Based on section 3.2 of the Reference Book of Men's Issues

If a woman doesn't feel she's ready for the responsibilities of parenthood, she has various options after the act of sex (in most of the Western world). This includes the morning-after pill, abortion, adoption, and safe-haven laws.

(Yes, we are aware that in parts of the US these rights are under attack or have been severely limited. That does not take away from the main point here.)

Men have no comparable legal rights. If you're a man in the same situation and you're not ready for the responsibilities of parenthood, you can only hope that the woman decides to take one of her options. As Karen DeCrow (previous president of the National Organization for Women) put it:

The courts have properly determined that a man should neither be able to force a woman to have an abortion nor to prevent her from having one, should she so choose. Justice therefore dictates that if a woman makes a unilateral decision to bring pregnancy to term, and the biological father does not, and cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable for 21 years of support. Or, put another way, autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice.

The New York Times article “Is Forced Fatherhood Fair?” explains the problem:

Women’s rights advocates have long struggled for motherhood to be a voluntary condition, and not one imposed by nature or culture. In places where women and girls have access to affordable and safe contraception and abortion services, and where there are programs to assist mothers in distress find foster or adoptive parents, voluntary motherhood is basically a reality. In many states, infant safe haven laws allow a birth mother to walk away from her newborn baby if she leaves it unharmed at a designated facility.

If a man accidentally conceives a child with a woman, and does not want to raise the child with her, what are his choices? Surprisingly, he has few options in the United States. He can urge her to seek an abortion, but ultimately that decision is hers to make. Should she decide to continue the pregnancy and raise the child, and should she or our government attempt to establish him as the legal father, he can be stuck with years of child support payments. [...]

The political philosopher Elizabeth Brake has argued that our policies should give men who accidentally impregnate a woman more options, and that feminists should oppose policies that make fatherhood compulsory. In a 2005 article in the Journal of Applied Philosophy she wrote, “if women’s partial responsibility for pregnancy does not obligate them to support a fetus, then men’s partial responsibility for pregnancy does not obligate them to support a resulting child.” At most, according to Brake, men should be responsible for helping with the medical expenses and other costs of a pregnancy for which they are partly responsible. [...]

Court-ordered child support does make sense, say, in the case of a divorce, when a man who is already raising a child separates from the child’s mother, and when the child’s mother retains custody of the child. In such cases, expectations of continued financial support recognize and stabilize a parent’s continued caregiving role in a child’s life. However, just as court-ordered child support does not make sense when a woman goes to a sperm bank and obtains sperm from a donor who has not agreed to father the resulting child, it does not make sense when a woman is impregnated (accidentally or possibly by her choice) from sex with a partner who has not agreed to father a child with her. In consenting to sex, neither a man nor a woman gives consent to become a parent, just as in consenting to any activity, one does not consent to yield to all the accidental outcomes that might flow from that activity.

Policies that punish men for accidental pregnancies also punish those children who must manage a lifelong relationship with an absent but legal father. These “fathers” are not “dead-beat dads” failing to live up to responsibilities they once took on — they are men who never voluntarily took on the responsibilities of fatherhood with respect to a particular child. We need to respect men’s reproductive autonomy, as Brake suggests, by providing them more options in the case of an accidental pregnancy. [...]

If we agree that men and women deserve equal rights, and have equal agency, then this is an area that urgently needs to be addressed. Trapping men into a parenthood they never wanted, and never signed up for, is cruel and unjust.

I'm still trying to get used to kbin, but it seems to me that it's doing OK. Which is a huge relief. Way back when, I tried Voat to get away from reddit, but it barely had any traffic and the traffic it did have got weird very quickly. The other aggregator sites I found seemed to have similar issues. The last time I logged into Minds, it read like my 80 year old mom's Facebook page.

This mag is my central interest, but please tell me what cool places/people/interests you have found. Particularly if they seem applicable to the m/men audience.

Thanks in advance

I have noticed previous reposts from RBoMI did not get much engagement if at all, so I am going for a single topic per post now.

Men make up a large majority of the prison population: 93% in the United States (2006) [1] and 96% in England & Wales (2013) [2]. Men do commit more crime overall, but numerous studies show that even accounting for legally relevant factors (like crime and criminal history), men receive substantially harsher sentences. Crimes with women as victims also receive harsher sentences.

Examples/evidence: Sonja B. Starr of the University of Michigan controlled for legally relevant factors and found that men receive 63% longer sentences on average. In addition, women were more likely to avoid charges, convictions, and incarceration in the first place [3]. David B. Mustard of the University of Georgia controlled for similar factors and also found that men (and blacks) receive harsher sentences [4].

Last, blacks and males are also less likely to get no prison term when that option is available; less likely to receive downward departures; and more likely to receive upward adjustments and, conditioned on having a downward departure, receive smaller reductions than whites and females.

A group of researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso summarize previous research and explain that women receiving milder sentencing "may be one of the best established facts regarding criminal justice outcomes". It has been found in a wide range of studies since the 1980s, and in numerous different jurisdictions in the United States. They add to the research by looking specifically into different types of crime, finding some differences [5].

For both property and drug offending, females are less likely to be sentenced to prison and also receive shorter sentences if they are sentenced to prison. For violent offending, however, females are no less likely than males to receive prison time, but for those who do, females receive substantially shorter sentences than males.

Cassia Spohn of Arizona State University provides an overview of many other studies showing similar sentencing disparities (in sentence length and likelihood of getting jail time in the first place) [1]. She also cites interesting work on the perception of gender by judges as the reason for these disparities.

The explanation offered by Spohn and Beichner (2000) also focuses on judges’ perceptions and stereotypes of men and women. They suggest that the findings of their study lend credence to assertions that court officials attempt to simplify and routinize the sentencing process by relying on stereotypes that link defendant characteristics such as race or ethnicity and gender to perceptions of blameworthiness, dangerousness, and risk of recidivism. They note that criminal justice officials interviewed for the study admitted that they viewed female offenders, particularly those with dependent children, differently from male offenders.

Another study from the group of researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso looked at the gender of the victim, finding that crimes against women receive harsher sentences than crimes against men [6]. Cassia Spohn cites Williams, Demuth, and Holcomb (2007) who controlled for legally relevant factors and found that offenders convicted of crimes against women were more than two-and-a-half times more likely to be sentenced to death [1]. Another study looked specifically at vehicular homicide and found gender bias [7].

In particular, victim characteristics are important determinants of sentencing among vehicular homicides, where victims are basically random and where the optimal punishment model predicts that victim characteristics should be ignored. Among vehicular homicides, drivers who kill women get 56 percent longer sentences. Drivers who kill blacks get 53 percent shorter sentences.

