Next week on November 19th, people around the world will celebrate the 23rd annual International Men’s Day, causing feminists everywhere to groan and roll their eyes.
It’s 2022 — it’s pretty clear the importance of gender equality and anti-discrimination. Is it even appropriate to have an International Men’s Day anymore? Surprisingly, yes, and it’s for reasons of true equality. Although many feminists object to having a whole day dedicated to the empowerment of men — since when do men need help gaining power? — International Men’s Day marks an opportunity for women to promote true egalitarianism. If the feminist agenda is to extend beyond promoting female dominance to promoting true equity between the sexes, feminists should be the first to take up the cause.
Recent academic performance rates is just one way in which boys and men are slipping behind their female counterparts. Across the world, girls consistently outperform boys at school. Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, commented that due to the extent of girls’ lead over boys “one wonders if they just might be cleverer.” The director may have received brownie points for promoting women here, but imagine the outcry if this were reversed, and prominent academics were still speculating that boys possessed an inherent intellectual superiority. The trouble is that men and boys have become an acceptable punch bag because societal narratives still depict them as unfairly advantaged.
While centuries of societal structures, norms, and biology have typically advantaged males, not all men are at the top of the food chain. It is not just in academic achievement where this is the case. Over 55 percent of undergraduates are female, with white working class boys the least likely of all demographics to go to university. Academic success aside, men are overwhelming represented in some of the most harrowing outcomes and heart-breaking situations: 84 per cent of rough sleepers – male, 75 per cent of all suicides – male, 66 per cent of alcohol related deaths – male, 95 per cent of industrial accidents – male. Men are at a higher risk of most types of cancer, as well as being likely to die 3.9 years earlier than women. Being male does not necessarily bring an inherent advantage in every area of life.
Women — especially those invested in promoting equality — should care about these statistics. After all, it’s said that 135 people are affected to some degree by every person lost to suicide — men and women alike. Issues that disproportionately affect men, whether that be suicide, imprisonment, alcohol related deaths, or rough sleeping, affect us all, and feminists should address it with the same fervour they take on other issues.
Perhaps if these inequalities were true of any other sector of society, it would be a more fashionable cause. The feminist agenda to liberate women from unfair societal restrictions have held a double standard over men for years. There are as many stereotypes of masculinity holding men back and rarely do we read opinions in support of healthy masculinity at play in society.
Take for example the fact that only a third of GCSE entries for art exams are boys. Think of all the creative male talent not in the pipeline because of a misguided notion that creative subjects are girly. And these stereotypes persist into adulthood: only a third of eligible fathers take parental leave. How many would benefit if more men made use of this time? While it’s easy to label masculinity as ‘toxic’, lazy generalisations about half of the population wouldn’t be acceptable if they referred to any other segment of society. True campaigners for equality should take up the cause of whoever is suffering, not just the causes in vogue.
International Men’s Day is not about men trying to claw back women’s hard-earned freedoms. Rather it’s about broadening the definition of feminism to include campaigning for equality of both sexes — not just female dominance. Feminism shouldn’t need to push men down to raise women up.
Women thrive when men also thrive. Those who call themselves feminists should be highlighting the appalling suicide rate in men, tackling stigmas around men’s mental health, and caring that boys are falling behind girls academically, not hailing it as progress. The campaign for gender equality should take up all causes — regardless of who is falling behind.
