The following is a comment that I left on a post at The Good Men Project, in a comment thread I have returned to multiple times over the past month. I stopped participating after it pretty much devolved into typical whiny zero-sum thinking, i.e. that addressing inequalities affecting women by definition means neglecting the issues that affect men. What I am finding is that, while there are undoubtedly issues that disproportionately affect men, they generally result from prejudices and attitudes intended to favor men. For example, it is probably true that courts favor women when making orders for child custody and child support in divorce cases—but then, men are the breadwinners and women are the ones who stay home and care for the children. Men have fought hard for generations to maintain that order, and this inequality we see now is really just one tiny advantage women have found amid the oppression. Furthermore, by raising these issues in the context of criticisms of feminism, men are essentially trying to put the burden of improving men’s lot onto women. “Please ignore your own inequalities for now,” the argument seems to go, “while we address these issues that affect men.” Dudes, we can do better than that. Anyway, here’s the comment I left, with a few embedded links added in:
You raise a good point, and one that, due respect, is not so good. In regards to the point that is not good, I feel like I am banging my head against a wall, so I won’t dwell on it for long.
The good point you raise involves the issue of gendering and rape. Yes, most of the public discourse around rape focuses on women. You seem to be assuming, though, that it is women who are keeping the issue of rape against men suppressed in public discourse. I respectfully disagree. The gendering of rape defines it as something that happens to women. So if a man is raped, he is demeaned by the entire concept that rape is something feminine. That is something that we men have done to ourselves–the concept holds that a man who is raped is somehow less of a man, because only women get raped. Men have the power to change that concept.
Yes, men get raped. Quite a bit. They get raped in prison, but “prison rape” continues to be a topic of humor. Where are the men standing up to that, challenging the idea that prison rape is not funny, the way that feminists have been challenging sexist humor for at least two generations? Those men, and the women who support them, exist, but they are few in number. (The same can be said for female-on-male rape, which much of popular culture still does not view as a crime, cf. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsFunnyWhenItsFemaleOnMale)
Also, what organizations or people are standing up for male victims of rape? If you look closely at most major organizations that support victims of sexual violence, they actually don’t discriminate based on sex. It’s just that men don’t come forward. Why don’t they? Again, because they are unlikely to get any support from other men.
If men are serious about fighting male-victim rape, they need to start fighting male-victim rape, not just complaining about it to feminists.
As if to illustrate my point, a quick Google search for “male rape victim support” turned up a front page of results for organizations in the UK. American men need to get on this. Even if all you do is refuse to laugh at prison rape jokes, it is something. Here are a few resources to get you started:
http://www.mencanstoprape.org/Resources/resources-for-male-survivors.html
http://www.malesurvivor.org
http://www.aftersilence.org/male-survivors.php
http://www.pandys.org/malesurvivors.html
The only other point I will address, even though I’ve heard it so many times and it such a ridiculous argument that it will take a miracle to talk sense to anyone, is the issue of the selective service. If selective service registration is the best example you can come up with for discrimination against men in favor of women, then we guys are doing pretty damn swell. See, there are two problems with the argument:
1. (Assuming you live in the U.S.) we have not had a military draft since the early 1970’s, and there is less than zero political will to reinstate it. I can’t speak for countries that do have mandatory military service, but many of them require service of both men and women.
2. Regarding combat roles being reserved exclusively for men, that is no longer true in the United States, and many men (and some women) fought tooth and nail to keep women out of combat. Many women fought tooth and nail to be allowed in combat units. It strikes me as daft to claim women are privileged because they are, until recently, excluded from something some of them want to do.
Teenage me, probably around 1992, wrote and publicized the following Valentine’s Day poem, and I will bear that shame for all my days:
