As a younger man I knew of a politician (family friend) that was part of a minor Australian political party. His party was small, but he was an excellent politician—so good that a major party tried to poach him, an offer he turned down in a conversation like this:
“Why say no? You’re party’s small, it doesn’t have enough support… you’ll never win.”
His reply? “I’m not here to win, I’m here to keep the b*stards honest.”
The b*stards he was referring to were the two major political parties, that without fail, at least one of them won each election.
The problem with having two major parties is that it forces a tone of ‘us’ vs ‘them’, with anyone voting required to align themselves against an ‘other’. That’s acceptable if you’re looking to win an election—but when representing equality, if a side wins, the pendulum merely swings in favour of new inequality, and humanity loses.
When I speak to my friends about equality issues, the majority of the feminist contingent argue that women are still oppressed; therefore we cannot have an even handed discussion on equality until women’s issues are resolved.
Sociology teaches us that society is a constantly evolving construct. Nothing is ever finished, it is not possible to resolve all women’s issues; new ones WILL rise as we resolve old ones. If we put discussing men’s issues on hold until women’s issues are resolved, we are putting them on hold for eternity.
Men’s Right Activists (MRAs) argue that men’s issues are being ignored and that feminism is only interested in gender equality when it ends in female advantage, for example, feminism is not fighting to end the male-only military draft in the name of ‘gender equality’.*
I say that if feminists are pursuing equality issues only when it is to their gender advantage, then clearly there was an area they were disadvantaged and therefore needed to pursue. It makes more sense to me that rather than complain about it, perhaps the Men’s Rights Movement would be better served by some real leadership in order to do the same for men?
Regardless, if everyone pursues equality from the perspective of ‘sides’ it is counterproductive to the equality objective and if a majority picks only one side we create new inequality.
Humanity has two sexes, one planet and no way (or desire) to permanently separate themselves while continuing the species—
If humanity actually succeeded at converting everyone into opposing gender teams, it would result in our extinction.
It is critical that men and women have lobby groups to make governments aware of imbalance, to ensure the creation of equal law and opportunity. Unfortunately, lobby groups can only realistically represent one side, as each group is required to promote self-interest. That doesn’t mean the rest of us have to follow suit.
Wouldn’t humanity be better served by a third voice, an unbiased other group on neither side that kept the b*stards honest?
A million years of history has taught us that only one voice speaking loudly skews conversation—this is the crux of the patriarchy argument. I have no interest in repeating history and two voices speaking as loudly as each other only results in gridlock.
Based on the current oppositional tone of gender debate I’d argue that humanity is on trial and if we can’t change the tone we need to at least adhere to the system attached to trials. There’s a reason why in a court of law there is a defense (MRM) and a prosecution (Feminism), but their positions are useless without a judge (Government) AND a jury. In a global debate on equality, I’m interested in signing up for jury duty and if you’re Equality Agnostic, so are you.
A judge passes sentence, but a jury decides verdict after hearing argument and evidence from two sides. Since court’s been in session for around 50 years, isn’t it about time we formed an unbiased jury?
*During the Vietnam war, several prominent American feminists actually did lobby for the mandatory military draft to be applicable to both men and women – arguing that it was sexist. The pentagon responded by essentially saying civilians had no business interfering in military matters and the matter hasn’t been pursued since.