Another 2 cents in the feminism, men's rights discussion

by phil on Thursday May 28, 2009 11:40 AM
mainfeed, third way thinking

I mentioned the expression "men's rights" to a feminist college student recently, and she got really defensive. I could sense that she was partially offended and bewildered by even the suggestion that "men's rights" could exist.

And true to form, I've behaved consistently with reverse psychology. I've since delved heavily into the world of men's rights.

My first thought when skimming "men's rights" material is, "Hmm, thinking this way seems like an easy way to not get laid."

But then I thought, "If early feminists shyed away from women's rights because they thought it'd make them appear less attractive, that would have been really unfortunate."

In exploring gender issues, I also noticed the phenomena of the random counter-feminism monologue that comes from a female. These tend to be one of the most popular kind of artifacts that get traded around in discussions about gender issues, and they resurface at least a handful of times each year.

Jodi Kasten's "Equal Rights for Men" is a new contribution, albeit written in a bloggy-tone with "social media-friendly" tidbits:

Bob and Jane are a middle class couple. They have two children. They get an amicable divorce. There is a custody hearing. Both of them are good parents. Both of them want to be the primary custody holder. Who gets the children? Seriously, every single time, unless Jane lights up a crack pipe in the courtroom she will get physical custody. Bob is expected by society to be happy with every other weekend and two weeks in the summer.

Jodi's post garnered an enormous response on reddit (2434+ comments). Which leads me to what I really want to highlight with this post. cartouche had a really poignant comment that I strongly agree with:

I think at this point, in American society at least, it's no longer accurate or productive to generalize that women have it best OR that men have it best. The fight for gender equality of the 20th century was a big-picture fight, but the fight for gender equality of the 21st century needs to be a details fight.

Read the whole thing.

Comments

Danny said on May 28, 2009 3:51 PM:

man power!