Men's rights activism?? Antifeminist stuff here? 👀
No! Men's rights are for men, not against women. Read on and you'll agree with me — or your money back!
Ok, but are men's rights incel, patriarchal or right-wing?
At the root — no. These ideas are not only trash, but even controversial with men's rights. Sometimes men's rights "activists" unfortunately are incels or tradcons. Let's hate those dummies together, alright?
Armies
In vast majority of countries only men are forced to serve in the military forces. During wars, when there is a scarcity of troops, young boys are dispatched to the frontlines even before adult women. What if every woman was forced by law to, for example, give birth, just based on their sex assigned at birth?
Suicides
Males commit suicide 3-6 times more frequently than females — that is 6 men a day. But perhaps the issue isn't rooted in toxic masculinity at all: nearly all (91%) middle-aged men have been in contact with at least one frontline service or agency, primarily primary care services.
Difference in average life expectancy
In highly gender unequal countries like Russia, men live on average 10 years shorter than women. No, the reason is not in biology: the difference in life expectancy in healthier countries - for example, Sweden or Norway - is 3.4 years, in the Netherlands - 3.1 years.
At the same time, russian men retire five years later than women.
Homicides
When every fifth person killed worldwide is a woman - you call it femicide. Will you dare to fight against androcide, when 4 out of 5 killed are men? In Brazil every 14 out of 15 killed are men. Check other countries' data here.
Torture
After a year of war in Ukraine OHCHR has documented 621 cases of enforced disappearances — 544 men, 71 women, 6 boys, 0 girls. 90% who was been abducted by Russia experienced torture.
If torture in a country is possible, men are much more vulnerable to it than women.
Homelessness
Men make up 80% of the homeless in Russia and 60% of the homeless in the USA.
But even in US men are the vast majority of homeless deaths.
Domestic violence
One in two victims of domestic violence is male — although women are more likely to experience severe violence or murder (at home). Yet, male still victims receive less than 0.05% of emergency shelter or transitional housing assistance.
Police officers also refuse to press charges against women perpetrators 3x more often than they do against men perpetrators. Women who nevertheless were charged in medium- and high-injury cases are even less likely to be taken into custody than men in NO-INJURY cases.
Gayphobia and transphobia
Gay men are reportedly up to 6 times more likely to be murdered than lesbians. 96% of those murdered globally were trans women or transfeminine people (24 times more) — it is worth bearing in mind that most of them may have been killed by transphobes because they were perceived as "men". For example, in Brazil during 2016-2020 were killed at least 760 transfeminine & at least 40 transmasculine people, at least 800 gay men & at least 150 lesbians, and even at least 30 hetero men mistaken for gays!
Obviously oppressing anyone who identifies as a man is clearly discrimination of men and directly related to masculism.
There are also 34 countries where only gay males are punished/executed, and 0 countries with a gender-mirrored situation.
Boys in education
Male students are discriminated against in every subject (except English) at all levels of the curriculum. Teachers treat boys pejoratively, and boys receive lower grades even if their exam results were higher.
This results in men and boys falling behind women at all levels of education by as much as women and girls lagged behind men 50 years ago.
The prejudice against male students is caused by the behaviour of teachers, not students.
Today, there are even more boys out of school than girls (128 million vs 122 million).
Police brutality
The US police are more than twice as likely to kill a black person than a white person, and more than 23 times more likely to kill a man than a woman. Over 95% of killed by police were men. Police violence is primarily a gender issue, and only then a racial one.
The situation goes almost insane, when we consider black men.
Genocides
Genocides of Armenians, Indians, Syrians, Rwandans, Gypsies; massacres in Bucha, Srebrenica, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Iraqi Kurdistan and many other places — in fact, non-combatant men have been and continue to be the most frequent targets of mass killing and genocidal slaughter, as well as a host of lesser atrocities and abuses
Mortality
Risk of death for men is 60% higher than for women. 92% of workplace fatalities are men.
Men are also 2.8x more likely to die from alcohol-induced causes and 1.6x more likely to do so from drug-induced ones.
Health
Of the top 15 leading causes of death, men lead in 12, are tied in 2, & trail in 1. Men are also the majority (90%) of cancer patients for the deadliest (highest number of deaths & highest mortality rate) cancers. That may happen because AMAB-specific cancer treatment funding is 3x lower than AFAB-specific funding.
