Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnny313 | Hacker News Reader

This comes off like an attempt to turn a set of perceived slights into an issue of discrimination. "Men's rights" groups mostly seem to be a reaction against attempts to address institutionalized misogyny. Why is it hard to acknowledge that society has been and still is biased in favor of white men? (disclaimer: I am a white man)

View on HN

I find this sort of reply irritating. Feminists rightly point out that the fact that female discrimination is far worse elsewhere in the world does not somehow diminish our obligation to address female discrimination here.

So the only way your objection carries any weight is if men (even white men) are not discriminated against at all, ever, at any level of our society. Do you actually believe that to be the case? If so, then I suggest you do some reading.

If not, then we have just as much an obligation to address challenges that men uniquely face as we have to women for the same.

I don't think trying to eliminate policies that discriminate against men is denying that men have privileges. Simply because one group suffers from discrimination more than another shouldn't be a justification to turn around and discriminate the latter. I am Hispanic myself, and I would cringe just as hard at a "Latinx only" sign as I would a "Whites only" one.

You make a fair point. I don't mean to imply discrimination is appropriate in any context, just that groups in power can sometimes frame threats to their privilege as examples of discrimination as a way to resist change [0].

[0] In the Name of Equal Rights: “Special” Rights and the Politics of Resentment in Post–Civil Rights America https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-5893....

But this is clearly not even remotely the case in this story. All of the defendants covered in the story had explicitly discriminatory policies. What motivated you to write that groups seeking to eliminate inequalities that harm men "mostly seem to be a reaction against attempts to address institutionalized misogyny" in response to this story? Why did you feel this was remotely relevant to bring up in response to explicit discrimination?

Ultimately I think a lot of the hostility towards men's rights is counterproductive for people that want gender equality. This hostility had made a lot of people believe that feminism only purports to strive for equality and in reality only strives to advance the interests of women, often at the expense of men (as opposed to the real definition of feminism, which is gender equality for all).

Your logic is "white men have some privileges, therefore white men have absolutely no prejudice against them and absolutely no problems in society". This is sexist, racist, bad logic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com