Sharply juxtaposing last week’s anti-abortion shenanigans, Ally Day brought an inviting atmosphere to campus Wednesday. Meant to honor allies of the LGBT community, the event took place next to the metal wolf statues near Turlington Residence Hall.

Allies, of course, refers to non-LGBT people who support equality for everyone regardless of gender expression or sexuality.

N.C. State’s Ally Day is not the only one, as Meredith College recently hosted the event as well. And Ally Week is celebrated nationwide. 

Surely Ben Stockdale and Chad Berwick, the student hosts of the event, had all the best intentions for N.C. State’s Ally Day, as it helped spread the notion that anyone can support equality. But it would have been more beneficial toward the fight for equality had they hosted something more along the lines of an LGBT Day.

Dedicating a day to those who support basic human liberties is a bit like paying homage to the white abolitionists during Black History Month. It detracts attention from actual victims of real oppression and shifts the conversation from their plights to a glorification of the already glorified.

That’s not to say no good came of this or even that the event was bad. It’s just that Ally Day doesn’t do much beyond making heroism out of common decency.

But Ally Day is not the only shallow activism trend these days. There seems to be a rise in the idea that “Real men don’t rape,” and “Real men don’t hit women.”

It’s easy to see the good intention in these messages, which appear to manipulate the ideals of masculinity so that men avoid abusing women out of fear they might be viewed as less of a man. 

This campaign, however, fails to address the actual societal problems behind sexual and domestic abuse. In fact, it distances even further society from addressing the issue, as men do rape and hit women.

It is real men who are committing these atrocities. Saying “real men don’t rape” allows us to imagine a non-existent group of men who sneak around, preying on women. 

Men who rape and beat women are not strangers. They are friends and family. Saying “Real men don’t hit women” is nothing more than willful ignorance.

When Mozilla Firefox appointed Brendan Eich as the (now former) CEO, it was quickly revealed that he has donated large sums of money to anti-gay movements and holds personal prejudices against homosexual people.

OkCupid, an online dating site, retaliated. Programmers rigged the site to display a message to its Firefox users, urging them to download a different Internet browser.

“We’ve devoted the last ten years to bringing people—all people—together,” the message said. “If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8 percent of the relationships we’ve worked so hard to bring about would be illegal.”

There is no denying the benevolence of the action. However, whoever wrote the message emphasized “all people,” which should include those who identify as a gender other than “man” or “woman.”

Thanks to Facebook’s recently updated gender settings, which include 52 different options, the general public has become more knowledgeable of non-binary gender identities.

For whatever reason, OkCupid has not caught on. Its site does not allow for registering as anything other than man or woman.

It’s nothing short of harmful for a dating site to exclude non-binary people from its definition of “all people.”

Yes, we all have our flaws. People behind activist campaigns will never be perfect. And pointing out these flaws helps society make such progressive strides.