Leader: What about the men?
By NS staff writer Published 08 March 2012
Has feminism left men behind? The Blue Labour thinker Jonathan Rutherford is concerned that the loss of old certainties has left many men - particularly among the young working class - feeling alienated. The pillars that "supported traditional masculine identities have collapsed", he writes on page 28. "The male solidarity that was the backbone of the labour movement has gone. So has the family wage and, increasingly, men can no longer follow their fathers and grandfathers in the role of family breadwinner." He is right to raise these concerns. Yet the struggle for equal rights is not a zero-sum game; although feminists could do more to talk about the problems particular to men, they are not to blame for them.
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2 comments
If there is anything good to come out of the financial crisis it's the fact that the era of giving young men their dole money and telling them to get lost is coming to an end.
Women have made gains in recent years and this is mainly thanks to the women's movement (and the support of some men) and I like the old feminist slogan, "What benefits women benefits us all" but there are still masive female/male inequalities in pay, in politics, in the boardroom etc etc. Yet you could argue amongst women it is m class women who have benefitted the most and feminism was led mainly by m class women - just look at Labour MPs and perhaps it is w class women and w class men who have been pushed to the back of the queue. Blue Labour (The New Labour 'Cling Ons') may be asking the wrong question - should be: What about w class women and men? But I have a solution, as well as 50;50 female/male representaion in politics, boardrooms, universities etc etc perhaps we need a 30 hour working week (without loss of pay and this would also create millions of jobs for young people) and people would have more time to actually live and enjoy life and with this time women and men may have the opportunity to find themselves. Perhaps we need a new slogan, "What benefits the w class benefits us all." Perhaps also for a truly Progressive Labour we also need more w class socialist male and female MPs.