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.
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.
The existing minister is literally the minister for equalities, this whole “campaign” is based on a strawman
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!!!
This whole issue would’ve been avoided if they just called it the equalities minister.
No need to appoint a new minister, just rename the existing one to not refer to a particular group.