I was going to write up something today about International Men’s Day, the me-too what-about-the-menz holiday that’s so meaningless that even Men’s Rights activists can barely remember to celebrate it. Do we really need a day to “celebrate [the] achievements and contributions” of men? Don’t we get quite a lot of that already? Do we need a day given over to “highlighting the discrimination against [men]” as if this is really a thing?
But then I discovered that today was also World Toilet Day, and realized it was probably more worthwhile to promote this event, as the lack of toilets and proper sanitation — a widespread problem in parts of the developing world, particularly in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa — can have devastating public health consequences.
Some disturbing facts, from the UN, which I clipped from this CNN story:
- 2.5 billion people — one in three people in the world — do not have a toilet or access to sustainable sanitation
- Diarrheal diseases are the second most common cause of death in young children in developing countries
- They kill more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined
Learn more at the official website. Also, Al Jazeera has a useful infographic.
And just a note to the MRAs who have somehow concluded from this post that I am comparing men or men’s issues to toilets (!?), let me try to make my point very clear: I am contrasting a sharply focused activist campaign aimed at a very real problem — lack of toilets and proper sanitation in large parts of the developing world — with large consequences — disease and death, of adults and children alike — with a badly thought out International Men’s Day that seems largely driven by jealousy that “women get a day so why can’t we have one too.”
How halfassed is International Men’s Day? Here’s a screenshot of the International Men’s Day website’s “resources” page.
Generally speaking, you would expect a “resources” page to list facts and figures and possibly link to relevant other groups. All you get at the International Men’s Day site are some posters made from stock photos.
What I found on the site’s “about” page was much more troubling. The site was put online by a group called the Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation, working with the founder of International Men’s Day, Dr Jerome Teelucksingh. The Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation, as I discovered with a bit of Googling, turns out to be a virulently homophobic and transphobic organization that is also behind a site called Gendermatters.com. A quasi-manifesto on the site titled 21 Reasons Why Gender Matters asserts, among other things, that:
Transsexuality signals a deceptively fierce disorder. Elective castration, mastectomy, hysterectomy, etc., are futile non-solutions. The cruel, permanent disfigurement of so-called gender reassignment is not the answer. Transsexuals need psychological and spiritual insight that frees them to celebrate the chromosomes they received at conception.
So, yeah, a halfassed men’s “day” that’s associated with transphobic assholes. Not exactly a winning combination.
Look, if you’re concerned about making a difference in the lives of men, pick the issue that matters most to you, and work on that. If you want to increase funding for prostate cancer research, work on that. If you want to raise money to help male victims of domestic violence, work on that. Actually do the hard work of activism. Don’t just have yourself a “day” and pretend that it means something.
EDIT: Rewrote part of the first paragraph and added all the stuff after the Al Jazeera link to clarify the point of this post, because clearly some people have missed the point entirely.
those are some interesting facts about toilets, David. Thanks for posting! 😀
Toilets > MRAs.
Someone had to say it!
I’m sure Joe1 will come along to remind us of this Very Special Day. The shitfit he threw last year when I said every day was Men’s Day was adorable.
Toilets are way more useful and important than MRAs.
This is a more important cause. Sanitation for all!
hellkell – it’d be just like MRAs not to get the difference between “world toilet day” and “throw a shitfit day”.
The adult person on the poster is a woman too! Do you think only women and children deserve toilets? Mysogony! (That counts as mysogony, right? That plus the whole “ignoring men’s day” is like double mysogony!!!)
As a feminist, I don’t necessarily see any problem with an International Men’s Day. Firstly, International Men’s Day was definitely not invented by MRAs in the Roosh/AVfM/Spearhead/Rope-of-Holy-Yoghurt sense. Secondly, MRAs are so marginalised, far from the mainstream and filled with crackpots that it doesn’t have to be tarred with their despicable misogynistic brush: the vast majority of people wouldn’t associate it with them even the teeniest bit with the internet nutcases. Thirdly (as no-one here needs pointing out to them) social issues faced by men don’t preclude those faced by women. If done right, I think it could be a positive thing, though I know that’s asking a lot of humanity.
I dunno, Hry; International Men’s Day sounds like International White People’s Day to me.
