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.
titanblue, that sponge sounds yummy!
We live on mince pies and leftover pudding for days after Christmas. 😀
Never had it, auggz. I had to look up what it was. Sounds good.
Also this year I’m going to buy stollen, since I found a place that makes it well.
I’ve never eaten it, auggz.
Thank you David.
So, thanksgiving. I realized while doing another round of pre-shopping that I failed to order my home made apple pie. I will not be getting my delicious pie this year and have a sad over this.
Never had stollen, but it sounds like panettone, which I do not like. Not a fan of the fruit cake, it’s the raisins/dried fruit.
Our family downgraded from traditional Thanksgiving dinner to a Costco lasagna a few years ago. Unfortunately, it looks like it will stick.
Stollen sounds good. I just looked it up, and I’m glad they roll it in butter; for some reason it looked like it’d be quite dry. I like my fruit cakes very moist.
Stollen is a lot more moist than panettone (which I don’t like either). That and hot cross buns are my favorite seasonal pastries.
That looks like a sweet lavash! Which could be tasty.
I was thinking it looked like lavash. It would probably make tasty wraps.
There’s a traditional Scottish sweet with potatoes as a base, so I can see that.
You guys are making me hungry. DAMN IT.
That lefse looks delish! Reminds me of a good old Swiss roll, though bread not sponge, of course.
… I haven’t had a Swiss roll in ages.
Now I want Greek food, I don’t know. But my chances of finding a good Greek restaurant here in Austin…I’d have a better chance of sprouting wings and flying.
Come to Melbourne! There should be some good ones here, we’re one of the biggest Greek cities in the world (second only to Athens for years). 🙂
There was a place in Seattle called Costa’s that was legit. I could really go for some of their skordalia or agvolemono soup right now.
But I would love to go to Melbourne!
It just seems like a plane ride that would test my endurance.
It would, you’re right. It’s about eighteen hours.
For the first time in ages, my wife and I don’t have any thanksgiving-ish plans. The weekend after, though, we’re going to a role-playing game convention.
Yep! But we haven’t traditionally done brussels sprouts, now that they’re available year round frozen I expect that some people would add them in. But our family has things like tomatoes baked with onion, cheese, breadcrumb topping which isn’t a common feature of the Brit xmas meal afaik. And I presume the fresh apricots and cherries adorning the table are not a feature of the mid-winter northern hemisphere either.
Several years ago mum and my sister and I, the family elders now, suggested that we might do a more Aussie Xmas. Cold lunch of prawns, maybe lobster depending on the prices, and salads. Roars of outrage from the two older sisters of the next generation. Said roars were a bit muted because one was living in Alice Springs at the time and the other was in London. We went ahead regardless.
As kittehs pointed out, there are no guarantees that Xmas Day will be sunny, let alone hot. So it turned out to be a cool, rainy day. The “told you so” phone calls that day are now part of family lore.
My favorite bit of family lore since moving to the US was when my MIL bought a Thanksgiving turkey and didn’t realize it was going to be frozen rather than fresh. So, she sent Mr C to pick it up on the day, he gives the name, they hand him the bag, he takes it back to her, and she screams and yells about how he must have picked up the wrong order and what was he thinking and so on. And then we found the ad she ordered from and yep, it clearly stated the turkey would be frozen.
And then we had to try to defrost the damn thing so we could cook it. Good times. MIL still insists that none of this was her fault, somehow.
LOL at those phone calls, mildlymagnificent!
Mum and I tend to manage the will-it-be-hot-or-cold thing by having hot or cold chook. This’ll be the first Christmas for a few years when my sister and BiL won’t be here (they moved back to Queensland) so I suspect we’ll just buy a cooked chook if it’s going to be a hot day, or just do drumsticks as a usual Sunday dinner if it’s cool.
We have turkey cooked on a Weber kettle grill (which is delicious), my mother’s stuffing, my mashed potatoes, someone else’s green beans, my sister’s gravy (which is made with tons of port), and then tons of pies.
I am not even going back to read the rest of this thread. I think it would fry my last brain cell.