Ron Lindsay did a post on the Women in Secularism conference last week, reminding anyone who needed reminding that it’s not just for women.
I doubt any of the speakers want a passive audience. They want an audience that will listen attentively, but who will also engage them with questions and challenges. Moreover, there will be ample opportunity for discussion not only with the speakers but also with one’s fellow attendees. This conference will be a great learning experience—for both men and women.
I do! I want a passive audience! I want people who will just sit there and nod agreement the whole time.
Just kidding.
Ben Radford (in a comment) expanded on the idea that women’s rights aren’t just for women.
What, exactly, are “women’s concerns”? I’ve never understood that. Usually people offer examples like child care, the right to an abortion, the right to equal pay, domestic violence, rape, and those sort of issues as “women’s concerns,” which I think is unfortunate and misguided. These are HUMAN concerns, and equally important to men; the characterization of these as “women’s concerns,” it seems to me, only serves to marginalize these important issues. It’s like saying that gay marriage is a “gay issue,” when it’s really a human rights issue. I can understand why people use the phrase as shorthand for a diverse group of social issues, but it always strikes me as somewhat sexist…
That’s a mix of categories. I think child care should decidedly not be a “women’s concern,” on the grounds that children have fathers as well as mothers. I think treating child care as a “women’s concern” just plays into the social custom by which mothers have all or nearly all the responsibility for child care, and that concern for women’s rights requires constant reminder that the responsibility can and should be shared.
But all the other items are specific to women. (Cue MRAs crying that men are raped too and the victims of domestic violence too.) In that sense it’s reasonable to call them women’s concerns, and it doesn’t imply that they’re women’s concerns to the exclusion of being human concerns and men’s concerns. But the rape of a woman, for instance, happens first of all to the woman who is raped. I don’t think it’s sexist to be clear about that.