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:Â 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.
Also LAURALOOOOOOTTTTTTT!!!
David, that link’s a hoot. A page with … nothing. Not even the aposrophe that should be in “men’s”.
Maroons.
Ack, apostrophe! 😀
I’m shocked there’s no International Day of Kitties, though I suspect they’re covered by World Sleep Day.
Many women are assaulted because they lack access to a safe toilet. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/19/toilets-india-women_n_4303236.html
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2011/sep/16/safe-toilets-prevent-sickness-assault
So those threads on reddit were fun–especially the guy lying about Our Host’s recent discussion on the issue of ‘forced to penetrate’ counting as rape. (He both claims that David said it shouldn’t count as sexual assault–directly the opposite of what David said, remember–AND claims that David didn’t ever change his opinion on the matter, which was ALSO the opposite of what happened.
So, MRM Reddit poster:
A: Lying douchecanoe
B: Ignorant shitweasel
C: Both
(Hint: The answer is almost always C.)
Don’t forget D: dumb as a box of rocks.
Part of me wants to vent about the Alabama cheerleader thing (rage-inducing link below–TW for MASSIVE racism against North American First Peoples.) But I think I’m going to bed, instead.
http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/alabama-high-school-trail-of-tears-sign-football-game-cheerleaders-apology-disciplined-mcadory-high-school-mccalla-111813
kittehserf: Noted. Should swap C&D, then, too, since we’re differentiating between knowledge and intellect, and this chump’s clearly failing at both.
I think Movember is a great idea but I still think that we (media, medical community, society as a whole) could still be doing more. Focusing more on men’s health issues for example; those suicide rates are really alarming, so are the rates of male-specific illnesses; homelessness generally is an issue and we really need to put more work into dealing with it, of course men would benefit greatly from that; there really do need to be domestic violence shelters for men. And those are just a few off the top of my head. BUT it needs to be a mainstream campaign, Not an MRA hate fest blaming feminists for not having done the work for them already. We don’t need to be tearing down services (as the MRAs want) we need to be building them whereever they’re needed. MRAs have shown themselves very adept at complaining but not nearly so ready to do the hard graft. The International Men’s Day website being a case in point.
freemage, as annoying as I find it when they lie and/or make up stuff about me, it does serve one useful function as a general guide to MRA credibility. Since literally most of the things they say about me are simply untrue, it really doesn’t give me much confidence that anything they say about anything or anybody has much resemblance to the truth.
Really, about the only thing they get right about me is that I’m fat. Oh, and that I like cats. So that’s two things.
So:
A: Lying douchecanoe
B: Ignorant shitweasel
C: Dumb as a box of rocks
D: All of the above
I’m liking it.
The issue is not limited to lack of toilets and proper sanitation in large parts of the developing world. Try and find a clean toilet in most cities in the so called “developed” world.
Last time I went to Glastonbury (20 odd years ago) you had to sit on a stick over a trench to take a shit. It was like that Monty Python scene in Jabberwocky. Talk about medieval.
Yesterday one of our local TV channel’s breakfast television show devoted a 1/2 hour block to international men’s day (it was basically 1/2 hour of petting the male ego, with astrology and local celebrities) and I didn’t know to laugh or cry or think this must be a really slow news day…
But then I remembered that despite the smug condescending of the hosts this is a program mostly consisting of pandering to the lowest common denominator and advertisements. It fits in their profile alright. :/
True, but people (especially children) are not dying en masse in the developed world because of the lack of sanitation.
(My last comment was replying to Warren, not Malitia, obvs!)
Just checking, I cleared the cookies a minute ago.
And we really don’t need to say out loud …
All the charm of a sticky doorknob.
Because that’s always true.
Warren, there’s a difference between icky public toilets and one Port-a-Potty for 500 people. I’m guessing that even in Glastonbury, there are toilets inside people’s houses.
If you were wondering where the previous discussion of IMD was, it was on the International Women’s Day thread here
http://manboobz.com/2012/03/08/international-womens-day-has-gotten-so-commercialized/
And @weeboy is right, the press release is from last year. There’s no 2013 press release on the media page.
Yep, Warren, comparing the plight of billions of people at risk from lethal diseases like typhoid and dysentery to the minor inconvenience of rock festival goers in the 1st world – you are such a humanitarian. Fuck off.
@Katz. Glastonbury is a music festival, there are no houses.
@titianblue. Chill out.
Trolling for fun? Almost definitely trolling for fun. Congratulations, you’ve succeeded at being a jerk and a distraction. L2 life goals though maybe.
So you went somewhere with no buildings and were surprised when there weren’t toilets? Were you also angry to discover that there wasn’t a cafe on a glacier?
In other news, the town of Glastonbury is surprised to discover they don’t exist.
OK I’ll bite. As someone who has been to many music festivals, toilets are an issue. Toilets for women are a particular issue, but god forbid I should make some false equivalence.
Toilets at outdoor events like festivals are definitely an issue. Are they an issue on the same level or in the same way as the lack of toilets in people’s living spaces that World Toilet Day is intended to address? Nope.
Feel free to carry on feeling martyred, though, just remember to give the wood back once you’re finished with your cross.
Warren, you are making a false equivalence.
Going to a music festival? You can use the loos at the stations or other public places on the way. The festival itself will have some sort of loos provided, even if they are inadequate – and that’s a matter of the festival organisers getting their act together.
Nobody at a music festival has to live like that all the time. Nobody visiting Glastonbury is likely to live in a house where they have to use a plastic bag and dump it later at home, because the only toilets in their township are too far away, or just seats by the roadside without even walls, or because the only alternative is to find a laneway at night and risk being attacked using it.
Read the link karalora1960 posted above and please stop comparing lousy facilities at an event nobody in the audience actually has to attend with the conditions people are forced to live in, which they have no power to escape, and which bring diseases that kill more people than malaria, measles and HIV/AIDS combined (did you read David’s post at all? That info’s right there).