The harsher treatment of men in the justice system has effects on men long after they do their time. From The New York Times article "Out of Trouble, but Criminal Records Keep Men Out of Work" [8]:

The share of American men with criminal records — particularly black men — grew rapidly in recent decades as the government pursued aggressive law enforcement strategies, especially against drug crimes. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, those men are having particular trouble finding work. Men with criminal records account for about 34 percent of all nonworking men ages 25 to 54, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

---

1 ("Sentencing Disparity and Discrimination: A Focus on Gender", chapter 4 of "How Do Judges Decide? The Search for Fairness and Justice in Punishment" by Cassia Spohn)

2 (British House of Commons Library document “Prison Population Statistics”)

3 and alt source (“Estimating Gender Disparities in Federal Criminal Cases” (2012) by Sonja B. Starr)

4 (“Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts” (2001) by David B. Mustard)

5 (“Gender Differences in Criminal Sentencing: Do Effects Vary Across Violent, Property, and Drug Offenses?” (2006) by S. Fernando Rodriguez, Theodore R. Curry, & Gang Lee)

6 (“Does Victim Gender Increase Sentence Severity? Further Explorations of Gender Dynamics and Sentencing Outcomes” (2004) by Theodore R. Curry, Gang Lee, & S. Fernando Rodriguez)

7 (“The Determinants of Punishment: Deterrence, Incapacitation and Vengeance” by Edward L. Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote)

8 (The New York Times article "Out of Trouble, but Criminal Records Keep Men Out of Work")

Men get so many mixed messages in today's society, from being called toxic to being pushed to be top dog (or else you're a loser). There are lots of expectations put on men, and various ways men rebel against those.

What can be done to address society's negative views of men and masculinity? And how can we formulate what healthy masculinity looks like, so we can teach that to our boys?

I don't believe it's creepy for two consenting adults with a large age gap to date. If a 25 year old woman dates a 50 year old man, I don't think it's creepy. It's none of my business. I don't judge them.

A man who dates younger women is called "creepy." A woman who dates younger men is called a cougar. Leonardo DiCaprio was judged harshly for dating a 19 year old woman. Most older women are not judged for dating younger men.

Sometimes it's hard to find a partner of the same age. For example, if a man divorces at 50, it would be hard to find a 50 year old woman. He would have to date someone younger.

The double standard is that men get judged harshly. Society has to change it's attitude.

I'm not sure if anyone else is getting explicit gay sex images for "related posts", but they are showing up for me. I'm not opposed to pornography, but in this context it doesn't need to be here.

I've been using the website https://kbin.social/m/men, perhaps a different client would be better? Or maybe there is some other way to limit recommendations?

Anyone else seeing this?

Cory Clark is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, a social psychologist and an author.

It's a long video and they discuss a range of commonly held misconceptions. I must admit I haven't seen all of it yet, but they go into the often unacknowledged bias people have towards women. People do not want to hear when men are better at something than women, but celebrate things women are better at than men.

The idea that society is sexist against women probably stems from the fact that we care so much more about women than we do about men.

Sometimes I enjoy talking to feminists and misandrists. It helps me to understand their viewpoints. Some feminists are open to debate and some are not. I don't try to change their minds. It can be pretty toxic.

I was messaged by feminists on reddit. They read my post history. I haven't said anything misogynistic. They called me an "incel" and a "misogynist". I remained calm when they hurled insults. If I lashed out, it would prove to them I am a misogynist. They want their opponents to get angry.

One woman who messaged me said she is proud to be a misandrist. She said men are worthless, driven by hormones, and many other nonsense things. She also said women don't perpetrate domestic violence. Eventually I got her to calm down and she became more respectful.

I think a lot of feminists misunderstand what MRAs believe in and want. There was a question in the r/askfeminists sub if feminists would collaborate with MRAs. Many of the feminists said no. One commenter said MRAs are misogynists. Another said men are not oppressed, so there's no need for MRAs. Some people hate us for doing the right thing.

Some feminists have told me there's a difference between feminists and misandrists. Most feminists think they're normal people. I think some misandrists use feminism to their benefit. Governments and corporations definitely use feminism against men.

I don't know too many feminists in real life. I don't talk about feminism or politics with the women I know. It is silently understood that most people believe in equality. I'm also an egalitarian.

After knowing about men's issues, I don't want to pretend like they don't exist. If I started dating a feminist, I don't think my political views would align with hers. I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to talk about men's issues.

Do you think it's better to avoid dating women who identify as feminists? If you date a feminist, is it a good idea to talk about men's issues?

This is an excellent article by Cathy Young, exposing some of the widespread misandry within feminism.

I don't agree with every point she makes. I think the 1848 demonizing of men is way more serious and shouldn't be so easily dismissed. But that doesn't take away from her main point: feminism is full of misandry, and if they want to be taken seriously by men, they need to address that.

Jobs in which you directly care for other people, like teachers and nurses, have traditionally been dominated by women. However, several parts of the world seem to experience a shortage of workers in these areas.

The usual left wing answer to this problem is to argue for better wages and working conditions. I was thinking that we could brainstorm solutions for the gendered aspects as well.

Since the majority of people working in these fields are women, it stands to reason that men are a potentially untapped source of labor. In addition, the successful push for more women in STEM has shown that it is possible to make certain fields more attractive for a specific gender through political means.

Getting more men into these fields would obviously be good for society, as these are critical areas that need to be staffed properly. It would potentially be good for men as well:

• These are the kinds of jobs that provide people with a sense of meaning and purpose in their life, something I believe is an increasing problem for many men.

• Men have an increasingly hard time finding success in classical education. This could serve as an alternative career path for those whose strengths do not lie in academia.

• Young boys struggle a lot in school, and male teachers might have a different perspective on this that female ones.

• It would provide children with more male role models, showing them the breath of what men are capable off.

Now, I know that this is a small space without much political pull, consisting of people from different parts of the world. But if we want to differentiate ourselves from menslib on reddit and mensliberation on here, I think it would be prudent to not only address inequalities, but also brainstorm solutions.

So imagine for a moment that you have a seat in your government, or are an advisor for someone with political power. What would you suggest in order to convince men to join women dominated fields?

Let's bring some positivity into this place.

You will be no better than the people you'll fight against. I've seen it happen on every pro-men subreddit, and if this place isn't aggressively moderated to dispel hopelessness, negativity, and prejudice, it'll just turn into hate.

Incel, mens-rights activist, red-pill, black-pill, MGTOW, etc. don't let the haters join otherwise this community will end up just like the aforementioned.

Egalitarian from a male perspective is what we should be, not pro-male (I say male because of sex and gender).

Be excellent to each other.

Eat your fiber kids, digestive health is no joke

#men

Section 2: Issues of life, death, well-being, and safety

1. Homelessness

Overview: Men consistently make up a majority of the homeless population. They're especially common among the long-term homeless, the homeless living on the street (instead of a shelter) [1], and the homeless deaths. Despite this, we're actually less eager to support homeless men [2].

Approximately 70 per cent of Canada’s homeless are male. Dion Oxford of Toronto’s Salvation Army Gateway shelter for men tells us it is harder to raise funds for men’s shelters. “Single, middle-aged homeless men are simply not sexy for the funder,” he says.

