I've read complaints that when men are abused by women, it's not treated as seriously as when women are abused by men. They complain about double standards. That doesn't really explain what's going on.
When a woman is in trouble, the socially accepted solution is for a man to help/save her. When a man is in trouble the socially accepted solution, is for him to solve the problem himself. This is why people will react so very differently depending on who does the oppressing, and whom is being oppressed.
People will laugh when a man is abused, not because they think it's okay to abuse the guy, but because they think it's absurd for him to not fight back. They will try to goad him into standing up for himself, condemn him for his weakness, and demand that he solve his own problems.
People don't laugh when a woman is abused, because what happens is exactly what they expect to happen. They expect women to just take the abuse and not fight back. They expect men to abuse. It's not funny, because everything is exactly how they believe things are supposed to be.
It's not that men and women are held to different standards, it's that there's one standard being applied to everything: Men are in charge. It's not Feminism refusing to help the men. It's the Patriarchy refusing to.
No comments:
Post a Comment