On International Men’s Day
When I was a child I asked my dad on Father’s day “Why isn’t there a children’s day?” he replied “Every day of the year is children’s day.”
When I decided today that I wanted to write about International Men’s Day this is the memory that came back to me. It encapsulates a lot of the conflicting emotions I felt as I scrolled through post after post of depressing statistics (all in blue, of course) and images of whiteboards telling me I don’t need to “man up”. It doesn’t feel like much of a celebration.
Every year when International Men’s Day comes around, I feel a strange twisting of rage, confusion and frustration in my stomach. Of course there should be an International Men’s Day, there’s one for women after all and men make up half the population, but why does it feel so different to other celebrations similar to it? I think the best way I can explain it is an analogy. Say you are walking down the street and you see an England flag hanging out the window of a house. In a different England, in another universe, you might perceive this as a harmless sign of national pride. However, in this England, in this universe, an England flag hanging out of a window takes on a completely different and more sinister meaning.
Likewise, instead of being an important and productive day to talk about issues affecting men, International Men’s Day feels more like a chance for “proper lads” to come out of their football-themed closet and tell everyone how hard it is to be a man. And that’s not to say it isn’t hard. It is easier than being a woman, That’s an undeniable fact. We live under a system built to benefit men by oppressing women, but just because it’s easier doesn’t mean it’s easy. Being a straight white man myself (or as I prefer to be called a “wielder of all three pieces of the triforce”) I can tell you, rather disappointing, that my life isn’t a cake walk just because of my penis, lack of melanin and desire to hump women. There are so many pressures and centuries old social expectations thrust onto men that it can be miserable (the number of suicides speaks for itself). But International Men’s Day isn’t actually about helping men. Ironically, it’s about women.
That may seem like a ridiculous claim, but I am of the opinion that International Men’s Day, as it currently exists, is a pathetically misguided attempt by men to compete with women for who has the tougher life. Just as the All Lives Matter movement distracts from the important Black Lives Matter movement, International Men’s Day distracts from important issues facing other groups. This would be fine of course if it actually did anything, men are just as deserving of help as anyone else, but it doesn’t.
Women’s movements continue to make progress and improve the lives of women, just this year the period tax that classed items used by women on their period as luxury and subject to 5% tax was abolished by the UK government, a landmark victory for women’s rights and a battle that’s been going on for over 50 years. Meanwhile issues that tend to effect men more, such as suicide and homelessness, have increased drastically in the last two years, with male suicide reaching a 20 year high in 2019 which will surely be topped by the end of this year. And all we’ve got to help us through these tough times as men is some lame message about not needing to “man up” and an infographic telling us how we are 3.4X more likely to be imprisoned than a woman who committed the same crime as us. Great, I feel so much better.
I have an unfortunate suspicion that there is a reason those numbers of suicides and homeless people never seem to go down, and why International Men’s Day does nothing practical to help them. It’s because it’s easier if they don’t go down. Because if they did and we might have to start actually acknowledging the problems other people face instead of defaulting back to telling people how hard our lives are whenever the conversation gets uncomfortable. This all just proves that International Men’s Day is less about helping men and more about continuing a never-ending dick swinging contest over which gender has it worst. A dick swinging contest which, if it doesn’t end, will halt humanity’s progress towards true gender equality forever.
I think in principle International Men’s Day should exist. However, the twisted homunculus of suicide statistics and male shame that it is currently is terrible and counter-productive in it’s overall goal of improving the lives of men and boys everywhere. Furthermore, the myth it perpetuates that men are somehow oppressed in modern day society is comical and embarrassing
There is a certain irony about the perceived divide between feminism and masculism (the ideology that International Men’s Day would fall under) in that they both share the same goal of equality between genders (although I should stress masculism often used as a guise of respectability by people who just hate women). And in sharing that goal they also share the common enemy of the patriarchy. The patriarchal society we live under that oppresses women is also the same society that makes men feel like shit and forces them onto the streets or to suicide. Just because men invented it doesn’t mean we should defend it. The patriarchy, or any system that puts one group of people above another, is the fundamental enemy of humanity.
So, to those of you who smugly shared your International Men’s Day post on your story, and think that feminism means hating men. Realise that you and that girl with the spilt-dyed hair, that you pretend to hate but actually sort of fancy but you don’t know how to confront those feelings because you know she’ll never love you back…
You both want the same thing, and you are both fighting the same enemy.
