More seriously this time:

[shirenomad]

There were some flyers up this past week on campus for a "Women's Law" event. My first instinct, on seeing those words as the headline, was that I would be unwelcome if I attended. It's for women. I am not a woman.

The event, upon closer investigation of the flyer, was about sexual assault law. Which is just as important for men. Some men (hopefully no one on campus) assault. Some men are even assaulted. Men are sometimes the one prosecuting or defending the assaulters, or sitting in judgment over them on the bench. And it's unlikely that men will ever drop below 50% of the legislators that could improve the law on the subject. In short, it's something men have an influence on and need to hear about. Why would you want to label such an important and universal topic with an exclusive label? Why would you dismiss, even subconsciously, 50% of the population from learning more on the subject? They could have led with "Law of Sexual Assault." Or "How Our Law Fails to Prevent Sexual Assault" if they wanted to be challenging. They didn't. Why?

It's for reasons like these that I want to strike this category of terms from the English language: "Feminist." "Gay Rights." "Black Pride." All of these name a specific group, and the instinctive reaction is that the members of that group are the only ones who are welcome to contribute their voice to the cause. We have groups for all of them on campus; am I going to sign up for any of them? No. Am I going to attend any of their events? If they lead their advertisements with the group name instead of the topic, very unlikely. I'll grant that the groups also serve the social purpose of letting people with similar social upbringings meet and network -- especially true for the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish orgs who can debate the more personal issue of how their faith will influence their career. But when it comes to subjects and causes that everyone should be thinking about, why be exclusive?

I'm for Equality. I'm for Equal Justice. I'm for Human Rights, Sentient Pride. Give me a group for that. Don't isolate yourself from me. Don't talk like your particular brand of equality can somehow be divided off from the others, or that only you can appreciate it. What's important is that everyone treat everyone with respect.

Comments

[zerodotjander.livejournal.com]

While in theory I agree with you, I don't think it's very practical. It is very difficult for people in a majority to understand how people in a minority feel about discrimination, especially racism. There was actually an episode of South Park that dealt with this issue really well - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Apologies_to_Jesse_Jackson.

Discrimination encompasses much more than the overt such as the usage of slurs or open hatred. Much more important and insidious is the male Anglo-Saxon ethnocentrism of America as a whole.

While the message of total equality for all and a color blind fight against racism sounds good, what it really does is homogenize the issue. The anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, anti-racism vs blacks, and anti-racism against other races are all separate issues with their own history and specific issues. As long as the basic culture of this country remains as racist as it is, you can't homogenize these issues, because the individual grievances of each group are very real and cannot be dismissed.

[shirenomad]

I can appreciate the "you can't understand our pain" argument. However, when you use it to divide the issues outright, what it starts meaning is "you can't HELP." Or even "we don't WANT your help."

[zerodotjander.livejournal.com]

Certainly, but the issue at hand is fighting against a specific type of discrimination, not discrimination as a whole, because the issues are too disparate at this time to merge like that.

As with most things in life, there is no easy solution.

[shirenomad]

Is there any specific form of discrimination that cannot be countered on the basic principle that everyone, everywhere, has the same rights and should be treated the same as any other?

If there is, please explain the exceptions. If there isn't, please explain how dividing our efforts to approach each discrimination separately is more effective than a concentrated effort to teach the above principle.

[chime.livejournal.com]

Teaching the principle of equality is excellent and if it works it will solve the problems with each type, but this approach alone is insufficient. It's not enough to just urge people to think of everyone equally. People need to be educated on what true equality means in each situation. The current state of being is that different types of minorities face different challenges. If everyone born after the year N magically believes what is actually good and right (which is an extremely tall order for any value of N in the near future), there are still a bunch of people alive now who will face some sort of badness as a result of people who don't already believe in equality (or on some occasions, from those who do, but who unknowingly act in a way that doesn't further equality.) These issues are different for different groups, and although there is a great deal of interconnection (which is why you'll often see, for example, anti-racism discussion in a feminist forum), there are some issues inherently related to one particular aspect of minority. For example, if you're pregnant and have to deal with any of the myriad issues springing off of pregnancy, it's because you're female, not because you're black or because you're a lesbian or what have you. (I'd be pretty impressed if someone can come up with a story about someone who is pregnant because they are a lesbian...)

[zerodotjander.livejournal.com]

This, precisely.