H.H.C.
H.H.C.
Aug 25, 2017 · 1 min read

First of all — so sorry for all that you’ve had to go through. Secondly — I fear we’re doing it all wrong.

It always strikes me that people on both sides of the men’s/women’s rights war (if I can call it that) provide the same evidence of them being the group that’s “truly” aggrieved. “My life turned out genuinely horrible because of all the ways life screwed me due to the fact that I am a man/woman in a way that wouldn’t have happened if I was the opposite sex, therefore <opposite sex> must be truly privileged”.

It’s evident this crossfire is completely ineffectual. It’s pointless in my mind to debate who has it right. It’s not working. It’s an endless stalemate and is getting us nowhere, and in some ways we’re moving backwards on the opportunity to make actual progress. Perhaps it would be more productive to reframe the problem not as one side victimizing the other — which leads both groups to see themselves as victims and the other as a malevolent agent on which all ire should be trained — but for what the problem really seems to be, which is that the commonly-enforced traditional gender norms and social mores today are outdated, ill-suited for the modern world and who we want to be, and, crucially, fail both men and women in devastating ways. I think this is an easy common cause for those on both sides.

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    H.H.C.

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    H.H.C.

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