This is likely related to male disposability. This can also be seen in an article from the British newspaper The Independent on the “growing problem” of homelessess among women [3]. The author calls it “distressing” that 1/4 homeless people in shelters and 1/10 homeless people on the street are women.

Examples/evidence: One study conducted in New York City and Philadelphia found that those who are chronically homeless are overwhelmingly male (and black). 82.3% were male in New York City, and 71.1% were male in Philadelphia [4]. UK homeless charity St Mungo's Broadway found that men made up 87% of rough sleepers in London (those on the street instead of in shelters) [5]. Another UK homeless charity provides a break-down of homeless deaths by age and gender [6].

Images: http://i.imgur.com/ZaBwbCh.png

For more, compare the number of instances of "John Doe" to "Jane Doe" in the Toronto Homeless Memorial (it's 135 to 13) [7].

One survey of homeless people in the United States found that homeless men were less likely to have access to health insurance and government benefits [8].

[1] http://bit.ly/1wQy1zt (coursepage for Sociology 498G at the University of Maryland)

[2] http://bit.ly/105BHF7 (Globe and Mail article “Should universities be opening men’s centres?”)

[3] http://ind.pn/1csgMuD (The Independent article “Homeless and broken: how women are catching up with men”)

[4] http://1.usa.gov/1E4g0lv (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration document "Current Statistics on the Prevalence and Characteristics of People Experiencing Homelessness in the United States")

[5] http://bit.ly/1EY5Ve4 (St Mungo's Broadway “Street to Home Bulletin 2013/14” report)

[6] http://bit.ly/1wd4hkF (document on mortality among homeless people from Crisis, a UK charity for the homeless)

[7] http://bit.ly/13TY55G (Toronto Homeless Memorial's list of deaths from homelessness)

[8] http://bit.ly/1GGYLhO (Healing Hands article "Single Males: The Homeless Majority")

2. Homicide, robbery, and physical assault

Overview: Although women are more often the victims of sexual assault, men are more often the victims of homicide, robbery, and the more injurious types of physical assault. Some dismiss this by noting that men are also more likely to commit these crimes, but a murder victim doesn't receive any solace from his murderer being the same gender as him. (This argument is also often applied to dismiss higher victimization rates among other groups like racial minorities: “that's just blacks killing other blacks, who cares”.)

Examples/evidence: The following table includes numbers on the gender of perpetrators and victims of homicide (using statistics from the United States [1]) and assault (using statistics from Norway on the more serious incidents requiring a visit to an urban accident and emergency department [2]).

Genders Homicide (USA) Assault (Norway)
Male → Male 65.3% 74%
Male → Female 22.7% 21%
Female → Male 9.6% 2%
Female → Female 2.4% 4%

Gender patterns in different types of violence can be seen in the 2008 data from Canada. Women are 1.2× more likely than men to be the victims of common assault, which is the less serious and less injurious form of physical assault. Men on the other hand are more often the victims of assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm (1.9× more likely), aggravated assault (defined as being wounded, maimed, disfigured, or having your life endangered: 3.6× more likely), robbery (1.9× more likely), and homicide or attempted murder (3.5× more likely) [4].

An even bigger disparity is visible in the Chicago Tribune's page documenting victims of shootings in the city. Of the 100 shootings in a one-month period in early 2015 (January 20th to February 16th), 93 had male victims---and the other 7 were listed as "unknown gender" [4].

Some studies look specifically at rates of violence victimization by strangers. In Canada in 2008, men were 80% of all reported attacks by strangers [5]. In the United States in 2010, men were twice as likely to suffer violence from strangers [6].

[1] http://bit.ly/14Scr7r (“Homicide trends in the U.S.” from U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics)

[2] http://1.usa.gov/14SpK81 (“Gender and physical violence” by Steen and Hunskaar)

[3] http://bit.ly/1BeU619 (“Gender Differences in Police-reported Violent Crime in Canada, 2008” from Statistics Canada)

[4] https://archive.is/WZvvK

(Chicago Tribune page "Chicago shooting victims", last updated 2015/2/19)

[5] https://archive.is/qB16e

("SNAPSHOT: Male Victims of Violent Crime" from National Victims of Crime Awareness Week)

[6] http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vvcs9310.pdf ("Violent Victimization Committed by Strangers, 1993-2010" from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics)

3. Drug addiction and alcoholism

Overview: Women are by no means immune, but statistics do show that addiction affects men disproportionately. This should raise questions about what's pushing men to substance abuse. Are they dealing with traumatic events, harmful attitudes and expectations, or a lack of social support?

Examples/evidence: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 17% of men and 8% of women will meet criteria for alcohol dependence (which is a higher standard than simply binge-drinking) at some point in their lives. They also note that men “consistently have higher rates of alcohol-related deaths and hospitalizations than women” [1]. The 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health in the United States found that rates of current illicit drug use to be 11.6% for men and 6.9% for women [2], and the 2009 New Jersey Household Survey on Drug Use and Health found that “[m]ales (14%) were significantly more likely than females (5%) to abuse or be dependent on alcohol, drugs or both alcohol and drugs in the past year” [3].

[1] http://1.usa.gov/1guimo6 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “Fact Sheets - Excessive Alcohol Use and Risks to Men's Health”)

[2] http://1.usa.gov/1y5QAqF (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration “Results from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Summary of National Findings”)

[3] http://bit.ly/1C0Qca7 (New Jersey Department of Human Services “2009 New Jersey Household Survey on Drug Use and Health”)

4. Suicide

Overview: Like drug/alcohol addiction, there are many women who commit suicide but the fact is that men still kill themselves at disproportionately high rates.

One study reports that although rates of fatal suicide behaviour are higher among men, rates of nonfatal suicide behaviour are higher among women. It says that women have higher rates of suicidal thoughts while there was no gender difference in suicide planning or suicide attempts [1]. The implications of this are not clear, but it is relevant to mention. Do men choose different, more deadly methods? Are they more "certain" or hopeless when engaging in suicidal behaviours, resulting in higher fatality rates? Either way, the end result is more dead men than dead women.

Examples/evidence: Suicide is the single biggest cause of death for men aged 20-45 in England/Wales [2]. In Canada in 2011, the rate of suicide among men was three times higher than among women [3]. In the United States in 2012, men were almost four times more likely to kill themselves. The graph below provides historical data on suicide in the United States [4].

Images: http://i.imgur.com/ikXWibu.png

Middle-aged men and poor men are especially at risk, according to the Department of Health in England [5]. Unfortunately, many people's response to the issue of male suicide is to be more critical than supportive [6].

The Samaritans report says most people have no idea what they can do to combat male suicide. Too many they say, simply “ 'upbraid' men for being 'resistant to help-seeking' or 'not talking about their feelings.' ”

Mental-health specialists especially, says the Samaritans report, “need to move from ‘blaming men for not being like women,’ ” to designing projects and public services that can help them.

