The solution to sexism isn't sexism. There's a bizarre belief in some darker corners of feminism that if a group is disadvantaged, you want to address that by a

The solution to sexism isn't sexism. There's a bizarre belief in some darker corners of feminism that if a group is disadvantaged, you want to address that by advantaging them in other ways, rather than by pushing for equality. There are times for that, but that's the exception, not the rule. 1) It perpetuates or changes the problem, but it doesn't fix it. It's not too dissimilar from gender relations in Islam or Mormonism, where you try to compensate from giving men power by placing women on a pedestal, and giving them protections. It's not effective. 2) It makes a lot of potential allies into enemies too. I'm pretty convinced Trump beat Clinton because of divorced dads, and some particularly sexist comments she made. Divorced dads make up a big portion of the electorate, are a disadvantaged population, and have private support groups. They hated Trumps sexism and racism, but hated Clinton's sexism too, and won't vote against their own interests. I'll mention many of those same dads supported Warren in the primary, who is a far more effective feminist than Clinton (actually, a far more effective everything), in part because she's a feminist and NOT a sexist, where Clinton was a sexist but not much of a feminist. I can see the case for things like affirmative action, where there is no other solution, but in this case, the point could have been made just as well, if not better, if the articles didn't talk about husbands and wives but used neutral language. If you make it gendered, you get into a gender/race/ethnicity war. If you make it neutral, everyone gets behind you, but the same change comes out the other end. Actually, usually a better change, since it treats people as equal individuals, and removes a systemic barrier that disproportionately impacts some, rather than as stereotypes. Footnotes: * Many state laws are named in gendered terms as well. VAWA in abstract applies to both genders, but doesn't in practice. It perpetuates the stereotype that violence against men is uncommon. It turns out that physical abuse is similar in both directions. There's a perception that it's a 99/1 split, but it's more like a 60/40 split. Women are somewhat more likely to be seriously injured, due to size/strength differences, but even that's not as extreme as made out. A knife, bat, or frying pan overcomes a lot of those differences. In most cases (in both directions) the partner doesn't fight back. The studies to look at are broad surveys (researcher calls thousands of people, and asks structured questions). * There are studies on police response too. In the best study I saw, literally zero domestic violence calls placed by men led to resolution, and in 12% of cases, the male victim was arrested themselves. Women didn't have a perfect success rate, but it was far better.