Thursday, January 10, 2008

"The oppression of men" - I do not know if I should laugh or if I should cry...

I just love Claes Borgström (the former Equal Opportunities Ombudsman) for keeping on arguing Women's rights and keeping on saying such obvious, but yet so important stuff, about feminism and the need for and vision about equality.

I just do not like Pär Ström that recently wrote the book "Mansförtryck och kvinnovälde" (The Power of Women and the Oppression of Men). He seriously claim that feminism has gone to far and that it is now the men that are oppressed.

I do not know wether to laugh or cry. The guy is basing his ideas on the fact that women most of the time get custody when parents have a dispute in court, and on the fact that most Swedish men are automatically drafted to the army when women are not, and finally on the fact that there are women that beat up their men and are not taken seriously.

I feel sorry for the guy. He first of all has no clue what feminism is, or that there is not one feminsim, but loads of different views, and that the only common factor is the recognition of inequality between men and women.

And he doesn't realize that most feminists actually are fighting for men to be more involved in parenting. And that the one's that are pro-army actually want both women and men to be drafted.

And he obviously is not intelligent enough to see that the fact that a few men are beaten up my their partners does not take away the seriousness in the huge amount of women being beaten up and sexually abused by men. And he does not realize that most feminists would love to get rid of those gender roles that are a part of why men are not taken seriously when being abused by a woman.

The guy is not very intelligent obviously. And still he gets lots of space in media, and Lennart Ekdahl (a TV host) tonight on TV seemed to agree with Mr. Ström. Obviously I do not like Lennart Ekdahl either - not after tonight.

Although I should not be surprised. These kind of ideas always get space in media. And as Birgitta Olsson (a politician fighting a lot for equality) put it: We only need to look at history, When women got the right to vote people were saying that feminism had gone to far. When women started having paid jobs instead of being house wives people said the same. Male chauvinists have and will always be around.

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