Men and sexism

Suzanne Moore ( The Second Sexism is just victim-envy , G2, 17 May) would have her readers believe that my new book "details how men, not women, are discriminated against". I specifically noted that I do not deny that women are the victims of sexism. My argument is that men also are. Nor did I claim, as she suggests, that the problem is fundamentally attributable to feminism. I argued that most forms of discrimination against men long predate feminism and thus cannot be caused by it. She also claims that I blur "the difference between disadvantage and discrimination". In fact, I specifically distinguished disadvantage from discrimination and noted that to make my argument I would need to show not merely that men are disadvantaged but that this is also the product of discrimination. David Benatar Cape Town, South Africa