Sexism against males - why does no one acknowledge this?

[Silais]

We all hear about sexism against women, and I think we all agree that sexism is a wrongful and unjust practice. However, it seems as if society does not acknowledge that sexism goes both ways; it is not just women being wronged, but also men.

Men experience sexism as well, yet our culture seems to ignore the fact that this problem exists. For example, prostate cancer kills nearly 30,000 men a year; it may not be the same amount as breast cancer, but it's not a small number either, and the disease is just as significant. Prostate cancer month is September, yet we rarely, if ever, see signs or billboards raising awareness about this serious cancer like we do during October with breast cancer.

In fact, this article was written about a man who was denied a mammogram simply for being male, even though he has a large, golf-ball sized lump in his breast that is extremely painful:

https://www.fox4now.com/news/local/Southwest-Florida-man-denied-mammogram-because-he-is-a-man-226976931.html

Another example would be in prison populations. Women receive much lesser sentences then men do for the same crimes. According to the Huffington Post, men receive 63% longer prison sentences than women for committing the same act in violation of the law. Read the article here:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap_n_1874742.html

We also tend to lean more towards the woman in custody battles; only around 10-15% of divorced/single fathers have custody of their children. Also, have you also noticed that if a woman indicates to others that she loves children, it's seen as a sign of maternal instinct, yet if a man expresses the same interest in children we find it a bit creepy and unappealing?

I am not trying to undermine the injustices that women have suffered for centuries; I am female myself and I understand that women have have very little rights in human history. This topic is referring directly to this day-and-age, in which women and men have more equal rights than ever before.

Before others post these, I'd like to make a short list of injustices we know about women so we have no need to use these as discussion points:

•Unequal pay
•More medical expenses
•Sexual harassment in the workplace and social settings
•Little to no maternity leave
•Sexual discrimination; women are called *****s or ****s for being sexually promiscuous while men do not seem to suffer from these stereotypes
•All nitpicky stereotypes about women: driving bad, being too emotional, naggy, high maintenance, etc. etc.

 

[Esper]

Those are all valid concerns, but I think mass media isn't usually equipped to deal with a more nuanced discussion. It's not an easy thing for your local news to say: "Sexism is a big problem and mostly affects women, but that shouldn't detract from instances where men tend to suffer disproportionately. This isn't to say that we, as a media outlet, believe that these instances are more important than the discrimination against women, nor do we put them on equal footing with the scale of discrimination that women face, but in an attempt to depict all discrimination, big and small, so that it can be addressed properly." Just doesn't fit into a normal news cycle.

And there are lots of normal people who can't handle the nuances where we can admit that women have a lot of problems due to sexism, but a few exist for men. It'll turn into either a men's right's rant ("I'm a victim of the matriarchy.") or a defensive, knee-jerk reaction because of a presumed attack.

 

[Kanzler]

The discourse concerning sexism against males I've heard so far on campus is that men's rights groups are hate groups or their distracting from the issues of women, which really sounds like a load of hand-waving to me. We had a case where, I don't know who - some feminist student group presumably - tried to prevent people from entering this building where Warren Farrell was giving a lecture for the night. The head of the Student Union was there, and they immediately lost their credibility to me. Anyways, I didn't like the idea of a couple of students and fellow citizens deciding where people can and can't be, and the police had to come to break up the protest. It was just composed of the most ignorant and inflammatory people shouting ignorant and inflammatory things.

Anyways, the whole incident got me aware and interested in the question: how and to what extent are men getting the short stick of inequality? It's still an open question to me, but I do like how Farrell approaches the expectations of society on men, as well as treating the differences between men and women as the differences of "roles", not as "power", to avoid the loaded language and thinking that will inevitably bias whatever conclusions come out of the mainstream discussion. I think approaching the issue of gender relations from the perspective of men is fresh and valuable for this reason. To say that sexism affects women more than men is jumping to conclusions before considering different ways to look at it. I don't think we should use the language of more or less, because it implies there is competition between the sexes - and that is something that feminists and men's rights activists should both abhor. Also, when we make the statement "more or less" we must clarify: more or less of what? What's the criteria we find important, and who's deciding what we find important and why we find it important? I'm not saying or demanding that we can't use that language - because that would be overly progressive and anti-intellectual, and thus uncool - but I'm making the argument that to frame the question in that way is already adding bias that cripples the analysis of gender relations.

