Misandry is Real After All

Both females and males have, historically, had privileges and disadvantages. Being a male, for example, gave

one the advantages of being thought of as more (or perhaps less) than a baby producing piece of property. Being a female offered the privilege of not being forced to put oneself in life threatening situations to protect the community (particularly the women and children).

One of the most effective critiques of the modern female is the fact that women want to move past the strict confines of the female role of times past without losing many of the privileges that came with that role. An example of this would be women being granted suffrage while keeping male only draft registration. Meanwhile, while men have made some strides towards breaking out of their old role, they have made much less progress than women. The decline of the draft, for instance, seems to have more to do with an overall decline in violence than with any changes in how we view the male role.

You may not be surprised to hear that feminism has played a role in this dynamic. In theory, feminists are against male only draft registration and other chivalric practices that privileged females. I'll even grant feminists that, given their focus on women, I don't blame them for putting very little effort forward to end these practices.

But, indirectly, a larger feminist narrative has contributed greatly to the neglect of male problems. This narrative, of course, is that of 'male privilege'. But it is even worse than that, there is a feminist tendency to claim that sexism against men or 'misandry' don't even exist. The reasoning behind this is that, in order to be sexist, there has to be both prejudice and institutional or systematic discrimination. According to many feminists, prejudice against men can exist, but since institutions don't discriminate against men, sexism against men isn't real. 

The problem with this claim is that it is inaccurate. I couldn't imagine a more egregious example of systematic oppression than the mandatory draft. Of course, the draft is no longer as widely used as it once was. But, still we have examples of males being at a disadvantage. Back in December, I had a post that offered some examples of ways that men are disadvantaged:

"1.) Men are 92% of workplace deaths

2.) Men are 95% of military deaths since 1980 (presumably closer to 100% of deaths prior to 1980)

3.) Men are 77% of homicide victims

4.) Men are about 80% of suicide victims

5.) Men are 62% of the homeless (although I've heard figures even higher)

6.) Men, on average, live about 5 years less than women"

This isn't even to mention the fact that men get incarcerated about 11 times more often than women and graduate college at a lower rate than women. Then of course, there is the anti male bias in divorce, and the relative neglect of male health compared to female health.

The point here is that, yes, men face discrimination specifically for being men. They are more susceptible, on average, to many problems, and some institutions specifically discriminate against men (like courts or public health funding). But, then the question arises, are these "gender" issues?

The answer, of course, is yes. In the case of things like divorce court and underfunding male public health, we see direct anti male discrimination. In the cases of things like men being overrepresented among suicides and the homeless, the discrimination, while less obvious, is still present.

Take suicide, for example. We see that men are about 4 times more prone to suicide than women. If we saw that blacks were 4 times more likely to commit suicides than whites, we would see this, at least in part, as a race issue. Whether nature or nurture, we would recognize that something in either our genes or society (likely both) put blacks at a disadvantage in this respect. The same applies to homelessness, homicide victims, and workplace deaths. I'll also add that, in my experience, feminists are extremely hostile to genetic explanations in areas where women are at a disadvantage. 

One more objection to my reasoning might be the "benevolent sexism" argument. In essence, this argument states that the examples of anti male sexism are really anti female sexism cleverly disguised because it is somehow condescending to women that they have not been expected or forced to risk death for their community.

This seems a bit ridiculous to me. Not because it is totally inaccurate (it isn't). But, the idea that this somehow turned the male only draft registration into sexism against women is absurd. A more modern example might be the fact that men are 92% of workplace deaths. Feminists often respond to this by saying that the jobs with higher risk of death are not welcoming to women.

Again, this isn't untrue. But, this hardly constitutes a male privilege. The jobs with high risk of death are not exactly the kind of jobs that women (or men) would be upset about not being able to get. It may be condescending that the men in these jobs see women as too fragile for some lines of work, but, even in the absence of this attitude, it is hard to imagine that masses of women would really want to take low paying, isolated, and dangerous jobs. It's even harder to view this as a male privilege. 

There are, it seems, social expectations and norms that encourage, or even expect, some men to take dangerous professions. It's the same reason, historically, we have almost exclusively sent men to war. Male life is simply seen as having less value than female life. The term that has been used to describe this is male disposability. And, given the realities of suicides, workplace deaths, and the history of the draft, it is very much a real social phenomenon. 

This male disposability constitutes the systematic oppression and discrimination that men have faced. The feminist claims that males are the privileged sex is both false and harmful. Female privilege is as real as male privilege. But, continuing to perpetuate the myth that sexism against men or misandry doesn't exist ultimately holds back any progress we could hope to make on these male issues.

Feminists often get mad about those who blame them for the issues men face. That is fair enough, as feminists are not responsible for the original social realities that contributed to these issues. However, feminists do need to take responsibility for the harm that their narrative has done to any attempt to mitigate these issues. If feminists are really serious about helping men, the first step would be to drop the false notion that "misandry" is a myth.