Equality is not Equal to Justice: on the Issue of Confrontation in the Protection of the Rights of Women and Men

Abstract

The paper examines the scholarly experience of understanding the equality of constitutional and socioeconomic rights and obligations of citizens in Russia, elucidates approaches to the definition of men’s rights as legal and social categories, understanding and substantiating gender inequality in relation to men and women. The author has carried out a critical analysis of publications devoted to the problem of infringement of men’s rights in Russia. The author has studied the origins of the scientific formulation of the problem of discrimination against men, its manifestations in the legal field of the Russian Federation. It has been established that some researches represent men and women as rivals in the struggle for rights, determine the problem one-sidedly and unconstructively, devalue achievements in the struggle for women’s rights, contrast both the rights and duties of men and women in general and exaggerated manifestations of discrimination against men by legislatively established privileges of women. Listing the problems of discrimination against men, some authors use weak argumentation that defies criticism. The author states that posing the problem in this way is counterproductive for achieving the general well-being of the Russian population. It is argued that the problems of infringement of someone’s rights should be solved through constructive dialogue and should be aimed at achieving common goals, but not by spreading discriminatory practices to the opposite gender.