64% of those newly recognized as disabled at working age in Russia are men.
Rapes
Women, indeed, experience the majority of sexual violence. However, men and boys
1) Experience it too (at least 1 in 6 men)
2) Are raped not only by other men, but also by other women
3) Have almost no crisis centers, assistance programs and else that exist for female rape survivors. In some countries (for example, UK, India, Israel or Russia) it is currently not even legally possible for a woman to rape a man.
Childhood
Boys have similar chance to experience child abuse than girls (47.3% and 50.7%), but are 1.5x more likely to die of maltreatment and incomparably more likely to get killed. Parents also punish boys more (and more quickly) than they do girls.
The majority of children used as armies, terrorists or suicide bombers are boys (e.g. 97% in Syria).
Legal system
Men are 70-80% more likely to be incarcerated (and will recieve 63% longer sentence) for the same offense with the same criminal history. Russian woman gets a year less of prison than man for a murder in exactly same curcumstances (including self-defence). Wives convicted of killing spouses receive prison sentences 10 years shorter than in mirrored situation. This gets even worse if we consider BiPOC males.
In some countries (eg. Russia), a woman cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment or death penalty based just on her gender.
Fathers' rights
4 in 5 custodial parents are mothers. Custodial fathers are less likely to get child support. 74.3% of custodial fathers hold full-time jobs (compared to 51.4% of custodial mothers).
While 92% of parents in prison are fathers, some countries (eg. Russia) cannot legally arrest a mother even for a heavy crime, if she has a child under 14.
Media
"Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat — Hillary Clinton"
Males are considered "unworthy" victims: un(der)reported in news outlets, suffering minimized, ignored, or sanitized.
On the other hand, some studies say that more than 75% of representations of men or male identity in mass media show men as one of the following: villains, aggressors, perverts, philanderers.
Unhealthy feminist activism
One feminist group has bullied, harassed, threatened with death, threatened with bombs, and killed the dog of another feminist, founder of the women's shelter movement, because she asserted that women, too, perpetrate partner violence.
Another example: feminist and her family have also received verbal threats (both in public and at home), threatening phone calls, and bomb threats because she was the first researcher to bring up "battered husbands."
This is hartred towards cis female feminists. Attacks on men and masculists are happening in incomparably greater numbers and severity.
Genital mutilation
In Western societies, it is forbidden to alter the healthy genitalia of girl children in any way and to any extent, unless there are strict medical grounds for doing so. But altering the healthy genitalia of male and intersex children is allowed.
39-40% of all men are circumcised (up to 80% in the US, and in some countries up to 99.9%).
If a man has access to soap, circumcision often does more harm than good. Almost all medical organisations in the world recommend not to commit it (without a health reason).
But aren't men privileged and women vulnerable?
Science shows us it's not the case. If anything mentioned above applies to you because of your gender, it's a vulnerability. If it doesn't apply to you, it's a privilege.
Are you saying that men don't have privileges?
No. Men do have privileges and vulnerabilities. And women have their own vulnerabilities and their own privileges. It's that simple.
But aren't we living in a patriarchy?
"Patriarchy has no gender" — bell hooks
Feminist Gayle Rubin has wrote in her "The Traffic in Women", that the patriarchal system is system of absolute power of fathers (patriarchs) — eg. biblical character Abraham was a patriarch. Patriarch can rape, sell or kill "his" women and children without punishment. So today we are not living in patriarchy just starting with the fact that a man is punished for raping or killing a woman.
Continuing further, while governments are indeed more often filled with men, the governments almost never make any decisions that are beneficial for men as a group. As we've seen above, men are absolutely not privileged or "beneficiaries of the current system".
Thirdly, the system gives privileges to both men and women (and none to non-binary people by their correct gender).
If not patriarchy, how to call the gender-unequal world then?
We should definitely change the terminology so that we no longer equate all men with the <0.001% of actually hyper-privileged men.
Sex/gender-system or Gender-system ●
This option was suggested by a feminist Gayle Rubin.
Gender norms ●
I don't like it personally too much, because "norms" doesn't reflect as good as "system" that the the oppression is systematical, harsh and unwanted. But it works good as well.
