White history month. Herero pride. Intl men's day.

[roarfeckingroarr]

I absolutely understand why we don't have a white history month or a heterosexual pride month. Power imbalances, (sometimes, sometimes current) historical discrimination, lack of awareness etc.

So why TF do we celebrate International Men's Day? Just why?

It's not that men's health doesn't matter, but following the logic above, just why do they get a special day when they have every bloody other day too?

Because men decided?
Or
Men's suicide rate is much higher than women's?

It's a wonderful gotcha. Since so many men come out of the woodwork on women's day complaining that poor men don't have a day. But they do 🤣

What do you mean by 'celebrate'?

Is it to raise awareness of e.g suicide?

I think it's to highlight issues that men experience more than women.

Example men's health issues such as prostate cancer, depression, suicide etc.

Also social issues such as violence, incarceration, committing crimes and underachievement in education.

I know exactly what you're saying though!

I've never heard of an international men's day until just now.

I guess it's just something like international chocolate day, i.e. nothing worth getting too excited about. Very different from a hypothetical white history month.

It celebrates the positive value men bring to the world, their families and communities. It’s a bit sad if you’re so hateful of men that you don’t think there should be a day for them too if there’s one for women. How exactly is it that they have every other day too?

My company makes a thing out of it, as well as IWD, which is why it's on my mind.

IMD isn't specifically about mens mental health though is it? That's just what the focus tends to be in recent years.

And if it's to celebrate men and their role - well there are many wonderful things done by white people throughout history, as there are aspects of heterosexuality that could perhaps be highlighted? I don't know; the point is, we celebrate and raise the voices of minorities / unrepresented people, so why TF do men get a day?

No "hatred" - just illogical to me when they're the ones in power and historically / currently the oppressors,Depending on your views.

I have not the time to explain the patriarchy, structural power imbalances that favour men and why feminism matters very much in modern times.

In the past a lot of these days were meant to highlight issues important to the group concerned. Men as a group have a number of concerns particular to them. They are, for example, far more likely to be victims of violence, they have illnesses that are specific to them, they tend to die more often in industrial accidents, they are less likely to go to university, etc.

Though I have a lot of doubts about whether most of these days or observances are useful anyway. Morgan Freeman had some forthright observations about having a black history month and not a white history month, for example.

I mean - not everything is about power hierarchies, either. Power hierarchies don't stop men getting prostate cancer.

Straight white people in Britain (like me) don't suffer any disadvantages from being straight and white.

Men do suffer some disadvantages from being men, some simply from being male sex (eg prostate cancer) and some from the gender norms that go with it (eg social pressure to be "strong" leading to increased levels of mental illness). It's not to say that men are worse off than women, only that they have issues which are specific to them and worthy of attention.

I'm a fan if only for Mr Richard Herring's work. On IWD all he does is tweet about IMD.

And in 30 years of non-profit and caring work, I see more men because I've working in prisons, shelters, treatment and they are stuffed with men. I'm.a Flemish and men suffer from the toxic patriarchy too.

Not Flemish, feminist. Really not Flemish. Although I do like chips and mayonnaise and waffles and ice cream.

Maybe I am Flemish.

This. I think men started international mens day, but (luckily) there’s only a few isolated and misguided calls for white history month, heterosexual pride, etc.

@LuciaPopp that's a good point well made

As usual, people talk about white male power as if all of them had the same amount.

My great grandad was a conscript in WWI. He didn't want to go and fight. He didn't want the last time my grandad saw him to be waving him off the doorstep when he was four years old, and to spend the last days his life in a trench, terrified.

What power did he have, OP?

What power did my white, working class, factory worker ancestors have to end slavery? They were being oppressed by the same elites who owned slaves (incidentally, also my ancestors).

No all men are like that - and neither are all white people, all straight people etc. Let's face it, the vast majority of us have never and will never have the kind of power or influence to oppress people. The one percent and religious zealots have been fucking us all over for centuries.

Including the majority of white men.

IMD is a valuable tool for feminism. As well as shutting down the "but what about the men" arguments it recognises the negative effect of the patriarchy on men.

Things like toxic masculinity, men's mental health, men as carers, men in gender non-conforming roles etc.

Increasing awareness and acceptance helps women as well as men.

My workplace normally have IMD events and they are very positive and helpful. We have a couple of men who are the main caregivers at home who do great work talking about how schools refuse to talk to them, about incorrect assumptions, about exclusion from parent and child groups, about lack of baby changing facilities for men to use etc.

Then also men's mental health and physical health, male reluctance to seek medical attention etc.

They also speak about shared parental leave and men who go part time after having children (we have a couple of very senior men who dropped a day for child care).

Just as a side note, I read before that while men commit suicide more than women, women actually attempt it more. I don't know how reliable the data is but if it's the case, it makes the whole situation even sadder than it already is.

Inconclusive.

Men are more likely to choose violent and successful methods of suicide - cliffs, guns etc.

Whereas women choose pills - suicides that are gentler, take longer, and that you can be rescued from.

The problem being that it's then very hard to disambiguate the data of what was suicide and what was a cry for help. But the data does show that for both sexes, even small interventions can make a big difference. Raising a barrier on a ledge, making people walk from one shop to the next to get enough pills. Talking to someone briefly to lift you from the gloom - and for the last one, women are probably more likely to be the recipient. Even if it is just some idiot telling them to smile.

@thecatsthecats

You're mixing up individuals' circumstances with the power/lack of power of their group.

Your point would be valid if your great grandad had been conscripted because he was white, and there was a policy not to conscript people of other races. But that wasn't the case. He didn't face discrimination only as a result of being white.

He did of course lack power in other respects: class, age (the rich old men who started the war weren't out there fighting it) and you could argue sex.

The point is that e.g black people (or gay people, or women) face particular kinds of discrimination that white people (or straight people, or men) don't face. That's not to say that all white people (or men, or straight people) have massive amounts of power, or aren't hard done by.

Even if it is just some idiot telling them to smile.

Neatly replacing sadness with white hot rage.

You're mixing up individuals' circumstances with the power/lack of power of their group.

That really depends on what groups you happen to draw lines around. Just like what questions you ask in science, or historical study, the answer you get depends on the question and your questions often depend on your underlying assumptions.

Trying to rank power in terms of whatever modern identity groups are popularly discussed, or any other groupings for that matter, is often going to be impossible. Even if you pick 5, there are too many complications and contradiction, and we all belong to a lot more than five.

And usually, quite deliberately, it is the strategy of the powerful to set those intersections against one another. To get people hating and blaming people who had no influence over their own circumstances, instead of blaming those actually responsible.

My emphasis wasn't a misunderstanding, it was a fundamental disagreement with the principles of privilege-based judgement.

If women have a day why shouldn't men?

You Missed out beer. So you are a Flemish imposter.😂