Seen this on reddit and thought it was an interesting question that largely is not talked about.
It is largely an issue that gets sidelined and hidden because people don’t want to talk about it or accept that it exists. Hopefully this gets some traction to break that marginalisation.
The highest frequency I see of it is when issues are discarded when it is an issue with men. Be it homelessness, suicide, job inequality, domestic violence or any other issue. But not for women. It seems men are worthless in a lot of people’s eyes because they aren’t women.
Or equally men are responsible for all the bad things in the world because simply they are men and men are responsible. For example a common issue is when men say they open up to a woman and that women used that to attack them. Then someone might say this is the patriarchy and toxic masculinity in action and men need to sort it out. Even though the man has done absolutely nothing wrong only the woman. Deflecting any responsibly from women doing something they shouldn’t have.
The inequality of responses from those being harmed, or undervalued and those responsible for the negativity seems at times strongly dependant on if it is a man or a women.
At least that is what I have seen mostly. But I’m more curious about others.
Oh, when you put it like that, I filed that under “people are people” catagory in my head long ago.
See, as a guy, we’re expected to uphold a certain silence of our emotions. If we’re sad at a funeral, we’re expected not to cry. If we’re worried, we’re expected to suck it up. If we’re frustrated we’re expected to get over it.
And women will say “oh, guys just don’t have any connection to their feelings”. Except, it’s not all women. Thats what I mean by people are people. Each individual person has a certain unique viewpoint, and it’s defined by personal experiences. Which means every single one is different, but in groups they may share certain opinions.
The confusing part is when women tell you that you need to open up and express your feelings. Because roughly half genuinely mean it. Half of them want you to explore your emotions. But half of them SAY they want that…until you do it. Then they just say you’re supposed to be a MAN and bottle this all up. Despite 20 minutes earlier begging for us to let them in.
And as a man, you don’t know which one you’re talking to. DOES she genuinely want to hear your dreams, and problems in life? Or does she just want to mock you for (insert whatever trauma you’ve had here).
Every individual person sees life through their own lenses, and the vast majority cannot fathom the concept that their views are not the “correct views”. That there are no “correct views”. There are only “compatible views”.
Me personally, I need a woman who’s more traditional in some views, but more open to other views. That doesn’t mean someone who wants an open relationship is a bad person. It just means they’re not compatible with me. I want monogomy. But I’ve seen both men and women look at an incompatible person and deem them to be a bad person, or immoral. I just see them as different people. Two people who want open relationship? Thats fine. You both consented. The only people I think are bad people are those who put their own views in front of others, and demand the whole world revolve around those views. And unfortunately that feels like it’s the vast majority of people.
So I just crack a beer, file it away as “people are going to be people” and forget the whole thing.
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I wouldn’t discard the risks to men that are homeless, but I easily acknowledge that a homeless woman would likely be much more vulnerable.
This one seems very equal to me. Its a usually a tragedy to lose someone of either gender. I’m not upset if a rapist or murderer commits suicide, however, irrespective of their gender.
I’m not following where this is a detriment to men. Statistically and my own anecdotal observation, women are much more negatively affected by job inequality.
I agree this one is frequently overlooked where men are the victims. Our society is evolving on this, but not fast enough.
I can’t say I see that reflected in society. What I do see are some calling out specific issues (at least one you’ve raised above) as recently negatively affecting men, while the same issue has been negatively affecting women far worse and for far longer and that it had been ignored. It comes off as lack of self reflection and disingenuous where men have allowed women to suffer for years (decades? centuries?), but as soon as men are experiencing it too, its a crisis now!
Certainly not all, but certainly lots and lots of bad things. Only 13 of the 193 UN member nations have ever had a woman leader of the nation. source I don’t see how anyone can say women are to blame for that, nor the policies those world leaders put into place.
Well, if men are in charge, then it would follow that they’re responsible for the outcomes, yes? I’m willing to give a woman a chance to lead. She certainly can’t be any worse that some of the worst men we’ve had as leaders.
I don’t know what women you have in your life, but I have never experience this first hand with any of the women in my life.
I almost never see this kind of thing, even online. I don’t do reddit (anymore), facebook, or tiktok though, so maybe thats where its happening that I don’t see it?
Just to add a data point to this one, I’m a woman and I got about $3k from a class action settlement against my company because they were found to be paying women in the same position (especially bipoc women) less than men. Unfortunately, it’s cheaper for them to pay each person $3k than to increase each person’s salary by an appropriate amount 🙄
We needed the ERA before, and we need it even more today.
You might be right about the risks of being homeless for a women, and maybe it’s because of that, but men get less help to get out of homelessness.
I don’t really get your point here, but there is something like 3x more men suicide than women suicide, and this is pretty much true everywhere in the world: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/male-female-ratio-suicides-rates
It really depends on the fields, you’re right in most, pretty much all, cases it is a detriment for women, but for example when it is about working with children men get less hired, and even when they get hired they have to be really careful about what they do, they quickly get called pedophiles.
When you complain about something happening to you as a men pretty much all the time either people tell you to “just man up” and/or they even just laugh at your face.
People in power are responsible for most of the bad things in the world, the fact that they are mostly men doesn’t mean all men are responsible for this, women in power do lot of bad things too(Indira Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Park Geun-hye, Elizabeth Holmes to name a few), but it’s because of the power and individuals values they have not because of their gender.
My point is that neither men’s nor women’s suicide are dismissed. A woman committing suicde is an equal tradegy to a man committing suicide. I’m not aware of any social convention which dismisses men’s suicide. This is what I meant when I said they are equal. Society treats men’s and women’s suicide the same.
First, you’re right on your very specific example, but that is a very very very small representation of job inequality. However, even in the case of male and female elementary school teachers where you’re calling out discrimnation, it is men that are out earning women in the same jobs as elementary school teachers.
Further, the scare around male teachers being around young children is a construct mostly from the last 20 to 25 years. Trying to use that as a statement to suggest that there is equal job (and pay!!) discrimination against both men and women would be disingenuous.
What you’re describing is an example of “toxic masculinity”. I see a lot of irony in you citing it here as supportive of a position that would negate the argument of discrimnation against women vs men.
In short, we both agree that “just man up” is a problem and that philosophy should be discarded, but it isn’t on women to fix that when its largely perpetuated by men.
Strawman. I didn’t say because men are in charge that all men are responsible. Thats a common strawman on this topic. Please don’t introduce it here.
You’re straying pretty far from the topic here. This isn’t “women leaders good, men leaders bad”. The point you’re replying to is specifically in the context of defining public policy in which discrimination occurs. There have been so few women leaders, and their tenue in modern politics so short that I’m not sure if we can really measure very much impact (positive or negative) on discrimination yet.