Men’s rights activists are not speaking up for men, it’s about hating women
COMEDIAN ED BYRNE IS TAKING AN HONEST LOOK AT LIFE AND ASKING IF HE HAS ANY TRAITS WORTH PASSING ON TO HIS SONS. MARION McMULLEN DISCOVERS WHY FATHERHOOD IS A LAUGHING MATTER FOR HIM
something that does give people pause as regards to how men should share the household chores.
It’s not that I feel a responsibility, I think it just feels more satisfying when you’re doing it, and it feels more satisfying when people hear it.
When a joke makes a good point, I think people enjoy it. It’s the difference between having a steak and eating a chocolate bar.
Has your comedy changed at all since you broke through in the mid-1990s?
THERE’S an attitude towards Alanis Morrisette in the opening of one early routine that I’m no longer comfortable with, where I call her a moaning cow and a whiny bint.
Slagging off the lyrics of the song is fine, but there’s a tone in the
preamble I wouldn’t write today.
There has been a lot of talk about gender politics recently. What is your view of the matter?
I’LL admit that there are things where men get a raw deal. We have higher suicide rates and tend not to do well in divorces, but representation in action movies is not something we have an issue with. It was Mad Max: Fury Road that kicked it all off, although nobody complained about Ripley in Alien or Sarah Connor in Terminator 2. Of course, social media means this stuff gets broadcast far and wide in an instant, which emboldens people.
Is it a sensitive subject?
THE problem with men’s rights activists is that it’s not about speaking up for men’s rights, it’s about hating women. If you’re a men’s rights activist, you’re not going to care about the fact that there’s an all-female Ghostbusters remake. That’s nothing to do with men’s rights or female entitlement. That’s everything to do with being, well, a whiny p**s baby.