General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: ‘Men’s rights’ group claims free self-defense classes for women are sexist [View all]rrneck
(17,671 posts)under the auspices of the city of Glendale. No doubt public interest is greater for one gender than the other. That disparity might come from a lot of sources: the idea that men are universally aggressive, disparity of venue availability, more community outreach may be required to get women interested and no doubt others that don't occur to me at the moment up to and including the usual culture war stuff.
I agree that men suffer more instances of violence than women and while rape is a terrible thing to experience comparing terrible violent experiences gets us nowhere. But I also think that absolute parity is a red herring. If it's MRA's raising a stink about it I'm not likely to worry much. From what I've seen of that crowd they can go pound sand.
The rate of violence suffered by men has fallen precipitously to almost that of women. I doubt there will be much interest in funding classes for men. This is a political response to a cultural issue and in this case I say "meh". If it gets people to consider the value of taking control of their personal safety the benefits will outweigh the liabilities.