March 8th is International
Women’s Day. Twenty-four hours (of the 8,760 annually available) set aside to
celebrate women and all of their achievements. And people are furious about it!
Surely you could only be cross about that because that isn’t enough time to
celebrate the achievements of 50% of the population. But no.
On Twitter at least, every March
8 thousands of men (and the occasional woman) tweet something along the lines
of: ‘International Women’s Day? So when’s International Men’s Day?’
This churlish response is
supposed to make us consider the massive inequality and sexism of there being a
whole day dedicated to women, because there’d never be a day like that to
venerate men. It wouldn’t be allowed. Because of political correctness gone
mad. You’d be laughed off the planet if you dared to suggest such a thing in
this day and age. So you can see why these anti-sexist warriors are up in arms
and so furious…
Except there is an International
Men’s Day. It’s on November 19. I hope that answers your question, guys.
I love the fact that the kind of
cheese-helmets who feel the need to question the concept of International
Women’s Day don’t even know there is already a day for men (an official
one, rather than the regular days where they get more pay and power and
privilege). I love it when people try to manufacture an injustice out of a
position of clear superiority.
It’s all so transparently self-centred.
It’s the impulse that drives your kids on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day to whine:
‘When will there be a Children’s Day?’ Though at least the children have the
excuse of being children and thus naturally self-obsessed and unable to spot
that the world pretty much revolves around them already.
But delightfully (and to keep
this analogy spot on) there actually is an International Children’s Day. It’s
on June 1. That won’t assuage your complaining spawn, of course. Because like
the grown-up children questioning International Women’s Day they are actually
asking: ‘When will I get someone to wait on me and bring me breakfast in bed
and let me put my feet up and watch the telly? When will that happen? You know,
apart from every single fucking day.’
These people must be furious
every day that isn’t their own birthday. Why aren’t I getting any presents?
So for the last two International
Women’s Days I have tried to highlight this stupidity. I have got up early,
gone to Twitter and searched for the phrase “International Men’s Day”, found
every single person who has tweeted the question and responded to them all
individually, “It’s November 19th”. There are thousands to get
through, it goes on relentlessly for hours and hours, but I try to get to them
all, because to see the same moronic question asked over and over again by
people (who don’t even think just to check google to make sure they’re not
making an arse of themselves), is very funny and shows exactly why an international
women’s day is necessary.
And nobody tweets me back to say
“Oh thanks for the information. I was wondering when it was.” Almost like they
don’t want to know the answer to their own question.
My hope is that if I can spend a
day a year dealing with this issue then that means that everyone else can get
on with making International Women’s Day be about celebrating women and not complaining
about the supposed raw deal men get. But I let men know that they do have a day
if they want to celebrate themselves. Though none of them seem to when it comes
along, weirdly.
Of course on November 19th
my timeline is now full of people jokingly asking me when International Women’s
Day is and it seems only fair for me to promote women on men’s day, so I let
the know it’s March 8th.
But this year I am going to do
celebrate men as well, by helping to promote Target Ovarian Cancer who for one
day want to give a shout of gratitude to the men who support the women in their
lives who are affected by this disease.
Every year 7,000 women
are diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and 4,300 lose their lives. So this International Men’s Day, Target
Ovarian Cancer are highlighting that ‘Men Matter’ too and saying thank you to
those husbands, fathers, brothers, partners and friends who have also been
affected by ovarian cancer.
And I am fully expecting
to have to deal with a bunch of idiots asking when’s Women’s Ovarian Cancer
Day? Because those blinkers really work well and block out all sense of irony
or shame!
Well don't worry, World Ovarian Cancer Day is May 8th.
People
can find more information about ovarian cancer on the Target Ovarian Cancer
website: www.targetovariancancer.org.uk
And
people can find more information on the date of International Men’s Day by
browsing through my Twitter feed on March 8th.
