When someone says "you can't be sexist towards a man", what they are really suggesting is that individual experience is irrelevant to larger political interests. That's a troubling mindset, writes Claire Lehmann.

Identity politics, particularly gender politics, has become so pervasive in some quarters it is almost a substitute for religion. And like religion, it seems to anesthetise some of the critical faculties of its most ardent followers.

This week Amy Stockwell of Mamamia argued that there's no such thing as reverse sexism. She said:

You can't be sexist towards a man. Sexism towards men (or reverse-sexism) simply does not exist.

She went on to say that one "might be cruel to a man", or one "might be insensitive", but that even if one were:

... This doesn't mean men are missing out - they are just competing fairly with everyone else in a way that they haven't had to in the past. That's a good thing. It's a sign that things are slowly edging towards equality. It means that we're heading towards a place where both men and women share power. It means we're starting to end discrimination against women - and that's good for everyone.

"That's a good thing" refers to men being treated cruelly or insensitively. That's a good thing that people are treated badly.

Before we look at the merits of Stockwell's philosophy, we first need to understand the context from which the statements sprang. She launched her argument after an incident in which the sports reporter Mel McLaughlin offered to buy cricketer Mark Waugh a drink during a live TV interview.

For some, this incident was an example of delicious irony. On January 4, some two weeks prior, the Jamaican cricketer Chris Gayle asked McLaughlin out for a drink while being interviewed on live TV: "So hopefully we can win this game and we can have a drink after," he said, which was then followed with the infamous, "Don't blush, baby."



These two remarks, which were broadcast on live TV, made Gayle an instant candidate for a public flogging. And flogged he was. First he was declared to be "inappropriate" (the catchcry of hand-wringers who can't bring themselves to say that something was actually "bad" or immoral). Then he was fined $10,000. His comments were then tied to domestic violence in The Age, and over at the ABC Religion & Ethics website, Melinda Tankard Reist even linked the comments to underage sexual activity.

After the mushroom cloud of outrage subsided, some commentators came to Gayle's defence. The defence was not that Gayle's behaviour was acceptable - it wasn't. But that the response was disproportionate.

One could easily interpret the act of McLaughlin asking Waugh out for a drink as an inside joke referencing the whole debacle, shared between herself and the cricket community. McLaughlin appeared to be making light of herself and her role, sending a subtle, but unmistakable message to the army of hand-wringers: I can look after myself.

But back to questions of gender politics. One of the best things about the rights movements of the twentieth century (second wave feminism, civil rights, gay rights) was the celebration of the individual. Under the umbrella of liberalism, it didn't matter if you were straight or gay, man or woman, black or white.

We all deserved equal treatment under the law, and equal opportunity to exercise our talents, simply by virtue of our shared humanity.

Within liberalism - of the classical kind - individualism triumphs over group identity. This simple yet powerful idea was what Martin Luther King was getting at when he said that what really mattered was the content of a person's character, not the colour of their skin.

The Left was once a proponent of individualism in the '60s and '70s. It celebrated self-determination, and freedom from oppressive, outdated social orthodoxies. However, a leftie today is more likely to enforce social orthodoxy than question it.

When Stockwell says "you can't be sexist towards a man" what she is really suggesting is that individual experience is irrelevant to larger political interests. A man is a member of a privileged group in society, women are not, a man's feelings are irrelevant, case closed.

And even if a woman feels as though she is not actually oppressed, and even if a man feels as though he is, these feelings, or internal experiences, simply do not matter. The woman in question may be suffering from "internalised misogyny"; the man in question simply has "victim-envy". The political goals of feminism have been mapped out, and pesky characters with all their individual differences and feelings need to step out of the way.

Stockwell does not even consider that the perspective of Waugh - who some were claiming was the victim of sexism - could be important to her argument. Likewise, many who were baying for Gayle's metaphoric lynching also appeared uninterested in McLaughlin's thoughts or feelings on the matter. This is despite a clear articulation early on that she had accepted Gayle's apology, and that she thought it was time to move on.

Yet the problem with modern gender politics goes far beyond dismissals of Mel McLaughlin or Mark Waugh's subjective experiences. Ultimately this approach - the undermining of individual difference and personal sovereignty in the hope of achieving political ends - is counter-productive.

It becomes sexist in its mission to fight sexism. It creates stereotypes in order to fight stereotypes. It becomes exactly what it professes to hate. It essentialises and reduces individual adults to mere pawns in a larger political game.

Claire Lehmann is a freelance writer and editor of Quillette Magazine. Follow her on Twitter: @clairlemon.