Women always had different kinds of rights, like expressing themselves more with emotions and clothing and cosmetics, etc., and taking care of children. Men don't have these rights. A man working in daycare is frowned upon. A man wearing eyeshadow is frowned upon, a man sending heart ♥ emoticons in WhatsApp is frowned upon, etc. It seems fair that if women claim more rights, then men can claim some of these "soft" rights too.
I'm totally on board with people wearing whatever, it's a free country, but equating political rights with social norms is a false dichotomy.
I disagree with the headline that "the left needs to talk about it" because fundamentally we do every day. The problem is that men tense up when we talk about things like "patriarchy" and "feminism", despite every piece of literature that explains that patriarchy and traditional (toxic) masculinity are actively harmful for men too. So men aren't listening to leftist talk about these issues and need to be baby-fed them using different words.
But one begets the other, no? See also all this noise from TN and FL about crossdressing being a sex offense. People are more okay with women looking masculine than men looking feminine, and now we're seeing laws that reflect that.
Similarly, because men aren't viewed as nurturing or whatever, they're far more likely to lose custody cases in court. There's absolutely tight bindings between political rights and social norms, and similarly I think there's a lot to be learned from the contrast between men and women's distinct challenges.
I do post the growing heart and broken heart emoticons all the time on Mastodon but I can’t really talk about my gender much but I am sure people would guess it right.
> It seems fair that if women claim more rights, then men can claim some of these "soft" rights too.
So it seems the argument is that because men prevent other men from exercising their rights, women deserve to be stripped of rights? Interesting logic. If men are stopping you from exercising your rights perhaps you should listen to the folks talking about toxic masculinity -- which is exactly what you're describing -- rather than trying to punish women.
For example at my undergrad school I made fun of some gay bashers so they came after me instead of going after gay people because this was the 1990s and they probably thought if they actually bashed gays they'd get AIDS or something. Their reign of terror against me and other people like the president of the paint pellet gun club continued for a year until they finally smashed somebody in the face with a rock at point blank range from a water balloon catapult in front of tens of witnesses.
I am still sore to this day at the dean of students who made excuses instead of busting the people involved. A gay man and a lesbian women committed suicide when this was going and I blame that dean of student more than anyone because the key thing about bullying is how the whole institution rallies to the support of the bully (e.g. if the institution can't protect you from that kind of abuse it is showing you you are worthless, not just *telling you.) I heard the ringleader of that gang did time and if he got out and went "straight" and put his life together and stayed out of trouble I would want to shake his hand because I know how hard that is, but that dean of students is celebrated as a hero for all the good things he's done for that school and I think never held to account for his role in that incident. When I really think about it I felt that I belonged there much more than many places in my life but I have not given money, been to reunions, or anything like that.
Gender seems to cancel out here
also i believe that this director surely checked if other nearby schools had male staff when evaluating the feedback he got from parents before making a general claim. (because if parents complain about male staff then i'd want to know if they would be able to find any schools that didn't have male teachers.) so i do not believe that this was an isolated incident.
it is possible that this was a regional phenomenon and not indicative for the whole country, but it certainly shows that the sentiment "man working in daycare is frowned upon" is definitely a thing and not something made up nor an exaggeration of reality.
i believe the only way to counter that is to demand gender parity among teachers. children need male and female role models and gender parity or something close to it is the only way to achieve that.