Women's Issues

In my post about Breast Cancer Awareness Month I briefly alluded to my annoyance with the idea of "women's issues."  However, I centered my discussion on "women's health."  For the sake of completeness, I will finish my thought about "women's issues."

In generally, the problem I have with "women's issues" is the assumption that women or their bodies are the core of the concern.  Take rape, for example.  It is a "women's issue" because it affects women. See, women find themselves in this unfortunate circumstance of having bodies that are so irresistibly tempting that people can't help but violate them.

Why isn't rape a "men's issue."  Most rapes involve men.  And men generally cause rape.  Isn't it slightly concerning that so many men are prone to acts of violence against women?  Why do we not see it as some sort of pathology infecting the male population, and try to stage interventions or develop cures for this mental/moral debility? (I'm not saying that is the "right" way to look at things of course, just noting the significance that it is never discussed in those terms.)  Instead, we choose to treat it as a "women's issue" and focus on what women wear and where they go at night.

The real problem for women of all classes and colors, and for everyone who is oppressed, is an exploitative capitalist system that depends on a variety of structural inequalities.  Therefore, everything that is typically labeled a "women's issue" I would consider a structural characteristic.  "Women's issues" are not problems specific to women, they are conditions that are endemic to our social system.