As for the breast cancer patient, it sounds like an administrative issue to me. If the screening isn't covered, then it can't be offered to him. I mean, hospitals are more privatized in the United States eh? so I suppose they have more autonomy in picking and choosing the services they offer - I don't know this for certain though, just speculating. Perhaps the screening of male breast cancer patients isn't worth the cost since there's an economy of scale to be obtained through women. I wonder if insurance would cover such a test, however.

 

[KittenKoder]

Same reason I don't acknowledge sexism against women, as long as it's harmless.

Most of what people complain about is really blown out of proportion, a lack of perspective today, small price to pay for all the information we can now access so meh. I ignore all such complaints, the individual one, until the jury rules, even then I take it with a grain of salt. Yes, men are objectified just as much as women, but considering the time era I grew up in, it's extremely mild now than before. Now it's mostly just letting hormones get the best of you, a natural and typical physiological response that is misread or misunderstood by both parties involved. It use to be that women were considered too stupid to use a computer, yes, even in the 80s it was generally thought that women were to remain in the shadows. Men who even looked at something and went "it's so cute" were accused of being gay, and being gay was considered "unmanly" even.

Yes, the gay thing is objectification as well, and gay people are objectified the most, even today. But I digress back to the topic at hand. Now it's not uncommon for a perfectly, and openly, straight, womanizing male with masculine features to ... collect antique dolls. Or women working on cars, all greasy and enjoying pulling those fascinating machines apart to .... I mean, working on cars. Women are almost perfectly equal in the workforce, and men are not expected to all be grease monkeys or brain-dead sports stars. So I will still look at such complaints as "meh, probably not the whole story" until I see something ... tangible.

 

[François2]

Sexism against males doesn't really sell, it's too easily misconstrued as being anti-women, so nobody really wants to hear it. I think anyone with half a brain knows that sexual discrimination goes both ways, but it is largely of a more harmful nature towards women so to some extent I can agree with it being the focus for the near future anyway. I would say that the amount of people who have little respect for men is still significantly smaller than the amount of people who have little respect for women (go on any 'masculine' forum... ugh), so I'm fine with us focusing on eradicating sexism against women before we look at the rather niche ways people are prejudiced against males.

As of now I see feminism being necessary for the decades (/century) to come. I think a movement to bring how men are treated to light will happen eventually, but not until society feel women have been brought up to par.

 

[Plumpyfoof]

It's pretty clear that sexism goes both ways, I just think that because of how men and women think differently women are more prone to take small sexual comments personally regardless of their intended nature. Whereas you'll find a woman make a sexual remark towards a man and it's not considered offensive. Probably because men think more logical rather than emotional, which is how I feel women process thought.

With regards to the mammogram thing that OP said, I still think that because it is a test designed purely for women, the nurses may have been thinking he was having a laugh, besides it's far less risky for a guy to make use of alternative tests.

Even still we can relate this back to the 'gender roles' that everyone loves so much. It was the job of men to protect women and provide security among other things. It's our evolutionary nature to want to jump in and protect a woman against abuse. We saw other males as competition and no male is going to get flustered about someone being derogatory to his competition.

What can we do it about it? Stop denying treatments for one. The rest is kind of, take the good with the bad, if people start sooking about sexism towards men it's going to inflame the situation and create a huge gender war. The best course of action is to remove the sexism from women first and no one will even think about men because they're too busy looking for obvious reasons to complain.

 

[Magic Christmas Lights]

Sexism against males may be underreported because there is a stigma against admitting that the majority group also goes through unfair and harmful stereotyping. For instance, men are discouraged from nursing, elementary and younger teaching jobs, etc.; males face harsher penalties for acting outside of their gender's expected behavior (such as by doing things like painting their nails or wearing women's clothing). Yet, these things go unacknowledged. I can only imagine that it is a combination of stereotypes that it is in poor taste to point out the hardships faced by the so-called privileged as well as the stereotype that there are no such analogues of the problems women face. There is no doubt that women face unfair disadvantages several magnitudes worse than men, but it should still be common knowledge that men face unfair discrimination and stereotyping as well.

