The War on Men


Unvalanced's avatar
Men:

1.) Commit suicide at much higher rates than women
2.) Drop out of school at much higher rates than women
3.) Now graduate at all levels at lower rates than women
4.) Have higher unemployment rates than women
5.) Die significantly earlier than women (even while more public funds are spent on women's health issues than men's)
6.) Have higher workplace fatality rates than women
7.) Have little to no domestic violence support (in spite of constituting half the victims of domestic violence)
8.) Have significantly reduced legal protections against rape (and indeed have their rape by women ignored by a system which classifies it as "Forced to penetrate", a sexual assault crime which is -just as common- as male-on-female rape according to the CDC)
9) Experience higher incarceration and conviction rates for the same crimes
10) Severely lack in parental rights
11.) Severely lack in reproductive rights:
  A.) Statutory rape victims ordered to pay child support
  B.) Rape victims ordered to pay child support
  C.) Limited legal recourse if a mother decides to give a child up for adoption (in one case a father on the state paternity list lost a court case to get custody of a child the mother -drove to Oklahoma- to put up for adoption, knowing he'd get custody if she put the child up for adoption in her home state)
 D.) No opt-out for parental responsibility (75% of abortions are for financial reasons, yet men have no equivalent option)
12.) Are reduced to third-class status, behind women in children, in disaster support
13.) Are presumed as enemy combatants when killed by military forces
14.) Are ignored by international support groups
15.) Are blamed for all of the above under "Patriarchy" theory, which presumes to claim that society is organized by and for men, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, on the grounds that a tiny minority of all men enjoy elevated social and legal status, while ignoring the fact that the majority of men experience substantially lower social and legal status than the majority of women.

The "War on Women" entirely consists of reducing women's rights to those equivalent to men.  If the "War on Women" is a legitimate concept, war has -already- been waged against men, and men lost.

So.  Any challengers?
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Adelaidejohn1967's avatar
OK a female and male sex offender.

Woman 35 has sex with 16 yr old boy is found and arrested.

Man 35 has sex with 16 yr old girl is found and arrested.

Which one gets the harsher jail sentence?
Panjanglatron's avatar
As a response to 15 first, I used to be on the fence but once I figured out I was gay and found myself on the other side of it I sort of began seeing this "Patriarchy" as a big problem, though don't feel that many feminists approach it as fully as they could. I have come to believe that gender roles are constructs and when feminists do come across as blaming men they should really be blaming the construct of masculinity*, which either causes or exacerbates the issues brought up in points 1 through 14. I will give a explanation as to what I mean by that for each point. Not really rebuttals as they are problems, I just don't think it is wise to throw out the whole concept of Patriarchy (assuming Patriarchy is code for gender roles).

1: Men are taught to not talk about their problems. Part of being masculine means sucking it up, rubbing some dirt on it, and walking it off. The problem is men are human beings who need emotional connections, love, understanding, and need to be vulnerable. Statistically, men who remain unmarried die younger and suffer at higher rates of mental illness. Why should a man need to be in a relationship to enjoy closeness with someone else? 

2: Corporations are being allowed to run a numbers game on young people, suckering them into a lottery (why be a doctor or a lawyer when you might be the next Jay Z, Rhianna, etc?), but I will digress on this as it approaches way off topic. In any event, these numbers games play right into masculinity in that men are required to seek ambition and made to feel like failures if they don't carve their name into the surface of the moon. They are also raised to be "daring" and to "take chances" with such traits glorified without context. There is a big difference between a Fortune 500 CEO taking a chance on a new start up and a kid with promise dropping out of school to pursue a rap "career".

3 - 6: I consider these a success of females being released from their own gender constraints. Much of the issue as I see it is men are left without any place in the scheme of things any more. Women are not content to be housewives or live in their "proper role" yet there has been no force organized to free men from this idea that they need to stay in that now broken system. With no other paths, much of what I see here is a loss of identity and associated loss of ambition. In some cases, many of these men stuck in a rut that makes them miserable may much more enjoy being stay at home fathers or the like (though there are issues associated with that concerning the law and addressed below). 

7 - 8: This is extremely unacceptable and there have been extremely misguided feminists in some places (like Australia, for example) shutting down shelters for men. While police may laugh, as a gay man, I know for certain that domestic violence affects men as does sexual violence. While women may not often be perpetrators, that is hardly the point anyways. And, again, much of this I feel links back to this idea that men are strong and can suck it up. Men should never feel ashamed for being a victim of rape, molestation, violence, or anything else. It is unrealistic and unfair to expect men to live up to such stereotypes, not to mention actively dangerous to them.

