This Friday two discussions started on Dutch Facebook pages.

On J/M voor Ouders there was an article about a woman who withdrew her daughter from a child care centre because a man came working there.

The reactions were a tsunami of criticism. Virtually everyone pointed out how discriminating this was. Many contributors, especially women, said that men were priceless in these jobs because of the special features they brought in. Even people who reacted with slogans like ‘follow your feelings’ hardly got any support. If these ‘feelings’ meant distrusting men who didn’t deserve that, they were simply no good.

The same day a discussion started on Metro Holland. Research had pointed out that more and more men think lately men have a tougher time than women. Some well-known male commentators had said there was a point in that. One even said that the idea of many women that they didn’t need men anymore bore the risk of a massive reaction of rancorous men in it. (I wouldn’t call that especially a men-friendly comment, but some feminists thought it bad enough.)

After initially all the men concerned were bashed, a real discussion about all sorts of subjects started.

That a society in which men and women admitted eachothers contribution and the need for eachother is healthier. That men have always contributed to society by performing heavy tasks. That men and women are different and therefore sometimes choose voluntarily to divide tasks in a certain way. That that doesn’t mean exceptions to any rule are forbidden. That ‘independent’ women often are still dependent on male taxpayers for their lifestyle.

Not all reactions, from both sides, were sensible or polite. Maybe not more than half of them. But for a discussion on Facebook with no real admins, that is still quite high. All kinds of information could be given, including links to relevant articles and videos, without massively being ridiculed.

Sometimes there grew even something like a dialogue. Sometimes I would find it too ‘nuanced’ if it would have been said on this sub. But here I welcomed it maybe more than the naked truth, for making this necessary dialogue possible.

And, very important: the defending of men and their issues seldom or never had the flavour of a ‘turn to the right’ about it. Neither was it just done by men, quite a few women brought in reasonable points.

As a whole, I wouldn’t have thought a discussion like this possible yet. At the same time, I realised already for a while sooner or later it was bound to happen, without real inbetween steps. But I feared it would be later rather than sooner.

PS is this a contradiction with my pessimism about the MRM a few days ago? Not really. Society is just slowly entering a new paradigm with less room for men-bashing, just because people are fed up with that. The MRM has contributed little to that, though they’ve done their very best, and arguments in favour of men stem more from common sense than from any MRM research or actions. Still, the main point is IF men-bashing is going to stop, not how.