 

[Esper]

We had a case where, I don't know who - some feminist student group presumably - tried to prevent people from entering this building where Warren Farrell was giving a lecture for the night. The head of the Student Union was there, and they immediately lost their credibility to me. Anyways, I didn't like the idea of a couple of students and fellow citizens deciding where people can and can't be, and the police had to come to break up the protest. It was just composed of the most ignorant and inflammatory people shouting ignorant and inflammatory things.

Yes, there are extremists on all sides and what this group did was stop dialogue and that isn't good. It would be a leap to paint all self-described feminists with this brush, however. A better response would have been to hold a counter lecture immediately after his.

Anyways, the whole incident got me aware and interested in the question: how and to what extent are men getting the short stick of inequality? It's still an open question to me, but I do like how Farrell approaches the expectations of society on men, as well as treating the differences between men and women as the differences of "roles", not as "power", to avoid the loaded language and thinking that will inevitably bias whatever conclusions come out of the mainstream discussion. I think approaching the issue of gender relations from the perspective of men is fresh and valuable for this reason. To say that sexism affects women more than men is jumping to conclusions before considering different ways to look at it. I don't think we should use the language of more or less, because it implies there is competition between the sexes - and that is something that feminists and men's rights activists should both abhor. Also, when we make the statement "more or less" we must clarify: more or less of what? What's the criteria we find important, and who's deciding what we find important and why we find it important? I'm not saying or demanding that we can't use that language - because that would be overly progressive and anti-intellectual, and thus uncool - but I'm making the argument that to frame the question in that way is already adding bias that cripples the analysis of gender relations.

Depending on whose statistics you look at 1 in 3, 1 in 4, or 1 in 5 woman will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. That, to me, speaks a lot about power and not roles. As this issue is a case of personal boundaries and safety I think it should be at the top of what's important and I'd challenge anyone to name something more important.

But yes, the problems need to be solved by women and men. Men need to be taught not to do certain things. It's not enough or right to put all the burden on women to stop the discrimination and sexism they face.

Same reason I don't acknowledge sexism against women, as long as it's harmless.

Most of what people complain about is really blown out of proportion, a lack of perspective today, small price to pay for all the information we can now access so meh. I ignore all such complaints, the individual one, until the jury rules, even then I take it with a grain of salt. Yes, men are objectified just as much as women, but considering the time era I grew up in, it's extremely mild now than before. Now it's mostly just letting hormones get the best of you, a natural and typical physiological response that is misread or misunderstood by both parties involved. It use to be that women were considered too stupid to use a computer, yes, even in the 80s it was generally thought that women were to remain in the shadows. Men who even looked at something and went "it's so cute" were accused of being gay, and being gay was considered "unmanly" even.

Certainly things for women have gotten better in the last few decades, but I don't see why that makes what happens today "blown out of proportion." I'm kind of not sure what you're saying specifically about hormones, but I'm hoping it's not one of those "boys will be boys" things.

It's pretty clear that sexism goes both ways, I just think that because of how men and women think differently women are more prone to take small sexual comments personally regardless of their intended nature. Whereas you'll find a woman make a sexual remark towards a man and it's not considered offensive. Probably because men think more logical rather than emotional, which is how I feel women process thought.

What is a "small" sexual comment? What's a big one? And how can a woman know what the intention of a sexual comment is? I mean, by definition it's sexual, and if you've ever seen a woman cat called on the street and seen her not engage and ignore it you've probably also seen a man get mad and start throwing out insults and threats.

Sexism against males may be underreported because there is a stigma against admitting that the majority group also goes through unfair and harmful stereotyping. For instance, men are discouraged from nursing, elementary and younger teaching jobs, etc.; males face harsher penalties for acting outside of their gender's expected behavior (such as by doing things like painting their nails or wearing women's clothing). Yet, these things go unacknowledged. I can only imagine that it is a combination of stereotypes that it is in poor taste to point out the hardships faced by the so-called privileged as well as the stereotype that there are no such analogues of the problems women face. There is no doubt that women face unfair disadvantages several magnitudes worse than men, but it should still be common knowledge that men face unfair discrimination and stereotyping as well.

