As per the title of this blog site, my posts are usually oriented towards matters regarding the U.S.and Judaism. However, I'm taking a side trip here to review an opinion column from a newspaper in the Philippines, as the topic is a problem that Americans face as well .
As a supporter of gender equality , I find it disturbing when feminists hijack issues that affect both women and men and in doing so, paint women as almost exclusive sufferers of such concerns as though males who experience the same hardships don't exist.
An example is Columnist Rina Jimenez-David of the "Philippine Daily Inquirer" who resorts to this distortion to try to justify her perspective about the status of woman as victim. In her June 20 Opinion piece ''Standing without permission'' which discusses the Philippone government crackdown against loiterers (known in the Philippines as tambays, (which is Tagalog term adapted from the English phrase ''stand by''), she said that this action is anti--woman just because a relatively few number of people caught up in the controversial police sweep of suspected loiterers were female prostitutes. But in fact the overwhelming majority of those arrested as tambays were men.
Then in her July 03 column ''Gender factor in suicide'' Jimenez-David relates the phenomenon of the worldwide increase in suicides among young women ages 15-19. However, the source that she references, the World Health Organization, also reports that the global suicide rate for teens overall is rising. Presumably that includes males as well. But Jimenez-David focuses only the greater percentage of adolescent and young adult females who take their own lives as though that statistic makes them more ''victim-worthy'' than their male counterparts. Yet, why must the tragedy rightfully associated with suicide be framed according to gender? Let's say for the sake of argument that the suicide rate is 3 females for every 1 male. Just because fewer males die this way, does that mean that males who killed themselves are worth only 1/3 of the consideration that their female counterparts are entitled to receive?
And consider that perhaps the rate of suicide for young males is less because ''big boys don't cry''. Almost universally, males by their very sex are expected to just suck up their pain and get over it, ''and (they are told) anyway suicide is for the ''weak'''' . But of course they can't get over it. Instead they may redirect their psychological suffering outward in forms of violence against others. That in itself may be a partial explanation for the high crime rate among adolescent and young adult males. But that's just speculation on my part. However, "Philippine Star'' columnist Boo Chanco has some interesting thoughts about, ''Depression and suicide'' along with machismo, especially as how they are regarded in the Philippines.
But if we follow Jimenez-David's preference of focusing on afflictions based on gender, then shouldn't, say, alcoholism be treated as a male disease since overall, especially in countries like the Philippines, the percentage of men who are alcoholics is greater than that of women? Of course not. To the extent that this scourge negatively impacts society in general and individuals and families in particular, again not just in the Philippines but in many other parts of the world as well, it's everyone's problem.
The same is true for suicide. Accordingly then, it's pointless and one-sided for Jimenez-David to play the gender card whether it's regarding social injustice or social calamity in order to satisfy her personal agenda.
