We have been talking about oppression, race, gender, and class in my 6th period philosophy class. Last week we had a very fun debate where women had to defend a masculism (men’s rights) argument and the men had to defend feminist ideas.
The women read about social, cultural, and legal efforts aimed at providing equal rights to men and boys. They argued that men face discrimination in the following areas:
· A societal pressure is placed on men to take on violent roles and enjoy violence
· Violence against men is taken less seriously than violence against women
· Disproportionate penalties for men and women for similar crimes
· Sexual assault in prison mostly effects men
· In male correctional facilities, guards are known to punish weak inmates by placing them in a cell with a known rapist
· Victims of sexual assault receive less treatment and less support if they are male
· Child support and alimony is structured to be unfair to men
· Sometimes men are perceived to be worse parents than women, and men have a difficult time getting visitation rights to see their children
· A man who wants to have a child has no say in whether his partner aborts their child and is not even notified if the abortion takes place, or vice versa if the man does not feel ready to have a child he has no legal say if an abortion takes place
· Only men are drafted into the US Army
· Suicide rate among men is four times higher than among women
And most controversial...
· Affirmative action for women is unfair to men
The ladies did a great job of arguing the case that men are discriminated in these ways, and we had an interesting discussion about the underlying societal beliefs about what men should go and how men should behave.
Next, the men argued that women face immense discrimination in society, and also argued that affirmative action in favor of women was a fair way to address inequality. Also discussed:
· Domestic violence against women
· Men’s attempt to control women’s sexual and reproductive rights
· General misogyny in politics, in the media, legal systems, etc
· Ideas that women are believed to be weaker
· Concept that women are perceived to be too emotional or illogical, and therefore shouldn’t be trusted with important discussions
· Historic pressure on women to be soft spoken, pleasant, and "lady-like"
· Lack of women leaders and women at the top of corporations
· Sexual assault against women
· Women being called sluts of they like sex
Overall, both the guys and the girls in the class realized we hear more about feminism and inequalities that women have, but it should be recognized that men face certain issues as well. It was fun to have the girls defend men’s rights, and the men defend women’s rights.
Also, the teacher (a man) began this unit by telling us this interesting story. He said to listen carefully, and raise our hand if we heard anything that logically didn’t make sense. WE ALL RAISED OUR HAND at the critical part, showing how socially conditioned we are to believe that men should have certain roles and women should have certain roles. The story:
Every Wednesday, I will not be in class because I go to Washington, DC to play golf with my Dad and our golf buddies. One day, while we were playing golf, someone rushed over to us and talked to one of the doctors in the golf group. In a heartbreaking accident, a man and his son were killed in a car accident. The father died and the child was in critical condition and needed to be operated on. One of the doctors in the Golf group was a neurosurgeon that specialized in children, and was needed to operate. Upon arriving to the hostile and seeing the child, the doctor froze, saying, "I can’t operate on this boy, he is my son."
See any thing that doesn’t add up, yet?
We all raised our hands, and said that the father already died, so how could the father be operating on the child? It didn’t make sense!
The teacher then explained that we were wrong, that was an illogical conclusion to come to that the father died so the doctor couldn’t say that. The easy, logical answer is that the neurosurgeon was a woman, and that she was the mother of the child. We are socially programmed to believe certain things about men and about women, as soon as we heard golf, neurosurgeon, etc; we assumed that the doctor must be a man. This began a discussion about the socially constructed nature of gender and what we are taught to believe about men and women in society.
Dan Jubelirer is a 2010 Netroots Fellow at Amplify, a youth-driven community dedicated to promoting sexual health and reproductive justice.