As an American observer of British politics, I’m curious about what British political spats tell us about gender politics in the West.
Tory member of Parliament Philip Davies stands accused of misogyny after saying that “feminist zealots really do want women to have their cake and eat it.” Davies believes that family courts are biased against fathers and that feminists support this inequality.
A month earlier a conservative member of Parliament also made headlines. Andrea Leadsom said, “most of us don’t employ men as nannies, most of us don’t. Now you can call that sexist, I call that cautious and very sensible when you look at the stats. …We know paedophiles are attracted to working with children.”
In both cases there were calls to sack the the offending politician. But while Leadsom also received support from the mainstream media, Davies hasn’t. And while Leadsom has been criticized for her “enormous lack of judgement,” the mainstream media has refrained from charges of misandry or even sexism.
Leadsom and Davies both took what could arguably be valid points, discarded nuance, and directly targeted an entire demographic.
Leadsom could have said something like, “Most parents won’t employ male nannies. I understand that they’re concerned about potential pedophiles. But I’m careful not to label half the human race.”
Davies may have been better off saying something like, “Shared custody is only granted in a minority of cases, and some feminist groups have opposed changing the law to a presumption of shared parenting. The dictionary says feminism is about equality. But shared parenting, by definition, is equality.”
At most, five percent of men may be pedophiles. While the percentage of women who may be pedophiles is unknown (but assumed to be far less), it’s much easier for predatory women to go unsuspected.
And the question of whether courts are biased against fathers is complex and worth debating. The notion of anti-father court bias, however, is often dismissed with claims that fathers don’t do enough to fight for custody. It’s not unlike the argument that the wage gap isn’t due to discrimination against women but instead is because of women’s choices. These arguments are dismissive because they ignore the social context. And having the resources to fight discrimination is a huge barrier for many people.
I think it’s important to distinguish equality as a principle from women’s self-interest as a motivation. Mostly the two overlap. But not always. For example, some say anti-male sexism doesn’t exist because sexism is power plus prejudice. But this ignores the fact that prejudice is the larger issue. And while prejudice without power has less potential for harm, Western women today have notable power – particularly in schools where women mold the next generation, and the political ear some political parties lend to women’s issues while men’s issues are not on any major party’s radar.
And we have inconsistent standards for what counts as hatred. Even though “zealot” is an unfair characterization, it’s not hateful for a politician to criticize feminists who don’t support what he describes as equality for fathers. More so, expanding the word misogyny to include criticizing someone’s opinion has the effect of trivializing the issue of hatred toward women.
Meanwhile, implying that any man might be a potential pedophile, or saying “I bathe in male tears” and passive-aggressively calling irony, is not considered sexist, much less hateful.
We need a consistent way to talk about gender bias. All genders must be held to the same standard. And we must distinguish actual hatred from the ingroup biases we all have, the ignorance everyone has from not understanding other people’s life experiences, and the uncritical acceptance of common stereotypes.
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