A few months ago, I was in a room full of students, talking about gender. A man was talking on the subject as if he didn’t have a right to do so, because he was a “cis, white, straight man.” I said that he didn’t have to apologise for that. The room laughed at me – they thought that he did.

It’s this kind of experience that has led me to have some sympathy for the new ‘meninist’ movement and today’s ‘International Men’s Day’. At one point in my life, I did feel anger towards men, due to some unpleasant experiences that I and some of my friends had been through. But after I became a Christian, and I turned it around and looked at it from a man’s point of view, I could see that some of the things I’d done ‘to men’ could cause them to get pretty angry with all women, if they so wished. Jesus’ instruction to consider the log in my own eye before I start picking at the speck in another, burned within me. The attitude many people have towards men seemed grossly unfair. In the same way that we should not blame all Muslims for crimes done by some Muslims, of course it’s ridiculous to blame all men for the actions of certain men.

I am worried that the modern language of ‘privilege’ and identity politics causes us to see one another as enemies, to mistrust and belittle those who we perceive to have an easier time in society. Yet we know nothing of that person’s struggle and we should not judge. One “cis, white, straight, male” may have had an incredibly painful life – he could have been abused, raped, attacked, isolated – by the hands of men or women. Does that make his pain any different from people with other gender and sexual identities who experience the same horrors? Even if he had ‘structural privilege’, you could hardly argue that he was ‘privileged’. His pain is the same as a woman’s pain in the same situation. I’m against the mistreatment of men as much as I am against the mistreatment of women. The idea that he should be allowed less to say on a subject than I do, is quite offensive to me. Yet that seems to be the belief held by some who use identity politics.

Some would argue, no doubt with good intentions, that gender inequality is one of the biggest problems in society, and that it can only be addressed by fighting the structures that create it. But this is a very Marxist way of looking at things. Jesus seemed to have a much simpler way that was kind and humble. Martin Luther King fought hard for black civil rights, but he did so in a way that seemed more winsome and inclusive, rather than shouting down the white people who were oppressing him (and they were openly harming him with violence and prejudice). The response of non-violence that King taught comes straight from Jesus Christ – and it involves more than just a lack of physical violence, but our language and attitude.

I’m less inclined to see inequality of gender as the issue, but the age-old problems of sin: greed, pride, hatred, anger, jealousy… that can be committed by a person of any gender. And the victims can be of any gender. Men are actually more likely to be victims of violence than women – and a significant proportion of ‘women’s issues’ such as domestic violence and rape are also experienced by men. Let’s not divide and rule, but reconcile and listen, and seek healing wherever it’s needed.