"Fighting sexism against women also has benefits for men"

Okay back on topic.

In theory, it could. However, the example you give—men earning more money because they are presumed to spend more—a) is not a real stereotype of men to the best of my knowledge (isn't it just the opposite—aren't women supposed to be the spendthrifts?), and b) would not usually work against men even if it were.

The key to the concept of "benevolent sexism" is that the sexism is only benevolent in this particular context, and the rest of the time, the same stereotype or assumption works against people of that gender. Your example of family court decisions is a perfect case in point—maybe a divorcing woman can win a custody battle based on the assumption that women are better parents, but all throughout the marriage, that assumption was working against her. It also works against all the women who aren't involved in custody battles.

All this is not to say that there are no examples of sexism against men that don't stem from sexism against women. There probably are. But there's not an exact symmetry.

Positive Discrimination is still discrimination.

Well, that example is not so good. Probably it would really be "men make more money than women because men are supposed to go get a job and provide for their family".

And yeah, nearly any sexism against one gender contains or reflects sexism against the other gender (though not necessarily in equal amounts). It's not REALLY true that all sexism against men is really sexism against women, but it is certainly true that (nearly) all sexism against men is ALSO sexist against women. Feminists focusing on women's struggles saw one side of Ozy's Law but not the other.

Man, I have no clue what I set off on the other page. Guess that's what I get for posting and then going to bed .

@Black Humor: Thanks for the link! That article was pretty much a better developed version of what I was trying to say last night.

@Karalora: you're right that it wasn't a good example of "benevolent sexism" against men. The examples in Black Humor's link are much better. And I'm not trying to force a Golden Mean Fallacy here; the deck is still stacked against women more than it is against men. I just think twisting the few cases of sexism against men (such as Family Court rulings) that MR As bring up and making it another example of sexism against women is intellectually disingenuous.

I guess while everyone's saying "yes, fighting sexism against women also has benefits for men", I just want to add the caveat "and fighting sexism against men also benefits women"...which isn't terribly new. Maybe my post was a little redundant in that regard. Sorry if I set off a flamewar on the last page

Funniest result of what you call "Ozy's law" is a piece I saw at feministcritcs (i think) where they linked to two pieces one on an MRA and one on a feminist site basically saying "This [same] issue hurts men/women too, if MR As/feminists where really about equality rather than hating women/men they would speak out about this".

In regards to the question of the thread: it can't, but it won't automatically do so in all cases. And there are men's issues unrelated to sexism against women so it's not an argument against having a discourse on men's issues outside of feminism