[1] https://archive.is/ExTKL

("Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among Adults Aged ≥18 Years

---

United States, 2008-2009" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

[2] https://archive.is/qwkgF

("More Statistics, Yet Still No Strategy..." from CALM: Campaign Against Living Miserably)

[3] http://bit.ly/1u1g1mf and http://bit.ly/1BVOxVx (“Suicides and suicide rate, by sex and by age group” from Statistics Canada)

[4] http://bit.ly/1rKWJ4R (from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which cites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Data & Statistics Fatal Injury Report for 2012)

[5] https://archive.is/vjgx1

(The Guardian article "Suicide numbers rise sharply, especially among middle-aged men")

[6] https://archive.is/jXt36

(Vancouver Sun article "Men and suicide: The silent epidemic")

5. Life expectancy gap

Overview: Men's health is lagging behind women's health according to many metrics. The most important of these is life expectancy, where men are losing out on an average of 4-5 years of life compared to women. Part of the gap (1-2 years) seems to be biological, but there are cultural/social factors (which we can fix) as well.

Examples/evidence: My two main sources are an article “Mars vs. Venus: The gender gap in health” from a 2010 edition of the Harvard Men's Health Watch [1] and the series of papers by Barbara Blatt Kalben called Why Men Die Younger: Causes of Mortality Differences by Sex for the Society of Actuaries [2].

One piece of evidence for why only part of the gap is biological is that it has actually grown over the past 100 years. The table is from the United States, and the chart is from Canada (measured from the age of 7 to take infant mortality out of the picture).
Year Females Males Gender gap
1900 48.3 46.3 2 years
1950 71.1 65.6 5.5 years
2000 79.7 74.3 5.4 years
2007 80.4 75.3 5.1 years

Images: http://i.imgur.com/zieTb8R.png

The German-Austrian Cloister Study provides interesting insight onto how much of the life expectancy gap is biological. Monks and nuns have similar lifestyles, and so their life expectancies are less influenced by the behavioural/social factors that exist in the general population. As it turns out, nuns live just one year longer than monks [3].

The Harvard Men's Health Watch article provides various non-biological reasons for the gap.

1. Men experience more work stress/hostility, which can increase the risk of hypertension, heart attack, and stroke.

2. Men have less social support. Social support has been shown to protect against the common cold, depression, heart attacks, and strokes.

3. Men are more likely to smoke, drink, or do drugs.

4. Men are less likely to go to the doctor and make use of health-care (and actually less likely to have access to it). From the article: "Women are more likely than men to have health insurance and a regular source of health care. According to a major survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, three times as many men as women had not seen a doctor in the previous year ...".

Although that article does not mention it, differences in awareness, attention, and funding between men's health and women's health could also be part of the gap [4].

There are at least 7 new agencies and departments devoted solely to women while there is not one office for men or male specific ailments. Men’s health advocates long have pushed for an Office of Men’s Health to act as a companion to the Office on Women’s Health, established in 1991. Instead of rectifying that disparity, the new health care law intensified it.

[1] http://bit.ly/1vvKc7x or https://archive.is/3roDD

(“Mars vs. Venus: The gender gap in health” from the Harvard Men's Health Watch)

[2] http://bit.ly/1lDnXeg (Why Men Die Younger: Causes of Mortality Differences by Sex from the Society of Actuaries)

[3] http://bit.ly/1vBZeMo ("Causes of Male Excess Mortality: Insights from Cloistered Populations" by Marc Luy), http://www.klosterstudie.de/ (German-Austrian Cloister Study homepage")

[4] https://archive.is/OSCMy

(The Daily Caller article “Does Obamacare discriminate against men?”)

6. Workplace injury and death

Overview: Men are quite a bit more likely than women to get injured at work, and they're overwhelmingly more likely to die at work.

Examples/evidence: In the United Kingdom in 2010/11, the rate of major injuries was almost twice as high for men as it was for women (130.5 compared to 68.8 per 100,000 workers) [1]. The difference in workplace deaths is even more stark. A study of workplace deaths in Canada from 1993 to 2005 found that the number of male deaths in 2005 alone was more than double the total number female deaths in the whole 22 year period from 1993 to 2005 [2]. In the United States in 2006, men were 54% of the workforce but 92% of workplace deaths [2].

[1] https://archive.is/uj0nC

(“Reported injuries to employees by age and gender” from the UK Health and Safety Executive)

[2] http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2006-04.PDF ("Five Deaths a Day: Workplace Fatalities in Canada, 1993-2005" by Andrew Sharpe and Jill Hardt for the Centre for the Study of Living Standards)

[3] http://1.usa.gov/1pvu0Ch (“Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries” from the Bureau of Labor Statistics)

7. Hate crimes targeting gay men

Overview: Hate crimes based on sexual orientation disproportionately target homosexual men, with homosexual women being the victims noticeably less often.

Examples/evidence: Here's the break-down of sexual orientation motivated hate crimes in the United States in 2012 [1]:

• Anti-male homosexual bias — 54.6%
• Anti-homosexual bias (i.e. gender-neutral homophobia) — 28.0%
• Anti-female homosexual bias — 12.3%
• Anti-bisexual bias — 3.1%
• Anti-heterosexual bias — 2.0%

In Canada in the same year, 80% of hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation targeted men [2]. Among all hate crimes, those based on sexual orientation were the most likely to involve assault and physical injuries.

The targeting of gay men (over lesbian women) for hate crimes is not unexpected, considering the history of state repression of homosexuality targeting gay men. In the United Kingdom, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 (also known as "An Act to make further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the suppression of brothels, and other purposes") recriminalized male homosexuality as "gross indecency". Until decriminalization in 1967, 50,000 gay men were convicted, including author Oscar Wilde (sentenced to two years of hard labour in 1895) and mathematician Alan Turing (who accepted chemical castration as an alternative to prison in 1952; he killed himself two years later). Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (Home Secretary 1951-54) talked of a "new drive against male vice" to "rid England of this plague" [3] [4] [5].

A similar targeting of gay men was found in Nazi Germany, although with even more severe consequences. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "[t]he vast majority of homosexual victims were males; lesbians were not subjected to systematic persecution". Many survivors have testified that in concentration camps, homosexuals were treated especially harshly (compared to other inmate groups), not only by guards but also other inmates. Victims of the homosexual holocaust were widely refused both recognition and reparations after the war. Some even remained imprisoned by the post-war government [6] [7].

Interestingly, according to the 2012 data from Canada, men are more likely than women to be the victims of all types of hate crimes, not just those related to sexual orientation (although those had the highest disparity at 80% male victims). The other four categories were race/ethnicity, religion, other, and unknown, and they ranged from 61% to 72% male victims [8].

