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.
It’s because they don’t actually want equality, they want to maintain the status quo which is a power imbalance in favour of men.
A “minister for men” plays in to the false idea that men and women are equal and therefore a having only a “minister for women” is “unfair”.
A “minister for gender equality” (so essentially what we have now, since the full job title is “minister for women and equalities”) would still rely on acknowledging that there is gender inequality, and that doesn’t feed in to the victim fantasy those who are fighting for this bullshit are trying to satisfy.