The issue of teaching, etc. is a shared thing between men and women. Men aren't expected to be nurses, but women are. They're expected to be the caregivers, child-raisers, etc. It's a kind of "Men shouldn't do this. This is women's work."

 

[Magic Christmas Lights]

The issue of teaching, etc. is a shared thing between men and women. Men aren't expected to be nurses, but women are. They're expected to be the caregivers, child-raisers, etc. It's a kind of "Men shouldn't do this. This is women's work."

Right on. It's not fair to men who are interested in communal work. It's also not fair to women, as they are expected to go into communally based jobs when that is not everyone's cup of tea.

 

[Toutebelle]

I've faced it. At the program I go to, one of the women calls female students by their first names and male students Mr. (last name). I refuse to be called by my last name. I had to convince this woman to call me by my first name.

I also hate the idea that it's unacceptable for men to cry. I can't go two weeks without crying due to my emotional issues. Also, at the program I'm at things aren't going too well at the moment, so I've cried an awful lot lately. Luckily, my mother encourages me to express my feelings instead of bottling them up. (My fanfics actually frequently depict male characters crying. I didn't hesitate to show Calem crying.)

The media loves to equate men with being jerks. It even extends to works of fiction - there are way too many male anti-heroes and not enough genuinely good male leads. Meanwhile, female leads are often Purity Sues. It's so annoying.

Men who have softer physical features are derided and accused of being gay. Not all men have builds like Superman. Now it's even gotten to the point where it's unacceptable for a straight man to have blond hair. Try finding a blond man in a movie or TV show who isn't a villain, a jerk, or gay. Harry Potter and The Karate Kid are guilty of this annoying cliche (thank God Pokemon isn't).

One thing that pisses me off is that women are allowed to slap men and not get criticized for it. Slapping a man doesn't make a woman empowering; it makes her a bad-tempered shrew. I love how movies and TV live on this cliche.

Men are also viewed as perverts and obsessed with sex. Lifetime movies of the week portray all men as evil. These movies are the reason why people hate media made for women - and they degrade women as well as men.

The sexist portrayal of men extends to teenage boys especially, who are stereotyped as violent, stupid, foul-mouthed, and obsessed with Call of Satan's Duty. Basically, that's how you can expect teenage male characters to be if teenagers aren't the protagonists or the focus of the story, which is why I prefer teenage protagonists to adult ones in my original stories.

 

[Esper]

I've faced it. At the program I go to, one of the women calls female students by their first names and male students Mr. (last name). I refuse to be called by my last name. I had to convince this woman to call me by my first name.

I also hate the idea that it's unacceptable for men to cry. I can't go two weeks without crying due to my emotional issues. Also, at the program I'm at things aren't going too well at the moment, so I've cried an awful lot lately. Luckily, my mother encourages me to express my feelings instead of bottling them up. (My fanfics actually frequently depict male characters crying. I didn't hesitate to show Calem crying.)

The media loves to equate men with being jerks. It even extends to works of fiction - there are way too many male anti-heroes and not enough genuinely good male leads. Meanwhile, female leads are often Purity Sues. It's so annoying.

Men who have softer physical features are derided and accused of being gay. Not all men have builds like Superman. Now it's even gotten to the point where it's unacceptable for a straight man to have blond hair. Try finding a blond man in a movie or TV show who isn't a villain, a jerk, or gay. Harry Potter and The Karate Kid are guilty of this annoying cliche (thank God Pokemon isn't).

One thing that pisses me off is that women are allowed to slap men and not get criticized for it. Slapping a man doesn't make a woman empowering; it makes her a bad-tempered shrew. I love how movies and TV live on this cliche.

Men are also viewed as perverts and obsessed with sex. Lifetime movies of the week portray all men as evil. These movies are the reason why people hate media made for women - and they degrade women as well as men.

The sexist portrayal of men extends to teenage boys especially, who are stereotyped as violent, stupid, foul-mouthed, and obsessed with Call of Satan's Duty. Basically, that's how you can expect teenage male characters to be if teenagers aren't the protagonists or the focus of the story, which is why I prefer teenage protagonists to adult ones in my original stories.