[1] https://archive.is/uFuaI

(FBI 2012 Hate Crime Statistics page “Incidents and Offenses”)

[2] https://archive.is/d62fo

(Statistics Canada page “Police-reported hate crime in Canada, 2012”)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Law_Amendment_Act_1885

(Wikipedia page "Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885")

[4] http://archive.is/a2CQx

(The Independent article "Gay men call for equity following Alan Turing pardon")

[5] http://archive.is/IvGnv

(The Daily Beast article "The Castration of Alan Turing, Britain’s Code-Breaking WWII Hero")

[6] http://archive.is/OHMEA

(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Holocaust Encyclopedia page "Persecution of Homosexuals")

[7] http://archive.is/0g9Y

(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Holocaust Encyclopedia page "Lesbians and the Third Reich")

[8] http://archive.is/EMpR1

(Statistics Canada page "Characteristics of hate crime victims, by motivation, Canada, 2012")

8. Sexual assault in prison

Overview: The fact that men make up such a large majority of the prison population means that the prevalence of rape and sexual assault in prison (and our culture's attitude of indifference) is especially a concern for men.

Examples/evidence: Different studies report quite different numbers on sexual assault rates in prison. Here are three studies that provide a range of numbers, starting with the lowest.

1. Finding: 1.91% of prisoners have experienced a completed sexual assault over their lifetime [1].
2. Finding: 4.0% of prison inmates (and 3.2% of jail inmates) reported one or more incidents of sexual victimization (either by another inmate or by faculty staff) in the previous 12 months [2].
3. Finding: 21% of inmates had experienced "pressured or forced sexual contact" since being incarcerated in their state [3].

The third study explains why findings differ so much. First, male inmates under-report sexual assault, so non-anonymous surveys give lower numbers. Second, different definitions of sexual assault change the numbers substantially. Completed rapes are much rarer than genital fondling and failed attempts at intercourse.

[1] http://1.usa.gov/17spDkI ("Prison Rape: A Critical Review of the Literature" by Gerald G. Gaes and Andrew L. Goldberg)

[2] http://1.usa.gov/1nHaS1N ("Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011–12" from the Bureau of Justice Statistics)

[3] http://bit.ly/17sGrbg ("Sexual Coercion Rates in Seven Midwestern Prison Facilities for Men" by Cindy Struckman-Johnson and David Struckman-Johnson)

9. Gendercide

Overview: Gendercide (gender-specific mass killing) often targets men, although the gender of the victims generally receives less attention than when women experience gendercide. Adam Jones, genocide researcher and political science professor, points out that targeting men can seem so “natural” that “almost no media commentator bothers to mention it” [1]. In the opening essay of his compilation Gendercide and Genocide, Jones argues that the group most consistently targeted for mass killings throughout history has been non-combatant men between the ages of 15 and 55, as they are typically seen as the largest danger to the conquering force [2].

Examples/evidence: In what the former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan called the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War, over 8,000 unarmed civilians [3] were massacred in the small mountain town of Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995. Two characteristics united the victims: they were Muslim, and they were male [4].

Although Srebrenica had been designated a U.N. “safe area” three months earlier, “[t]housands of men and boys as young as 10 were rounded up and murdered ... Serbian TV footage shows woman and children being separated from the men and put on buses” [5]. The busses were searched to make sure men weren't on them [6]. According to the BBC, 23,000 women and children were allowed to leave while men aged 12-77 were taken "for interrogation"---two days later, reports of massacres started to emerge [7]. The “five-day orgy of slaughter” included 60 truckloads of male refugees being "taken from Srebrenica to execution sites where they were bound, blindfolded, and shot with automatic rifles", and other victims being “hunted down like dogs and slaughtered” and pushed into mass graves with industrial bulldozers. It was described by a war-crimes tribunal as “truly scenes from hell written on the darkest pages of human history” [5].

David Benatar also gives the Rwandan genocide as an example of gendercide. In The Second Sexism (chapter 4), he explains that Hutus "were determined to seek out and murder Tutsi boys … They examined very young infants, even new-borns, to see if they were boys or girls. Little boys were executed on the spot."

[1] http://bit.ly/179RhTW (Adam Jones' article “Terminal Sexism: Men, women and war in ex-Yugoslavia”)

[2] http://adamjones.freeservers.com/g_and_g.htm (Gendercide and Genocide book page)

[3] http://nyti.ms/1xG5lwY (New York Times article “Mladic Arrives in The Hague”)

[4] http://bit.ly/179Ro1H (Adam Jones' article “Pity the Innocent Men”)

[5] http://cnn.it/1BuQbuE (CNN article “Srebrenica: 'A triumph of evil'”)

[6] http://bit.ly/165HfD1 (document from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia)

[7] https://archive.is/gLVGY
(BBC article "Srebrenica massacre verdicts upheld at war crimes tribunal")

A little meme to brighten your day

#men

I hear all this talk about women's safety when out on the streets (a real issue which I do acknowledge) and how we as men need to do our part to make sure they feel comfortable, safe, and that we hold other men accountable when doing the same thing. Absolutely have no problem with this. But one of the main issues men have is a rise in male loneliness and the expectation to be the one to take an active role in interaction especially those that are romantic in nature. How are we supposed to take the lead and approach while keeping women safe at the same time when approaching her could make her feel uncomfortable, even in safe environments such as social groups, bars & clubs, workplaces, etc?

I found a couple of videos which explains why men are out here street harassing women. The link to this video there's a section called "bottom line"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZiaTDxJ-rQ

The guy here basically goes on to explain that a woman is not gonna make a move on him, that he needs to show her he's the man and have a wolf mentality. Obviously, the way he worded this is just wrong but this is the mentality I see from men who are trying to be the take charge types. I don't think this kind of thinking comes from nowhere. Men already deal with the expectation to approach and make the first move. If you put that much pressure on men, it's gonna make them wanna find communities that will tell them how to do exactly that. Guess where they turn to? The redpill/PUA. These are the communities that teach them the alpha-beta nonsense, how they got ideas that "a woman loves a confident masculine man, show her that by letting her feel your strong presence" and they learn messed up tips and tactics to do exactly that, which then leads to men making women feel uncomfortable.

For anyone that watches the 12 hour video of a woman walking down the street, within those hours, a lot of men came out to talk to her. I don't think these men would be doing that if they didn't face any expectations to be the pursuers in courtship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A&ab_channel=RobBliss

Over 90% of women don't initiate interactions with men first & often expect them to do it, and I think this is a huge problem that's contributing to both men & women's issues. Safety is a big issue for women on the daily and I think male expectations in dating are a big factor for that. The expectations for men to do something first will make women not take an active role, resulting in most men feeling undesired (& also lonely tho male loneliness is a multi-faceted issue), and when they decide to do something about it, they turn to communities that will teach them strategies beyond the mainstream to give them that success, which then turns into having a lot of men out there street harassing women. It doesn't just have to be street harassment. This can also happen in social groups, friend groups, bars and harassment can very much happen there.