Kyriarchy (?) ●
In feminist theory, kyriarchy is a social system or set of connecting social systems built around domination, oppression, and submission. If patriarchy means "fathers power", kyriarchy means "masters" or "rulers power". However, this option might be the worst for several reasons.
And do not use:
Matriarchy ⚬
Women don't have enough power or benefits to call them privileged as a group.
But men are abused by other men?
No, not only by them.
IPV violence:
- Huge systematic review of 62 different studies has come to the conclusion that women perpetrate as much or slightly more interpersonal violence.
- Up to 50% of domestic violence victims are men (however, women are 25% more likely to experience serious violence, and more likely to die because of IPV).
Sexual violence:
- At least every sixth man experiences seuxal abuse/assault. According to one study, nearly half of the men (46%) who reported some form of sexual victimization were victimized by women. According to another, 80% of men raped had female rapists.
- In some exceptional years, such as 2010 and 2012 in the US, there were even more rapes of men than of women. In other years, however, the proportion of male rapes stayed around 30%.
Childhood:
- More than a half of child abuse/neglect perpetrators today are mothers (53.5% vs 45.3%).
- In heterosexual monogamous relationships, women are involved in 72% of child abuse crimes (43% mother alone, 27% father alone, 20% both parents, 7% mother and non-parent, 1% father and non-parent).
Education:
- Female science teachers lower the achievement of boys, but not girls.
- Female history teachers increase achievement of girls, but not boys.
Wars:
- Women also start wars, where only men are forced to die.
- Between 1480 and 1913, queens were 27% more likely to start wars than kings (which matters because 96% of military deaths in all observed history occur between 1500-2000).
Unfair trials:
- Women judges, just like men judges, also judge other men and give them longer sentences for the same crime.
And so on.
Even if men were oppressed only by other men, it would be egregious cruelty to oppose the men's rights activism just because of this. After all, it's worth noting that even in the case of male-on-male crimes, the crimes are committed by “other men,” but by “0.4% of men.” — just likes these mentioned crimes are commited not by the women, but by radical minority of women.
(Note that the data above doesn't say, that men cannot be bad or that all women are bad, but just that some women can also be bad — not a discovery)
But this is against binary ideology: discrimination cannot work "backwards"?
If one's ideology (eg. homophobia, racism or men-hating feminism) goes against the scientifical facts, it's time to change the ideology (or acknowledge that you're a bigot). But I believe that the idea of women being discriminated against by men is wrong by itself. Women and men are discriminated by the sex/gender-system, not one by another, just like gays and lesbians are discriminated by heteronormative system, not by heterosexuals exclusively. And here we can agree: discrimination "backwards" — i.e. discrimination against those in power by ordinary women and men — does not exist.
Are you trying to say that feminism is not needed anymore?
No. The idea of men's rights activism is about "men are also vulnerable", not "women aren't". Women still have their own issues: eg. abortion rights, abuse in prostitution & pornography, trans women oppression, fundamental rights in islamist (not muslim) countries, languages & religions androcentrism and others, that deserve to be fixed.
What should we call men's rights movement?
The egalitarian fight for men's rights is usually called masculism.
The fight for patriarchy or misogynist struggle is usually called masculinism.
They are sometimes mixed, because men's rights are not popular yet. Stick with masculism, to confidently expropriate the term to the left-wing side.
In case you want to stay neutral as much as possible, or don't want to sound political (-ism ending like in capitalism, anarchism), you can always say "men's rights advocacy".
"What next? Oppression of heterosexuals or whites?"
Is masculism just a reactionary answer to feminism?
No, because it still talks just about men (who unquestionably do have problems), not against women. Compare: transwomen activism is not a "reactionary answer to feminism from «men»" (as TERFs say), it is a fight for basic human rigths.
But feminism already fights for equality for every gender?
Yes and no. In theory — yes, it fights for equality of women and men. But in practice feminism barely does anything for men (like protests against male military service, gender differences in suicide, or unfair trials for men). It is OK, because feminism is about women's rights: it shouldn't necessarily fight for men just like ecoactivists shouldn't necessarily fight against racism (however you can be ecoactivist and antiracist). But we need a separate movement, which will focus on men's rights, so we can approach gender inequality from both sides: making women equal to men and men equal to women.