Except white people have literally zero ways in which they have it worse. Men do disproportionately face a few serious issues, like suicide and homelessness, and it’s a mistake to not address these in a mainstream, public manner (which I think a Men’s Day could do, if done right), because otherwise you give batshit internet MRA woman-haters a few real issues to hide their extreme misogyny and bile behind – which they do.
Most importantly, I think a well-envisioned Men’s Day would shy away from any hint of claiming victimhood for males: something which some of the themes of the International Men’s Days have done, but others haven’t.
That’s the thing: I don’t see any sort of Men’s Day not turning into a simultaneous claiming of victimhood for being male and chest-beating about how wonderful “traditional,” toxic masculinity is, with a side order of “why don’t women appreciate their rightful masters more”.
And that’s before any MRAs get hold of it.
So… Over on r/mr, one of the misters blamed feminists for the fact that IMD is on the same day as World Toilet Day. Because feminism is behind everything.
OMG you have to read this r/mr thread; I am practically pissing myself laughing:
http://www.np.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1qzqah/international_mens_day_as_recognized_by_the_un/
Thanks for posting this 🙂 Also some of us with proper sanitation are apparently doing our best to wreck it… http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/bus-sized-blob-of-fat-found-in-u-k-sewer-1.1399231
Boy, Ashtone is pretty mad about this. Good work, feminism!
And here was the original post he commented in, before he made a separate thread:
http://np.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1qyw0n/happy_international_mens_day/cdi2fed
So much laughage.
Poor little Ashtone, how tragic. All he can see is a men = shit message, not things like billions of people not having sanitation, and the huge number of deaths as a result.
Way to go, whineydude.
They are not getting them sitting toilets right?
You are meant to squat, not squatting gives you a load of bowl disease problems later on.
Only in them countries the city people of slav and mongaloid countries do not die and are more healthy while the poor squat on shit/dirty ground.
What they need is squatting toilets and more of a clean place overall.
I also assume the poor do not have wiping stuff for their ass.
We seem to have some kind of toilet troll in the thread.
We do indeed.
Granted squatting is supposed to be better than sitting, but how does one explain all the people who sit and don’t have bowel disease or problems?
And “Slave and Mongoloid countries”? WTF?
mitsuko golberg – Even latrines would be better than just shitting on the ground, which is what happens in many of these countries. That and shitting upstream of the one water resource for a certain village, which is why dysentery exists.
Also, WOW. How privileged do you have to be to think that saving thousands if not millions of people from dying of diseases preventable through proper sanitation is less important than sating your own disproportionately large egos?
That being said, although it is true that sitting toilets have a higher risk of hemorrhoids, you could, I don’t know, have a stool to put your legs on when using a sitting toilet?
There’s one group I know of that digs latrines in India; proper latrines places far away from a water source help cut down cases of dysentery and other preventable illnesses.
[TMI warning]
No one is meant to squat. That doesn’t make any sense.
To my knowledge, it’s true that squatting is a healthy defecation position; it makes it easier to empty out more feces, and that’s good for your colon. (I may be wrong, though.) However, the risk of bowel diseases later on in life is far, far less significant than that of the risks associated with a lack of access to sitting toilets. And squatting doesn’t do anything to protect people from the various diseases and illness that people can get due to a lack of access to such toilets.
Hry: Obviously I’m in favor of finding solutions to those kinds of problems, but a day dedicated to men isn’t going to be much help. First, days are mostly good for awareness of marginalized groups–not just their problems, but also their accomplishments and the fact that they do, in fact, exist even though they’re not usually portrayed by the media. But everyone already knows that men exist. And second, a day just called “men’s day” doesn’t actually direct people towards the actual problems; people’s automatic associations aren’t going to be homelessness and suicide, but Masculine Stuff, so if you’re looking to work against problems caused by hypermasculinity, a day for men is not a good way to do it.
Ally – yes, living long enough to worry about any illnesses in later life would be a bonus, wouldn’t it?
I’d also ask what people who can’t squat are supposed to do if it’s so preferable. I know squatting would be out for me, my knees aren’t up to it, and anyone less mobile still would be in trouble. Somehow standing up to take a dump doesn’t appeal …
I quite like that the toilet troll has a brown avatar.