So the first step here is for society to stop expecting men to make the first move and not just that. Stop expecting them to read signs (especially signs women gives as an invitation as her "first move" as they're subtle, not obvious), stop expecting men to start flirting, and stop expecting men to be the first ones to initiate conversations about sex. We should start telling women to be more active (and obviously active) and do some of these things to take the pressure off of men.

This doesn't mean that dating should completely fall into the woman's hands. What I am saying ultimately is to not have expectations of any gender to bear the heavy burden of doing everything. Once we get rid of those expectations, then we can start implementing some gender neutral courtship rules that allows men and women to take active agency without much pressure. But I don't believe we as a society (given our current practices) should partake in active agency with dating until we've gotten rid of those expectations.

Taking the expectations off isn't going to stop SOME men from being psychos, there's always going to be bad apples in society that makes things uncomfortable for everybody. But I don't believe women are getting approached only by these types. Chances are, they're getting approached by men who are dealing with societal expectations of being a man (this doesn't mean u should entertain him. If he makes you feel unsafe just do what u have to do to gtfo there. Just cuz men have the expectation doesn't mean u throw away your need to feel safe. If no man is allowed to approach on the streets, then any man, even if he is decent and friendly in their approach, should be doing that as that is street harassment and would make you feel uncomfortable.). How is it that the average man can go a day without having a woman or another man bother him, but women can't go a whole day without having any man try his shot with her? This all goes back to the expectations we have of men.

We should not be doing any active courting in dating nor give out any dating advice until we have reached a point where society doesn't expect men to be the initiators all the time. That means adults telling boys that they don't need to take up that role and that it's okay for women to make the first move. That means women telling their female friends to not expect guys to make the first move and do the heavy lifting, especially in the beginning stages.

We have already been told not to assume that a woman wants us to approach just because she's dressed a certain way. We have already been told that we shouldn't be out here bothering anyone on the streets. We have already been told that if we get told "no" or get a "no" signal, we accept it and move on. Absolutely fine with that. But we cannot have these rules and then conform men to the expectations of being the pursuer all the damn time and not expect that most of these interactions will turn into street harassment, especially when these men turn into martyrs when they do go to TRP/PUA communities that will tell them practical yet messed up tips that just end up making women feel unsafe. This is just backwards and will only ensure that this toxic cycle continues.

I’ll start us off with:

• Aftersun - If you’re not into slice-of-life indie films, probably give this one a miss. It’s a slow paced exploration of the relationship of a non-custodial father with his daughter encapsulated in an overseas summer vacation.

• Close Enough - If you like adult animation but you’re tired of the cynical tone that characterizes the genre give this one a try. It centers on the misadventures of Millennial parents in LA just trying to make things work out in this crazy world. It might be hard to find now that HBO axed it, but I think it’s worth the search.

From the original on Reddit. Reproduced here to ensure it still exists when Reddit goes down.

The idea that "men have it great" is often treated as self-evident or undeniable, but in reality the condition of men in our society is just not that simple. Men are doing better in some areas, but they're doing worse in some very important areas too. For example, men:

• are a large majority of the homeless population, drug/alcohol addicts, and suicide deaths.

• die 4-5 years earlier than women, on average.

• are significantly more likely to be the victims of homicide, robbery, injurious types of physical (non-sexual) assault, police killings, and hate crimes (e.g. based on sexuality or race).

• are more likely to be seen as abusive in relationships, even for the exact same actions.

• receive longer prison/jail sentences (and are more likely to be sentenced to incarceration in the first place) than women, when controlling for legally relevant factors (crime and criminal history).

Many men's issues interact with issues for racial minorities. The result is that minority men are doing the worst of any race/gender combination in numerous areas (including homelessness, life expectancy, and incarceration).

Introduction

This document is intended to be a comprehensive and reliable resource detailing the major gender issues and negative attitudes facing men in the Western world. The goal is not to compare men's and women's issues and decide who has it worse, but to show that men's issues are serious enough to warrant being more than an afterthought.

We're also not interested in addressing questions of ideology or movements here (feminism, the men's rights movement, MGTOW, the red pill, etc.). Those questions are important because they involve how to solve the problems facing men, but for now we're only interested in establishing what the problems are.

This project was started in January 2015 by /u/dakru, with input and suggestions from many others since then. From August 2018 it was maintained and updated by /u/PM_ME_UR_PC_SPECS, until in August 2021 it was taken over by u/Oncefa2 and u/genkernels. Its home is on /r/rbomi, but it's also shared with /r/mensrights. For more information on men's issues beyond this page, consider the following books:

1. The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys (by David Benatar: professor of philosophy and head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa)

2. The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the Disposable Sex (by Warren Farrell: activist, men's movement icon, former member of the board of directors of the National Organization for Women in New York City, and former professor)

3. Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters (by Helen Smith: psychologist specializing in forensic issues and men's issues)

4. Media and Male Identity: The Making and Remaking of Men (by J.R. Macnamara, adjunct professor in public communication at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia)

5. Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men (by Roy F. Baumeister: professor of psychology at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, USA)

6. Self-Made Man: One Woman's Year Disguised as a Man (by Norah Vincent: writer who has had columns on Salon.com, The Advocate, the Los Angeles Times, and the Village Voice)

7. Spreading Misandry, Legalizing Misandry, & Sanctifying Misandry (by Katherine Young and Paul Nathanson: both professors of religious studies at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

8. Gendercide and Genocide (edited by Adam Jones: professor of political science at University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada)

---

Section 1: Male disposability

Overview: Male disposability is our society's tendency to have a greater concern for the well-being of women than the well-being of men. Simply put, women's suffering is considered more tragic and worthy of action than men's suffering. It produces a stronger emotional response in us. Having greater compassion for women is so deeply-ingrained in our culture that it seems natural and unremarkable. Not only does male disposability cause many issues for men, it also leaves people less likely to care about men's issues.

Male disposability has many parallels in the realms of class, race, and nationality (e.g. citizens of non-Western countries are often seen/treated as more disposable than Westerners).

Examples/evidence: There has been enormous public outcry over the issue of "missing and murdered Aboriginal women" in Canada [1]. Aboriginal people do get murdered and go missing at disproportionate rates, but it's the men, not the women, who are victimized more. Aboriginal men are murdered more than twice as often in Canada [2], and 4-5 times more of them have gone missing in the Northwest Territories and the province of Ontario [3]. Despite this, it is the women who are the focus of the public outcry.

A second example is Western coverage of Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist group. It received widespread attention for its kidnapping of 200+ schoolgirls. The gender of the victims was a major focus of the coverage.

Images: http://i.imgur.com/W844OpX.jpg, http://i.imgur.com/EuQfiVS.jpg, http://i.imgur.com/ZA7o7Yd.jpg, http://i.imgur.com/f10K7m0.jpg

The numerous other incidents where the group spared the women/girls and targeted the men/boys for murder (often brutally, including burning alive) received less attention in general, and much less focus on the gender of the victims [4].

A third example comes from the research of Adam Jones, genocide researcher and political science professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. In Western coverage of the Kosovo War, he found that male victims are seen as "unworthy" and marginalized as victims in comparison to "worthy" victims like women, children, and the elderly [5].

