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.
katz, do you know how painful it is snorting cheese through one’s nose?
I assume zie meant Slavic, but I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.
Many of those the deaths of men and boys, of course. But not the kind of men and boys that the MRM cares about.
I think the people behind (heh…) World Toilet Day should be mad that a bunch of whiny MRAs are now associated with their day!
Also, somehow this post dehumanizes men by literally turning them into toilets. Or something.
@Bad_Dog: holy shit. o_O
Soooo…..a day which brings awareness to a health issue concerning men is comparable to toilets because men aren’t human worthy of consideration?
I didn’t know men’s lives were valued so poorly…thank you for showing the world how equality is done.
augzilliary – Basically, it’s a sanitation issue. Toilets require indoor plumbing, which means that feces don’t end up in the water supply. That’s why toilets are important: because it means that people aren’t drinking poop in their H2O.
cloudiah – LOLOLOL
No, MRAs, we’re not saying that you’re toilets. We’re saying that every single day is Men’s Day, and that sanitation is a much bigger deal.
My mother’s baby sister died of dysentery during World War II. She was 11 months old. And this was in Germany, where clean water was at a premium, especially in refugee camps. My mom’s family fled Serbia when the Russians invaded in ’44.
Toilet trolls with weird racial/nationalistic ideas about sanitation can bite my ass.
auggz – “slave” was my typo, not Toilet Troll’s.
Of course we’re not saying MRAs are toilets. Toilets are extremely important and help keep large populations healthy.
Pun intended?
No. You don’t need indoor plumbing connected to septic tanks or centralised sewage processing facilities for effective sanitation.
Latrines, the traditional “long-drop” toilets in Australian country areas, even composting/ worm farm/ reed-bed systems and other natural-based processing – all of these serve the purpose of keeping human waste away from all water supplies until its negative components have been neutralised or reprocessed into harmless compounds.
Rick, no, a badly thought out “men’s day” that doesn’t really promote much of anything seems to me less worthwhile than a day devoted to an actual worldwide public health issue that literally affects billions of people and causes babies to die. Also, I’m not sure you realize this, but roughly half of all of those affected by the lack of toilets and proper sanitation are, you know, male. World Toilet Day does far more for men and boys than the MR movement does.
Well, sure, but is Rick likely to be one of them? Because if not, I’m pretty sure it’s not a real men’s issue.
They are really mad about this World Toilet Day thing.
@David, I think the reason they’re mad about World Toilet Day is because it helps women and girls too. Which makes it bad.
Rick, please cry more, I need to make eye cream.
Aren’t dudebro tears too heavy on the bitter salts to use for that?
They’ll do in a pinch if there’s no foreskins handy. The trick is to let them age.
When I was in Afghanistan some years ago, I stayed with a family who had lost half their children to dysentery before the age of two, and considered that an unremarkable but tragic occurrence. I don’t expect things have changed much.
Public sanitation has done more than any drug to reduce the spread of infectious disease, so I lift my glass in salute of Toilet Day.
mildlymagnificent – You’re right. I’m used to sanitation systems. >_<
La Strega, that is just so heartbreaking.
@katz: yes, that was intended as a pun.
So a men’s center actually opened in Canada (I forgot where cuz I just skimmed the article in the National Post) those CAFE MRAs managed to get donations.
Will it legitimately help men fleeing from abuse or who are feeling suicidal? I hope so. But given the track record of what happens when a bunch of dudes feeling victimized by women/feminism come together online, it leaves me skeptical of it being any better when they come together offline.
In the r/MR thread about it, from last i saw, 2 MRAs said radfems will soon firebomb it. Yeah…sorry guys. It wasn’t us who’s websites host manifestos to firebomb places we don’t like, nor do we routinely use violent rhetoric. That would be your territory.