Yesterday was International Men’s Day. Our own Freethought Blogger, Ally Fogg (noted journalist and gender equality activist) blogged about it last weekend and then wrote a really good brief on it for The Independent, “Male Victims of Rape, Sexual Abuse and Depression: Breaking the Silence on International Men’s Day,” with the tagline, “Those who mock today are mocking victims of a viciously gendered society.” The latter is an article I think everyone should read. Though some balked or joked (as Ally notes), many feminists support the day and the ideas and goals behind it, and all certainly should: see this article in The Guardian, this article in The National Student, and this article in The Feminist Times, all of which are feminists speaking to feminists, and make some points even Ally overlooked, so they are good reads, too. Take a tour of these articles and expand your awareness of the gendered nature of real-world problems affecting billions of human beings. It will be especially enlightening for anyone who immediately asked, at first hearing of this, “Why do we need a day for men?” The more so if you didn’t immediately think of at least half a dozen good answers.
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This is good. Sexism is something that damages all genders, individuals, and society. Gender equality isn’t about being pro-men or pro-women but breaking down and eliminating the subconscious attitudes and prejudices that cause us to even think in those terms.
Earlier this year I had a guest post on my blog that discusses issues of gender discrimination and the Bible. Part of the discussion is how gender stereotypes, whether positive or negative, are damaging to both men, women, and transgender individuals:
http://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/evaluating-the-bibles-treatment-of-women-why-egalitarians-are-wrong-and-everyone-else-is-reprehensible/
The blog also points out that the emperor has no clothes when it comes to the Bible being a sexist, barbaric, and outdated collection of fiction. Since this is an important issue that affects billions of people, we need to make clear that ancient and outdated systems of thought (e.g. Christianity) need to be cleared away and removed from our culture, if we are going to have modern culture that improves and progresses beyond such past bigotry.
Avicenna also had a good post about it.
Yes, this.
Sure, it’s not like the other 364 days of the year are enough!
Also, fuck “False Ally” Fogg.
That’s productive.
(BTW, nice job not reading the feminist articles I linked to which explain why your argument about days of the year is dumb, indeed it’s particularly uncompassionate.)
Perhaps not ironically, it’s the slymepit that first brought this to my attention. A member did note that half of the results in a google search for the term were feminists speaking negatively of the day. Other members supplied examples of feminists on board with the concept. It’s nice to see some more articles in that vein. Thanks for that.
International Men’s Day is on the same day as World Toilet Day.
And that’s where it should go.
And thus you kick compassion right in its vaginal balls.