A fourth example comes from Portland, Oregon. Although the homeless population there is 64% male [6], the mayor has expressed that one of his priorities is to "house all homeless women by the end of the year". He commented that "when I see a homeless woman on the street, or in a doorway, my heart is touched, and I know Portlanders' hearts are touched". Another individual in the newscast asks "do we want any women sleeping on the street when the weather gets bad and it's cold?" [7]. These quotes illustrate male disposability because although men are doing worse, women garner more sympathy.

One statement from former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is especially interesting in light of the concept of male disposability. According to her, “[w]omen have always been the primary victims of war” because they “lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat” and because they are “are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children” [8]. The idea that men aren't even the primary victims of their own deaths seems to be a particularly insensitive application of male disposability.

A phenomenon likely linked to male disposability (and a similar attitude to racial minorities) is missing white woman syndrome: "when a young white girl goes missing in America, it immediately becomes a national story" [9].

TVTropes identifies male disposability in the media with a trope called "Men Are the Expendable Gender": "A female character can lose that some or even all of the audience's sympathy if they are manipulative, somehow 'immoral', ugly, or just plain evil. Male characters on the other hand have to earn the audience's sympathy by entertaining or interesting us with their their actions. If they don't, we either don't care what happens to them or want them to suffer for failing to entertain/interest us." [10]

In his book The Second Sexism (chapter 3), David Benatar mentions the fact that men are overwhelmingly the ones sent to war as an example of male disposability. He quotes a politician in the U.S. House of Representatives who spoke in favour of exempting/excluding women from combat roles in the U.S. military: “We do not want our women killed”. This attitude, he says, “partly explains why societies have been prepared to send males to war but have been extremely reluctant to send females”.

Our society's particular concern for the well-being of women can be seen in the common practice of news media and human rights groups mentioning the total number of victims of an event or tragedy and specifically singling out the number of women or girls. The BBC reported on successful efforts to save children who had been forcibly recruited for a militia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: “[the United Nations Mission] said that since the beginning of the year, 163 children, including 22 girls, have been removed from the militia” [11]. The International Business Times reports on ISIS executions: "The Islamic State has executed 1,362 civilians, including 9 children and 19 women, since it declared a Caliphate last year in the regions under its control, a Syrian human rights monitor said on Tuesday." [12] The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on a 17-month period of airstrikes that killed (in its words) "7902 civilians, including 1121 women, and 1679 children". The title of the the article was "More than 3500 children and women killed during 17 months of aerial bombardment" [13].

The fact that women's suffering is seen as more tragic and worthy of action is also evident in the statistics showing that crimes with women as victims receive harsher sentences than crimes with men as victims (including a greater use of the death penalty), after controlling for legally relevant factors. More detail can be found in the section on the criminal justice system.

---

[1] Including from Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau http://bit.ly/Yy0oZO, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair http://bit.ly/1tWlLOz, and former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney http://bit.ly/1uV3jpL.

[2] http://on.thestar.com/1nnaQ29 (Toronto Star article “Aboriginal men murdered at higher rate than aboriginal women”)

[3] https://archive.is/3CiRr (CBC article "Missing aboriginal men need more attention, too: N.W.T. mother"), http://www.opp.ca/media/mumip/files/report-mumip.pdf ("Missing and Unsolved Murdered Indigenous People" from the Ontario Provincial Police)

[4] http://bit.ly/1uISTeE (Mediaite article “Why Did Kidnapping Girls, but Not Burning Boys Alive, Wake Media Up to Boko Haram?”), http://bit.ly/1vnXK3H (Reddit post documenting incidents)

[5] http://bit.ly/1uvyonw (Adam Jones' article “Effacing the Male: Gender, Misrepresentation, and Exclusion in the Kosovo War”)

[6] https://www.portlandoregon.gov/phb/article/532833 ("2015 Point-in-Time Count of Homelessness in Portland/Gresham/Multnomah County, Oregon")

[7] https://archive.is/4DIXa (Huffington Post article "Portland, Oregon, Mayor Wants To House All Homeless Women By End Of Year")

[8] https://archive.is/TB5RC (Hillary Clinton's speech at the First Ladies' Conference on Domestic Violence in El Salvador, 1998)

[9] https://archive.is/mRIJL (The Huffington Post article "How Trayvon Martin Became a Missing White Girl")

[10] https://archive.is/O2ljL ("Men Are the Expendable Gender" on TV Tropes)

[11] http://bbc.in/1AqRhd5 (BBC article “DR Congo unrest: Children freed from militia, says UN”)

[12] https://archive.is/EaWCB (IBTimes article "Isis has Beheaded, Stoned and Shot 1,362 Civilians, including 9 Children: Report")

[13] http://archive.is/jOMgd (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights page "More than 3500 children and women killed during 17 months of aerial bombardment")

https://web.archive.org/web/20230720051219/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/20/abused-partners-who-kill-lighter-sentences-new-sallys-law/

Sally's law is being introduced in the UK, which would make it so that people who murder their alleged abuser may be given lighter sentencing.

Sally's Law is named after Sally Challen who admitted to killing her husband. She was tracking his movements, checking his phone, believing he was cheating on her and later said: "If I can't have him, no-one can." Challen was initially ordered to serve a minimum term of 22 years in jail. Jurors were told she attacked the retired businessman in August 2010, as he ate lunch at the kitchen table of their former marital home, using a hammer she had brought in her handbag. Keep in mind that she was not trapped in a relationship with this man and they had separated in 2009 and she begged to reconcile with him in 2010.

Her legal team succesfully appealed her sentence in 2019 on the basis of diminished responsibility. She received 14 years for manslaughter but walked free due to time served.

My gut tells me that murderers like Sally who admitted to killing her husband due to her insecurities will take advantage of this law, and that this won't be applied to male victims of abuse.

In short:

Don't say "Toxic Masculinity", it hurts men's feelings. Say "Harmful Gender Expectations"
Don't say "Patriarchy", it hurts men's feelings. Say "Systemic Gender Expectations"
Don't say "Feminism", it (sorta) hurts men's feelings. Say "Gender Equality or Egalitarianism"

Edit: due to some justified criticism I want to clarify a few things here.

1. "It hurts men's feeling" is not the only reason why these things are bad.

2. I shouldn't have said "It hurts men's feelings" because I don't know all men. It probably only hurts the feelings of a small minority of men. I still maintain that this is justification enough to stop using these phrases.

3. I get the sense, and I could be wrong, that people kinda don't respect how damned important it is to not hurt men's feelings. I presented my post in the way that I did to put empathy for men front and center. But to be fair, I'm not the best at the empathy thing. Still I'm a little disappointed by the response. Maybe a bit more emphasis on how justified the hurt feelings are would have helped?