9 - 11: Since you raised a bunch of legal issues, I would point out that the courts and laws are set up to favor the way things used to be. Women get deference because there is a (nowadays unfair) stereotype that women are home makers and child raisers while men are bread winners. If there is one weakness in the Republic as a form of government it is the glacial pace that changes in law tend to move. But I consider this less an aspect of the war on men and more something we have wound up stuck in due to the very gender system that Feminists address (at least on behalf of women). To use an analogy, the legal problems are like a vast impenetrable wall that men built long ago before we were born that we, these days, find ourselves trapped by, unable to escape the invading barbarians**. This may call for groups dedicated to righting these wrongs and lobbying for change. Unfortunately, no such group exists as I know, which is unfortunate.

12:  Women and children first is based off the view that women are weak and need our protections along with children. Similar to my addressing 9 - 11, this is more a matter of the ancient wall that was supposed to protect us coming back to bite us. Though this is social and not changeable through laws I suspect it will go away on it's own in time.

13: I had not heard of this but it makes sense. Again, men tend to be conscripted for battle and tend to be required to be strong and defend what they hold dear. This is a trope as old as the Law of Hammurabi and the mythology of Beowulf.

14: That is totally unacceptable, if true. I have no reason to doubt you but not sure how to verify the claim either. In any case, I would hope this would change in time as well. This links back to point 12 that men are supposed to be "strong enough" so deference is unfairly given to women.

In all cases, gender roles are to blame for this. 

* I have nothing against being a gentleman or your being "masculine" if you choose to take on those traits. Nor do I fault one for being "feminine". My issue comes from the ingraining of these traits as if they were natural to people. 

** It is a sloppy analogy, I realize. I am not calling women or feminists barbarians - if anything, I am referring to the system itself as the barbarians in this analogy.
Crapcarp's avatar
Well, it seems you've got your heart in the right place, and that's great. Good for you! However, judging from your response to this, it seems like you're a bit misinformed of a few key aspects of gender inequality. Not that you're to blame for it though, as you'll see in a minute.

Okay, first up I wanna clear up that the Patriarchy is indeed the same thing as gender roles. I use gender roles most of the time because it's a more accurate term. This is because men don't run things nor even made the rules exclusively. Rather, both men and women made gender roles, and it was more of an agreement than it was an imposition of rule.

Gender roles date all the way back to our earliest ancestors. They didn't have modern conveniences such as advanced technology or a vast wealth of knowledge to draw from. How did they survive? One of the biggest factors was gender roles. It was an effective reproductive strategy that suited our species the most during those times, and since pretty much every other society that didn't use them got wiped out pretty easily(with a few rare exceptions of course, but they merely proved the rule). This essentially means that we have literally evolved the mentality of gender roles.

Now, one of your misconceptions that I've noticed was that women are believed to be weak, this isn't the case. While gender roles do dictate that women need to be protected, it is not because of weakness, but rather out of need. The reason why gender roles have been so effective as a reproductive strategy is because women are our species reproductive limiters. For example, there's Group A and Group B. Group A has 9 men and 1 woman, whereas Group B has 1 man and 9 women. Assuming that both of these groups will be as reproductive as possible, which group do you think is the most likely to survive in the long run? Yup, Group B because they'll have much more offspring to work with. And that's the thing: Women need to be protected because they're the only ones who can bear children.

While this attitude does see women as baby factories, men get much the same treatment as being seen as disposable tools. Reproductively speaking, one man can do the work of many, so their lives aren't as valuable as a result. Also, keep in mind that when I say all this I'm being descriptive, not proscriptive. I'm not saying this because I feel it's the way things should be, but rather it's simply how the way things are right now.

If anything, I want to ditch gender roles as much as you do. While they were made out of practicality and survival instead of nefarious and oppressive purposes, they're useless and can be rather dangerous to us. We don't need gender roles anymore, so let's just allow everybody to live life as they want to.

Like I said, it's great that you have your heart in the right place, but the fact is you simply cannot solve a problem if you don't know what it is. This is why I've replied to you, so that you know what the problem is and can work towards a solution.
Panjanglatron's avatar
The most successful civilizations were male led early on, I will grant you that. While there were egalitarian societies, these societies tended to either stay small or get dominated, militarily, by the societies that adopted the baby factory disposable tool model. While I do see gender roles as a problem now I don't think they have always been since our advancement as a species depended on our fighting each other early on for dominance so that we could give birth to the leisure required for technological and social advancement (as was the case with Rome and Greece, for example, which both revolutionized medicine, philosophy, dock building, sailing, cartography, and enough other things to fill a whole diatribe).

