Reflection on “Meeting the enemy A feminist comes to terms with the Men’s Rights movement” by Cassie Jaye
In the TEDx talk “Meeting the enemy A feminist comes to terms with the Men’s Rights movement” Cassie Jaye explores how our interpretation of the feminist movement often ignores the other side of the picture: Men’s rights. She explains it by using her own story of being a feminist who used to think men’s rights being the opposite of the feminist movement. She narrates on her journey of interviewing men’s rights activists, admitting she was biased and aimed to expose them as being against the rights of women. But, on the careful and critical analysis of these interviews, she felt that these activists weren’t against women’s rights but merely trying to raise awareness of important issues faced by men. She highlights some of these issues such as higher suicide rates among men, men are being involved and more affected by men, a higher proportion of men being homeless, men finding it harder to get custody of their children etc.
I believe her talk is very open, sincere and taught provoking. She is successful in highlighting that we all have biases and how we often approach new ideas or issues with a biased mind and instantly stereotype them. Instead, she encourages us to critically analyze the ideas by considering our biases and thinking in the shoes of people on the opposite side. She encourages us to have an open mind and be equally inclusive. Although she is very successful in bringing out and highlighting her idea, I believe she was a little biased to prove her point. I think she missed highlighting the proportions of issues faced by men and women, that women proportionately face more issues than men. But, I think it was intentional because her aim wasn’t to highlight which issues matter more but to encourage us to remove our bias and be aware of the fact that men too face critical issues. Her talk reminds us that gender inequality is incomplete without including both men’s and women’s issues into the discussion.
References
Jaye, Cassie., Meeting the enemy A feminist comes to terms with the Men’s Rights movement. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WMuzhQXJoY&ab_channel=TEDxTalks
Written with help ofStackEdit.