4. I changed the title from "Stop saying "Toxic Masculinity", "Patriarchy", and yes, even "Feminism"" to "People in the mainstream should stop saying "Toxic Masculinity", "Patriarchy", and yes, even "Feminism"". I wasn't trying to tell the people of the magazine what they should be allowed to say or not say. I was trying to suggest that we change what is considered acceptable in polite discourse (aka the overtone window). Kinda like how it's not so acceptable to say fireman anymore, you say firefighter instead. It shouldn't be acceptable to say "feminism" when talking referring to a gender equality movement.

But let's get into the details, starting with the easiest.

Toxic Masculinity

It doesn't take a genius to recognize that saying that phrase seems to imply that masculinity is toxic. I understand that the true intent here is to talk about harmful gender expectations placed on men and the impact it has on the people who try to live up to these expectations.

Which is why it so ironic that men's reaction to such loaded and negative terminology seems to be: "Hrmph, I'm a MAN and I won't let people show that I'm bothered by something so trivial as terminology."

Don't say "Toxic Masculinity", it hurts men's feelings and that's reason enough. Say "Harmful Gender Expectations", that IS what you meant when you used the phrase right?

Patriarchy

The patriarchy is a complex system of, often oppressive, gender expectations. AKA systemic gender expectations.

The ones we tend to see most places is one that seems to have more men than women in positions of high authority.

Those well versed in gender theory understand that this is just one of many interconnected symptoms and is in no way the "root cause" of the situation. There is no root cause, it is a complex systemic problem.

But when you call it Patriarchy, that's not how it's perceived. It's perceived as something that's caused by men to benefit men and place them in power.

But it's a systemic issue that harms both men and women in certain ways and benefits both men and women in other ways and often, it's not the same people receiving the benefits as those who are harmed by it.

But the use of the gendered term Patriarchy naturally leads to gendered terminology for these otherwise symmetric phenomenon:

• For things that harm women it's "Misogyny".
• For things that harm men it's "The patriarchy backfires on men"
• For things that benefit men it's "Misogyny, male privilege or oppression"
• For things that benefit women "Benevolent Sexism"

Exposure to this kind of language, especially for men prone to anxiety can lead to undue internalized guilt.

Which again, because of harmful gender expectation, men by and large fail to complain about this problem and it goes unaddressed.

So here again, please stop saying "Patriarchy", it hurts men's feelings.

Feminism

That's right. Even this one is problematic. Now I understand that feminism has great many different factions and that there isn't one definition to rule it all.

There is some self-identified feminists who unapologetically advocate for female supremacy, openly hate men and wish to see them be oppressed. And if these people want to have the term "Feminism", I say let them have it.

But for those who truly want to fight for gender equality, you can't have it. It just doesn't make any sense. It's in the word Feminism. It's a movement dedicated to women, not men. You cannot run an effective truly egalitarian movement under that banner.

At this point I can only speak for myself, because I'm shocked by how few men are bothered by this. But I cannot accept or identify with a purported gender egalitarian movement that failed before it said anything because it could not find a way to give itself a gender neutral name.

But here's the thing. It's literally taken me decades to understand this problem, as obvious as it may seem. But also sometimes I can be quite clueless too.

But all this to bring it back to this post's mantra: while younger men may not be explicitly complaining about this particular issue with feminism. I'm sure they understand that something feels off.

So yes, please stop saying "Feminism": it hurts men's feelings.

Or more accurately it makes men feel uncomfortable enough to refuse to join your cause.

And NO, it's not too much a bother. Men's feelings are important too. As a society we've updated a ton of terminology to make sure that women feel welcome in all aspects of society. This is NOT too much to ask to help men feel welcome in the discussion for gender equality.

The term “marriage strike” has gained some currency in recent years. Any good strike needs a specific set of demands. After some consideration I’ve come up with the below list of demands. I’d appreciate any suggestions for improvements. I know some points could be a little more specific, like #7. Maybe this can serve as a basis for an actual marriage strike movement. Although naturally every jurisdiction and individual will have their differences, I’ve tried to make this fairly inclusive while not drifting too much into other men’s rights issues that aren’t directly related to marriage.

1. Abolition of common law marriage or any other quasi-marriage arrangements which are entered into automatically or involuntarily.
2. Equal access to marriage for all regardless of sex or gender.
3. Retention or instatement of adultery as a ground for divorce.
4. Abolition of all laws, regulations, and policies relating to abuse which discriminate on the basis of gender or sex.
5. Felony charges for demonstrably false accusations of abuse.
6. Organizations which openly espouse or advocate gender- or sex-biased views or policies barred from government funding.
7. Remove incentives for judges and attorneys to draw out divorce proceedings.
8. Auditing of judges for gender- or sex-based discrimination in rulings with consequences up to disbarment.
9. Abolition of the “duress” exemption for prenuptial agreements.
10. Abolition of alimony (maintenance).
11. Presumed 50/50 custody unless one divorcing partner can be verified as abusive or incompetent.
12. Property gained by divorcing partners prior to marriage, or its equivalent, devolves to original owner. Presumed 50/50 split of property gained after marriage.
13. Right to abortion on demand up to the 20th week of pregnancy.
14. Right to relinquish all parental rights and responsibilities up to the signing of birth certificate.
15. Right to a paternity test on demand at any point prior to the signing of birth certificate.
16. Prohibition of adding a parent’s name to a birth certificate without informed consent, except in cases of mental incompetence.
17. Right to be informed of the birth of biological children.
18. Felony charges for paternity fraud.
19. Recognition of parental alienation as a form of child abuse.

But my main objection is that Barbie is not really a film about Barbie at all. It’s one hour and 54 minutes of extended misandry, dressed up with a few fun dance routines and one or two (granted fairly decent) jokes.

It’s a deeply anti-man movie, an extension of all that TikTok feminism that paints any form of masculinity — other than the most anodyne — as toxic and predatory, and frames women’s liberation not as a movement based on achieving equality between the sexes but as a cultural revenge vehicle designed to write men out of the story altogether.

Every male character is either an idiot, a bigot or a sad, rather pathetic loser. If the roles were reversed, and a male director made a film about how all women were hysterical, neurotic, gold-digging witches, it would be denounced — quite rightly — as deeply offensive and sexist.

It is this kind of popular media that is infecting the minds of the young. On the surface it celebrates women, but it does so in a very shallow and toxic way. And it reinforces the misandry that has been spreading through Western society for the past 50 years.

The difference in earnings between full-time working women and men is now the narrowest on record, according to an Axios analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which was published earlier this week.

Full-time working women had median weekly earnings of $1,001 last quarter, about 84% of the $1,181 median for men. It’s the smallest the gap has been since 1979, the first year for which earnings data is available. That year, women’s median earnings were 62% of men’s.

I think we should try to close that gap by getting more women into higher-earning jobs. Maybe that will help close the much wider Occupational Fatality Gap: over 90% of workplace deaths are male, especially in the logging and fishing industry. And since society cares more about women, getting women into those dangerous jobs will help improve safety for all!