Why must we qualify discussions about inequality?

  Any time we attempt to talk about inequality and injustice, there are always people who feel the need to pipe up in defense of the oppressor. When we attempt to talk about women's rights, the inequality of women, and the injustices committed against women every day, there is inevitably the legion of people - both male and female, surprisingly - who always feel compelled to insert the usual qualifiers about men and their equal sufferings.

  Know that when we talk about inequality and injustice, it is of course understood that all kinds of people have suffered, that all kinds of people do suffer, and that suffering because of inequality and injustice, in general, is considered intolerable. That being said, when we talk about the sufferings of women, for example, while we are aware of the existence of the sufferings of men, that suffering is not what the conversation is about, and it is in no way relevant to the discussion. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says, this conversation is not about the suffering of men, it is about the suffering of women. For the record, this discussion applies to all forms of injustice and inequality as well.

  We should be able to have conversations about particular groups of people who have endured considerably heightened levels of injustice, and who live with the consequences of inequality every day. We should be able to have a discussion about social injustice without having to qualify it by mentioning the sufferings of those who committed the injustice. We should be able to say that every woman deals with sexual harassment on some level, and that we're finding out that it is frighteningly common for women to be sexually abused as well. We should be able to talk about how scary that is, without someone saying, "Well, men have been sexually harassed and abused too".

  Yes, they have. But while men suffer these same abuses, women suffer them at nauseatingly higher rates, and it is unlikely that men, as an entire group, experience an intrinsic culture of fear as incidental to their biology. Men do not carry the imperative within themselves from adolescence. They do not internalize fear of abuse as logically valid: I am a woman, therefore, I am afraid of rape. For most men, rape is not a real threat, but for every woman, it is. 

This is something we need to talk about. This is important. How can the majority of the population of the planet be suffering harassment, abuses, and violence, and it's still considered a non-issue? Women have become a special interest group. There are major changes that need to be made to the way we think and function, as a society and as individuals, toward women. If we can't even have a conversation about the problem in the first place, how will we ever be able to make those changes? 

  Feeling the need to qualify a discussion of injustice and inequality, with a defense of those causing the injustice, is a product of a social mentality that systematically removes accountability from men. It is a system that trains men, and women, to justify abusive behavior, to place blame with the victim, or with society, but never with men. 

  As Jackson Katz says, "We talk about how many women were raped last year, not about how many men raped women. So you can see how the use of the passive voice has a political effect. It shifts the focus off men and boys, and onto girls and women. Even the term 'violence against women' is problematic. It's a passive construction; there's no active agent in the sentence. It's a bad thing that happens to women, but when you look at the term 'violence against women', nobody is doing it to them. It just happens to them, men aren't even a part of it!".

  In the same way, our discussions about violence against women are colored by the instinct to write off the victim, and to defend the victimizer. We feel attention must be paid to the sufferings of men, in a conversation about the sufferings of women, even though society has rarely been concerned with providing the same voice to the plight of women. We think maybe there are ways women have deserved this kind of treatment. It's almost as if we feel women don't have the right to talk about the injustices and inequalities we have suffered. There's a kind of Stockholm Syndrome running through our subconscious. We wouldn't want to rock the boat; to be one of those awfully unattractive women who are always bashing men. We aren't feminists or anything, but...

  I am not trying to raise a call against men, but rather to raise a call within them, and within women too. Perhaps we did not create this society, but we are still members of it, and we have the power to change the ways in which it has been bent and distorted to control us. Things are not okay. Inequality and injustice abound, and I for one, am tired of allowing it. We can make the choice to examine our social constructs, to learn from them, to change them. We can work to end injustice and inequality, but first, we must be able to discuss it.