To fight for justice for one is to fight for justice for all.

I wanted to scream at the DJ.

“Why do those teachers want better health insurance? They have better coverage than I do!”

I wanted to scream because he stated the point and missed it completely.

Yes, their old health insurance was better than his. That means he should have been pissed at his employers/insurance company, not at those who were fighting for better.

You see this sort of thing all the time. Like this image I ran across on imgur. The text reads:

You'd be surprised at how many times a man sits in his CAR, on his BED, in the BATHROOM, in the living room and holds in his tears because he's deadass stressed or lost or confused or hurt or ready to give up...But when he shows his face again he looks perfectly fine, unbothered, and he still manages to smile and go about his business like nothing happened... MEN are some of the most resilient, overlooked, and in the mind [sic] underappreciated to go through so much...

You’d be surprised at how many times a man sits in his CAR, on his BED, in the BATHROOM, in the living room and holds in his tears because he’s deadass stressed or lost or confused or hurt or ready to give up…But when he shows his face again he looks perfectly fine, unbothered, and he still manages to smile and go about his business like nothing happened… MEN are some of the most resilient, overlooked, and in the mind [sic] underappreciated to go through so much…

This, too, both completely gets and misses the point.

Yes, men suffer a bunch of ill effects from societal demands. And those take a social, mental, and physical toll on men.

And that is the fault of the patriarchy.

You know, the thing that feminists want to dismantle.

But instead of saying “Wow, this patriarchy thing really screws men up too”, you see “meninists” post things like the above, or about how when men are victims of rape or domestic violence it’s reported even less than it is when women are victims (true)…

…and instead of wanting to change that system, they just keep insisting that everyone else needs to suffer too.

Maybe, just maybe, when we see that people fighting against a system – economic, social, or otherwise – to get justice and fairness, we should stop insisting they have the same difficulties we do. Maybe we should join their fight for fairness and justice.

For both them and us.

To fight for justice for one is to fight for justice for all.

In case you’re wondering, yes, you should apply this logic to the way you approach Black Lives Matter as well. I mean, the Black Panthers did.

Featured Photo by Nicolas Jossi on Unsplash

To fight for justice for one is to fight for justice for all.