressing one without addressing the other is an incomplete approach.

So why is this kind of line so common in gender issue debates anyway?

Because of the loud minority, I'd assume? One or two maddening feminists or ignorant chauvinists yelling their views in everyone's faces, so that we wind up thinking that the "other side" has no sympathy at all for any difficulty that "ours" might go through.

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."

It's problematic that such a line has to be drawn at all.

I think there are different levels of belonging to a group (i.e., the group to which you are prepared to extend your altruism): Myself, family, friends, gender, nation, religion, "race", the whole of humanity, all living beings.

Of course those are not simply concentric spheres; they intersect in rather interesting ways.

I think there is a (possibly biological) natural tendency to feel more associated with the smaller groups, and to exclude those not belonging to that group. Our family is more important to us than "all human beings".

This is of course rather irrational, though possibly productive in an evolutionary sense.

I hope that the tendency to overcome this, and look out for solutions on a more global scale, is growing. We do, by and large, agree today that people have a right to be different, and that slavery is not so good. But as a guy I feel the urge to see the men's rights movement as more important to me than the women's rights movement. It's simply an emotional thing. I don't think we can simply ignore or suppress it, I don't think we can completely discuss it out, but neither do I think that it is really the best way. It would be far better to try to accomplish that women and men, all together get what they need. So... yeah.

It's because people draw an artificial line between male and female problems. They see it as wrongs against women and wrongs against men, when I believe they should just be seen as wrongs against people.

Wrongs against all people, regardless of their sex, should be made right.

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

Feminist activists who devote their lives to women's issues do not have to focus on men's issues. I do agree we should fight all forms of oppression.

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

Wrongs against all people should be fought... but you're being deliberately thick if you think all people have to fight them in equal measure. (For example, who here thinks Gandhi needed to fight antisemitism in America?)

People just don't have the time to fight every battle at the same time, and if you insist that they do nothing will ever get done for anyone.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Human rights have been a problem for both sexes, this has always been true.

Not that I think women and men are enemies, so I recognize that it isn't a perfect comparison- but I'd think a good analogy would be saying that Gandhi should have been fighting for the rights of the British workingman.

Hodor

I think that in a certain way, he actually did just that. And equally, I think that to a very large degree, men's rights and women's rights don't contradict, but complement each other. A strong man won't want to deal with a weak woman, and vice versa.

Like it or not the suggestion that feminists have to fight for men's rights as well, isn't going to be well received as far too often it's something that's used to undermine feminism. This is very unfortunate in my eyes, but it is what it is.

It's a case of TIWWCHNT. (This is why we can't have nice things).

You need to understand the influence (of a bad kind) that was made by both the anti-feminist or men's rights movements (when they don't overlap), especially in the early days of the internet.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

Ghandi did offer advice to people in other countries though, including the British in WW 2.

On topic: This phrase has always struck me as weird. Nobody has to do anything, including fighting for your own rights or anybody elses. But if you are going to be proactive in a certain area you need to understand the intrests of those who are connected. And as others have said the rights of male and females are intertwined.

Am I a good man or a bad man?

You can be a feminist and oppose sexism against men even if you don't feel that doing so is a feminist act - you can be a feminist and a masculist *

.

Both movements are against sexism, and they should be able to cooperate *

, not see each other as adversaries. But what the debate is really about is power and whether or not it should be redistributed, and how. If you lumped both movements together under one name, it would be harder to have a real debate about these things - it might turn into "eh, maybe the average woman has slightly less power than the average man, but on the other hand he has slightly more, so it all evens out".

Both men and women face issues, and in a modern first-world society, they are almost always parallel. If you fight for one gender's rights and not the other you are going to be far less effective than if you fight for both.

Everything is best in moderation.

No, you're going to be far more effective if you only do one thing at a time, no matter what it is. Trying to do everything for everyone is foolish.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Women don't have to fight for men's right. This is true.

On the other hand, women undermining men's right in order to promote women's right is an abominable, contemptuous notion that needs to die in a fire.

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"And equally, I think that to a very large degree, men's rights and women's rights don't contradict, but complement each other." - vijeno

What about domestic abuse? Assumptions about which gender is more likely to abuse which influence the way people, including law enforcement officials, react to it. If we take into account that some women abuse men, and that this isn't always justified, then cases in which you can't tell who started it will increasingly tend to prosecute women and decreasingly prosecute men. Therefore, on average, women will have to be disadvantaged in comparison to now for men to be advantaged in comparison to now, which would explain the protests at meetings about male victims of domestic violence.

edited 1st May '11 6:01:51 PM by neoYTPism

Feminists only need to fight for the "rights" of men when those rights are clearly being affected due to misogyny, i.e. most male/female double standards.

There's no justice in the world and there never was~

Hmm . . . Do women have to fight for the rights of MTF transsexuals? How about FTM?

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

@Feo Everyone ought to fight for everyone's rights, but to answer your question, feminists ought to support the rights of MTF transsexuals seeings as how a lot of the issues naturally intersect.

There's no justice in the world and there never was~

I think the problem is that many of the vocal feminists really come off as thinking men have it easier than women, women's issues are always due to male domination, therefore it's Us vs. Them taking back our rights from men, etc.

On top of that, they also have a tendency to turn every issue of men's rights into being Actually All About Us. Are men not allowed to wear skirts and makeup and care about their looks without being harassed? It's really just a slur against women because femininity is bad! Are men forced to be in the draft? It's because women are seen as weak and unable to fight! Are men often passed over for child custody? It's because women are seen as being good for nothing but raising babies!

(If you think I'm being hyperbolic about this, check out things like: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/faq-female-privilege/ and http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/ff-acfp-the-military/ )

I will say I don't think feminists are obligated to go out and fight for things that only affect men. But as others have stated, usually both sexes' rights are intertwined, so IMHO feminists really should acknowledge and include men in those situations where both men and women are suffering in some way from the same issue.

edited 2nd May '11 3:05:39 AM by Jeysie

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

You just reminded me another thing that needs to die in a fire: Attempts to respect women's right that gets twisted beyond their context by militant feminists.

edited 1st May '11 11:49:02 PM by ArgeusthePaladin

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, Seriously. -_-;

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

Feminists don't need to fight for men's right, no. Of course, it does make them look like the utter hypocrites they are if they don't - if they only fight for the narrow interests of their clientele group, instead of seeking true equality. That kinda destroys all their ideological justifications.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Agreed. It's difficult to say you're on the side of equality if you then completely deny that there are any difficulties in being a man at all.

"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."