That said, I think we have moved past the need for these things as of our forays into space. Mankind advances technologically and socially when challenged by war and exploration. Unfortunately, we have run out of exploration here on Earth, at least in the largest sense. Thanks to space, though, I suspect we maybe entering an era where we are on the cusp of being able to use space/colonization for the purposes of our exploration and leave war behind (at least on the scales we see today) in the past. While I know there is still war everywhere I have become convinced we are close to reaching a turning point of sorts. At least, I hope so; the weapons of today are too powerful to fall back into the old ways fully. A single reaper drone carries the firepower to wipe out a city of ten thousand, or so I read. 

Not only are gender roles obsolete, I would posit they are a clear and present danger to the species. I hope we find our way out of these bindings of the past before we experience a world where the new, computerized, heavy ordinance Sword of Damocles actually falls on our necks. I do understand what you mean though and agree that these things span back many millenniums.
Adelaidejohn1967's avatar
Why are female sex offenders treated a lot differently to male sex offenders, or treated as if they are actually victims?
Unvalanced's avatar
Because agent, and hence perpetrator, are part of the male gender role, and object, and hence victim, are part of the female gender role.  Men aren't permitted to -not- be responsible, including for the decisions of others, particularly women, who we generally refuse to permit responsibility to.
Adelaidejohn1967's avatar
Can we have that in English :)
Crapcarp's avatar
Men are perpetrators, women are victims.
Crapcarp's avatar
Bullshit to what exactly? The claim that says society's mentality is "men are perpetrators, women are victims" or that claim in and of itself?
Adelaidejohn1967's avatar
Oh that........ sorry I misread you...

My view is that some see women as "can do no wrong" and "men are always evil" and that has become a real stereotype of sorts.
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Kurri-Rooster's avatar
who gives a fuck we can piss standing up.
Chiminix's avatar
There is always a war against everyone.
Redfoxbennington's avatar
TheTuscany's avatar
I don't think there's a "war on women," but there are still problems women face at higher rates than men (like sexual assault) and there is still progress to be made on those issues, both inside and outside the US.

The original feminist movement made excellent progress in advancing women's' rights for sure, but I will say that there are instances where their advancement went too far/did not consider there needs to be exceptions/extensions/specifications for when it comes to men to promote women's rights without infringing upon men's rights.

I don't think there was a war on men (unless you want to only consider the opinions of feminist extremists) but rather women trying to promote their own rights and change the opinions and prejudices of society against them and by advancing their own rights they may have inadvertently stepped on the rights of males.
Unvalanced's avatar
Part of the issue is treating things like sexual assault as a gendered issue - I've linked the CDC stats here more than once, the short of it is that male victims are minimized and ignored, but constitute a far larger number of sexual assault victims than is commonly acknowledged.  I use "War on Men" as a rhetorical device - my point isn't that feminists have actually engaged in a war on men, but rather that they treat discussion of men's issues as anti-feminist - and then get angry when it is suggested that feminism hasn't actually pursued equality, but rather sought only to address women's issues, leaving men behind.  And then these same feminists get angry at the men's rights movement for existing, and accuse anybody of pointing out men's issues as being misogynists or just the privileged class trying to maintain its privilege.
TheTuscany's avatar
Oh I understand. And it is true that men do face sexual assault and it is just as serious as sexual assault against females, but you can't change the fact that the majority of sexual assault victims are female, which is why I only stated it as being an issue that women face at higher rates than men.

And the men's movement faces the same problems that modern day feminism faces where the movement is seen by the public as the loud mouthed extremists make it sound. There are enough actually misogynistic and privileged males identifying with the men's rights movement for the wrong reasons and that gives it a bad name, just like how extreme feminists who do not actually look for gender equality, but rather women's superiority, give the modern feminism movement a bad name. 
Essekki-Koeth's avatar
OH SHI- IT HAS BEEN BRUNG.

HE HAS UNLEASHED...THE INSANITY.

BEWARE.....of the FEMINISTS!!!!
Crapcarp's avatar
This thread's kinda old and has over 1000 replies now, so that's really nothing new.
Unvalanced's avatar
I've read them all several times, too.  They're amusing to go through.
MadrePappagallo's avatar
LizzyChrome's avatar
You win this thread.
Wesmeadow's avatar
Trust me man, DA and any internet forum will twist you into a misogynist that hates women over any sign of looking to improve male life in society.

They view anything pro-male as anti-female.