A UK Member of Parliament recently suggested that there should be a Government minister for men which would presumably do similar things to the existsing minister for Women.
This has thrown up a series of heated discussions on social media about whether this is part of the ‘backlash’ against feminsm, or whether there is a legitimate need for wider support of men’s issues.
As a man who believes that there are legitimate issues disproportionately affecting men which should be addressed, what I really want help in understanding is the opinion that men don’t need any targetted support.
I don’t want to start a big argument, but I do want to understand this perspective, because I have struggled to understand it before and I don’t like feeling like I’m missing something.
It’s a disingenuous argument. The MP is from the Conservative Party, i.e., the right wing arsehole party.
You may have noticed how the Right Wing Playbook has been imported from America. Increasingly, when things aren’t going politically well, they’ll have a look at the Playbook and pick a Culture Wars trope. This is one such instance, intended only to divide.
How is supporting men’s mental health and advocating for them in ways they are often overlooked (such as in single fatherhood) bad?
This is the same difference between Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter. Nobody is saying that men should not be advocated for, but elevating the issue of men’s rights to ministerial level does not help resolve the larger issue of the systemic disadvantage of women in society.
which would presumably do similar things to the existsing minister for Women.
So very little then?
There shouldn’t even have to be a Minister for Women!
Yes, that would be nice in an ideal world there would be no issues which affected one sex more than another, but we are not in a perfect world.
I’m afraid this doesn’t really help me understand the view that men’s problems aren’t as worthy as women’s issues.
I am not from the UK but I would think that both genders having support would have been a obvious move. Each has their hurdles and as a society which is created to support the people in it should support both. Equality in its truest sense.
Women’s issues were more obvious historically. When women cannot legally vote that is an obvious problem. Most men’s issues are places where they at first appear equal but are not. Things like you can ask for help, but culture means you lose face and so would not. Or nothing stops you from going to a shelter if you are abused - except that most shelters accept women only and so odds are even if you could overcome culture there isn’t a place to go. Or police automatically arresting men in domestic violence cases - as if women cannot abuse their spouses, which the law probably doesn’t require leaving it up to police discretion even though they appear to not be investigating.
It isn’t about “worthiness” it’s about power balance which is still in favour of men literally everywhere.
Appointing a “minister for men” would be like appointing a “minister for abled people” to “balance” the fact that there is a “minister for disabled people”, completely ignoring the reasons we have that minister in the first place - the vast imbalance that already exists in society.
Having a women’s (and equalities, a part those fighting for this bullshit conveniently like to drop from the title) minister isn’t an imbalance it is an attempt at trying to gain a balance that hasn’t yet existed in our modern societies (as oppose to “female superiority” which is another bullshit strawman those for this nonsense have made up).
This whole thing is a monument to male entitlement - never mind why something isn’t centred around them, everything must be, no matter what!!!
Exactly. It’s the same with any diversity and inclusion push at any level. It exists because the current system favours a specific group of people. If we can put down any prejudice and hire people for their work and passion and account for people with less privilege. It exist still because we still do it. But also it exist now to try and right a wrong.
A minister for men is to do what? We had our time in the sun for the entirety of human existence while pushing women down. Men are at risk of losing anything. The shit men are I hope.
I’m not British, but it would seem reasonable to me to have both. Men have issues too; and one of them is the social stigma attached to even acknowledging that fact or seeking help. People who pooh-pooh the idea might be doing so because of that stigma.
Here’s the thing, though: Whenever you have a position like “Person for Group”, that Group is being singled out for a reason.
And that reason is lack of representation.
To put it another way, so have a Minister for Women is a tacit acknowledgement that the others operate as if men are the default person. All of the other ministers are Ministers for Men.
Isn’t this basically the same as arguing that men don’t deserve or need help?
I think it’s arguing that the rest of the ministers are either consciously or subconsciously making policies that gear more towards men and this role is supposed to be a way to ensure that a woman’s perspective is included. Kind of like having a security engineer at a software company
As an American whose only knowledge of UK government comes from sporadic episodes of Politics Unboringed, my first thought would be to replace the Minister for Women with a Minister for Gender Equality. They would have all the powers and responsibilities of the Minister for Women, and also gain any powers and responsibilities that a hypothetical Minister for Men would need.
- If there is a need for a Minister for Men, then that need is met by the Minister for Gender Equality
- If there is no need for a Minister for Men, then the only thing that changes is that the Minister for Women has a new, less controversial title
Sounds like a win-win to me, but again, I’m a dumb Yank lol
I’m afraid that Minister for Gender Equality is far, far more likely to be attacked as woke by the right than Minister for Women.
I’m unware of “woke” culture (or political terms such as right or left), but why would having a Gender Equality title be the target of attacks? A title like that should also, in theory, cover people who are transgendered, non-binary, intersex etc, so pretty much everyone in the country should be included. I’m not sure why “woke” people would take offence to this? Are they a gender that doesn’t fit in any of the currently established genders or something? Wouldn’t “woke” people also benefit from any decisions made by this minister, so why would they be offended?
It’s because they don’t actually want equality, they want to maintain the status quo which is a power imbalance in favour of men.
A “minister for men” plays in to the false idea that men and women are equal and therefore a having only a “minister for women” is “unfair”.
A “minister for gender equality” (so essentially what we have now, since the full job title is “minister for women and equalities”) would still rely on acknowledging that there is gender inequality, and that doesn’t feed in to the victim fantasy those who are fighting for this bullshit are trying to satisfy.
I don’t think that is a good idea.
Men and women are different in some fundamental ways, and so equality is the wrong answer. Equal means either putting tampons in the Men’s restroom, thus wasting money - or taking them away from women who need them.
It is really hard to make any other statement about how men and women are different. Even making a claim backed by clear facts (hormones make men stronger than women gets some people mad) is controversial. As such I do not want a minister who because a dual mandate can focus on just one. A minister of gender equity that only focuses on Women’s issues is not doing the job, but that is an easy thing to do anyway (and the most likely result given that men socially often cannot admit they need help), but a minister going the other way and focusing on men’s issues is also bad. By making them separate we can better track budgets, and if they are not equal force justification/discussion of why that should be.
Many people do not have a problem with nudity and seeing the opposite sex’s gentiles, or having the opposite sex see their gentiles. However there is a large group of people worldwide that do. This later group is large enough that the first should respect them and accept gender segregated bathrooms, as such there is no need for them in restrooms for males.
Now you can argue that all restrooms should be single stall, unisex - and those should all have tampons. However where that is not the case you are being insensitive to the values of someone else.