On the other hand, unhealthy feminism can actually involve misandry: for example, in India, feminism successfully blocked state plans to criminalize male rape; in Spain, it stopped screenings of a documentary about male victims of violence with blockades; in the UK, it protested the state's decision to balance funding for women's and men's domestic violence services.
Sometimes feminists have even attacked cis women: one feminist group bullied, harassed, threatened to kill, bomb and murdered the dog of another (female) feminist, founder of the women's shelter movement, for saying that women also commit partner violence. Another feminist, Suzanne Steinmetz and her family, also received verbal threats (both public and domestic), threatening phone calls, and bomb threats because she was one of the first researchers to raise the topic of “battered husbands”. The situation is so bad that some feminist “helping the men” initiatives even involve demonization of men, denials of men's problems (apart from mere “toxic masculinity”) and outright misandry themself.
That said, I have the awareness to recognize that there are "not that adequate" masculists, and even more outright scum cheaply calling itself "masculist". So I think we do need (healthy) feminism (and healthy masculism). It would be also amazing for feminism, masculism and enby/lgbt-activism to cooperate in their fights.
Though, is men's discrimination structural?
Yes, and that's the very point of masculism: it tells us, that armies, police brutality, suicides and etc is a system, not unrelated series of events.
Military discrimination is even included in the backbone of the structure: if men couldn't be forced to go on war, states/elites could not defend themselves, and there would be no structure.
If we focus on men, won't we forget to fight for women?
On the one hand: definitely won't. If intersectional feminism doesn't think that simultaneously fighting against homophobia, racism, transphobia, ableism, ageism and so on will get in the way, then it shouldn't think that adding misandry to the "fight against" −list will break everything. If you're a TERF, well, you're out of luck.
On the other hand, one worrying about NOT-antifeminist men's rights activism movement gonna harm feminism may mean that one is afraid of losing their monopoly on the position of victim by recognizing that men can be victims too. One should overcome it.
What do you think about the "patriarchy also hurts men: they cannot deal with their emotions" agenda?
Indeed, today's system indisputably does teach men being machist, which is indeed a problem. But I am fed up with those, who reduce the whole problem to just and only that. In the worst case — huge left-wing super-inclusive "against every discrimination" festivals tells me, that "men's discrimination doesn't exist", because "(cis)men aren't vulnerable, they oppress other people all over the world", but "(cis)men also suffer from patriarchy in the way they are educated to deal with emotions!". This agenda is often said implying that "men are benefactors of the system, but even for them it has some little flaws".
What do you think about the "the men are rapists" or "90% criminals are men"?
Same what you should think about "the gays are pedophiles" or "51% murders by black people (while 13% of population!!1!)".
It's a pure substitution of concepts (and hate speech). While 51% of murderers are black, the smallest part of black people are murderers (0.01% in USA). Smallest part of gays are pedophiles (0-3% worldwide, actually less than hetero). Smallest part of men are rapists (0.06% in USA).
Yes, 90% of violent crimes were committed by a man (in vast majority against other men). Yet, 99,6% of men have never commited a violent crime (this number already includes the margin of error for unsolved crimes).
Sayng "all women are sl*ts/cheaters/gold diggers/etc — and if it hurts you, you are the problem!" is not okay — why is it different with men? Count the good men.
This slogan perhaps may also spread useless toxic fear of men: eg. every third woman worries about being sexually assaulted by a male (while 0.9% get ever actually assaulted) — compare that to the widespread fear against every black person in US ~1950.
I believe that equality should not be based on competition or struggle for hegemony, but on cooperation and respect.
Then we are on the same side.
Respect men's rights, support cooperation between feminists & masculists, do not start a competition about who is oppressed more or struggle for hegemony of feminism in the gender-equality front.
Thank you. Your existence really cheers me up.
Spread the word — or link to this website. Specially in lefty and liberal movements.
Aim to gender equality, not women's privileges.
If you won't fight for men, please don't oppose those who will. Still continue to bravely oppose patriarchal and misogynist activists.
And remove #KillAllMen from ur twitter. :^(
Useful links:
I am a man* and i need help
i want to learn more about masculism
Men's rights are human rights.
Made by the GenderEquality4TheWorld group.
