Austria’s new Women’s Minister made international headlines in October largely because the minister happens to be a man. Herbert Haupt was in the news again in February after he announced he would create a men’s division of the women’s ministry.
Haupt told reporters that women’s liberation movements had ended sexism against women in Austria and now it was men that were discriminated against. Haupt said that the men’s division would produce studies of mens-related issues.
Feminists were quick to fire back, with Social Democrat Martina Ludwig saying that, “instead of balancing out his deficits, he choose to swap women’s affairs for male affairs” and Green Member of Parliament Madelein Petrovic calling Haupt’s announcement “chauvinistic whining.”
The far right party that controls Austria is bad for both men and women, but it’s kind of amusing to see feminists get hot when somebody throws their own rhetoric back in their faces. Rather than pushing for departments and special rules that alternatively benefit one sex or the other, free thinking people should push for general principled rules that treat men and women equally.
Source:
Austria minister of women to fight for men. Jon Henley, The Guardian (UK), February 27, 2001.