As heart breaking images of men being involuntarily drafted proliferate across the social media universe, I’m seeing more and more finger pointing conversation around war.
The gender blaming has already begun.
“It’s men doing it to men!” I hear, in the typical reductive and meaningless retort.
“If only the men had therapy, they wouldn’t need to invade”, says those who no nothing about therapy or war.
“Well who’s sending them to war? Men!” Being yet another simplistic and noteworthy favourite.
Well such a thing is not the complete truth – because women have also played a historic role in sending men to war too.
And not just any women – many feminist leaders of the suffragette movement, such as Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel were highly influential 'white feather girls’, who would routinely shame unlisted men into joining the war, with many never returning.
But not just men, boys too, some boys as young as ten (!) were apparently given white feathers by these heroic suffragettes - dubbed as ‘cowards’ and pushed to the front of the recruitment office’s queue.
Even winners of the Victoria Cross, who literally ran into gunfire to save soldiers, had feathers pinned to their chest too.
We all know our society is broken in how it treats both women and men and we all know men and women are *both* hurt by rigid gender roles –
the real difference is where the finger is pointed.
And for war, and the men being sent to it, the finger should be pointed to everybody.
~
Source –
The Independent https://tinyurl.com/2p89u6yu
The Guardian https://tinyurl.com/333cdvbw
Illustrations by Icon Cheese of The Noun Project