So, prompted by a twitter discussion with someone annoyed with Louise Mensch* for not mentioning male rape in this (brilliant) piece about attitudes to rape from male politicians, I’m reminded yet again that it seems close to impossible to consider an issue, even one that largely affects women, without having to take care of men too.
(As an aside, I also expect that bringing male rape into this context would no doubt have had her accused of homophobia for even suggesting it happens.)
Whenever there’s a discussion about the lack of education for girls in the places where education for girls is banned or limited, why do we always hear – yes, but what about the crisis in male literacy?
And whenever there’s a discussion about rape (the vast majority of rapes being perpetrated by men against women), why do (some) men ask, but what about the rape of men?
And whenever there’s a discussion about the lack of women on stage, on tv, on screen, why does this always segue into a a question of the lack of all minorities on stage/screen/tv? When women aren’t a minority anyway. Women aren’t a minority. Women aren’t a minority. Women aren’t a minority. (If we say it often enough, it might just get noticed one day….)
And whenever there’s a discussion about class, why do we always end up talking about the effects of the class system on young men and not young women?
Why, in short, must every issue that totally or vastly or even marginally affects women ALWAYS have to also accommodate everyone else’s issues?
Why must women be the ones who have to be inclusive, to take on the burdens of all, to stand up for all?
I simply don’t see men asked to do the same.
Sometimes, it is just a little tiring to be asked to change all the world, all at once, for everyone.
Sometimes women would quite like to be allowed to have a moan/rant/protest/fight/attack/appease/re-arrange/fix/challenge/engage just for ourselves.
* yes, I do know Louise personally, through book stuff. She took me to the first Terence Higgins Trust event I’d ever been to. That’ll confound some of you.
Not Writing But Blogging 
Oh god, yes. All of that. I feel relieved just to hear someone else say it.
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Thanks for this. I often get the feeling that commentators want to “blame” women (feminism?) for male “failure.” Except it’s not failure, it’s just not being able to assume that any man, however mediocre, will be top dog. I remember in NSW in the early 1990s, when girls’ performance at HSC outstripped boys’. There was an outcry. How could this happen? An education researcher & government advisor (bless the femocrats!) came back with a blissfully revengeful line something like this: “Well, we’ll look at boys’ performance and see if they’re really disadvantaged or whether they’re just naturally not very clever. And maybe in 200 years’ time we’ll do something about it.”
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Meant to add: we’ll have true equality (if we want it) when mediocre women get to run countries.
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