Aside from what you've experienced in your program (what is the program, if I may ask) these are mostly examples from media like television and movies. I don't think a woman could get away with slapping someone in real life so easily. Of course, media portrayals aren't something to sneeze at. I'm no fan of Lifetime either since so much of what they include is so unrealistic and they set bad standards all around. Overall though, I think whatever claim you want to make about media has to be backed up with a lot of examples. You can always find a male pervert if you're watching cop shows, for instance, because that's the kind of shows they are.

 

[Kanzler]

For all the discussion against inequality between the sexes, there's an awful lot of sexism going on in here. It makes me wonder, for all the talk that we say, if we're really ready for a world in which it means little to be a man or a woman.

Spoiler:

Like "men need to be taught not to do certain things", that's a pretty degrading thing to say. We wouldn't say "'x group' needs to be taught not to do certain things" for any other group.

 

[Rezilia]

Well, I try to speak of a single person by using "they". You know, the "singular they/them". It helps me merge males and females into one.

 

[CoffeeDrink]

Hohoho, koff~

What a world, eh? I've thought about the sciences and social experiments I could carry out were I the opposite gender. Sometimes I think us men get the short end of the stick as we all have to sign up for the draft. Women do not. In Vietnam, that cut down thousands of men to size whil the women were free to roam around.

Sexual harassment can happen to both males and females. Men can be raped just as easy as women can (let's not draw up strength issues). In fact, in the courtroom it gets extremely ugly. Lawyers will ask the rude question of "Well, did you have an orgasm?" and depending on the answer your attacker can walk free. Pretty sick, really (I am not making this up). What's worse is that when men are attacked or beat up or assaulted or what have you, it's harder to get assistance. There aren't many abused husband shelters out there.

Anyway, it is a touchy subject for most people. Some like to paint the portrait that all women are saints, this is not true. I'm sure there are some sadistic women on this board that would like us to suffer. The further you go along the quicker you realize anyone is capable of anything, koffi~

 

[Magic Christmas Lights]

Sexual harassment can happen to both males and females. Men can be raped just as easy as women can (let's not draw up strength issues). In fact, in the courtroom it gets extremely ugly. Lawyers will ask the rude question of "Well, did you have an orgasm?" and depending on the answer your attacker can walk free. Pretty sick, really (I am not making this up).
Anyway, it is a touchy subject for most people. Some like to paint the portrait that all women are saints, this is not true.

This isn't true. We live in a culture that encourages several things which lead to the sexual assault of women more than men. Women's bodies are objectified and sexualized in a dehumanizing way, on a greater level than men's bodies; the way we think of consent is flawed (we should be trying to provoke a "yes, I want this" rather than "no, I don't want this" to signal consent); and women are socialized differently. Women receive a more communally based socialization, in which upholding harmony, not offending others, and also saying no is discouraged. So when someone is bearing down on you in spite of that terrified look on your face, it becomes hard to fight back. You've been conditioned for years to not make waves, to not cause a scene. Men do not receive this kind of socialization. Also, women face the same issues with credibility, something like 97% of rapes go unconvicted. There's a reason why one in four women will be raped or almost raped while only three percent of men will be. Underreporting or not, that is a massive gap in who gets victimized.

The last part, people thinking women are saints, is putting women up on an unrealistic pedestal. It is a form of benevolent sexism, which is damaging in the same way normal sexism is. Women are penalized for straying from a pure, saint-like image. There's a reason why the "****" always dies in horror movies - it feeds on the stereotype that good women are pure.

 

[Kanzler]

Okay, it's about time for someone to say it. A quarter/third/fifth of women will be sexually assaulted some time in their lifetime, not raped. There's a very wide spectrum within that crime, which is quite simply assault that happens to have a sexual nature. Assault is any kind of physical contact without consent. That's all. To interpret that as rape is misleading, because it's not the case. Most cases of sexual assault, at least in Canada, is some form of groping. About of fifth of those cases are of a more serious nature - that's split between sexual assault with a weapon and aggravated sexual assault - ie. rape, invitation to sexual touching and sexual exploitation.

It's also interesting how some of us can tell us how we were or weren't raised. I "received" a "communally based socialization, in which upholding harmony, not offending others, and also saying no is discouraged". I really can't disagree with any of those traits, lol. Maybe I should confront my parents about how they didn't give me a more masculine childhood? It's not just my parents though, its my teachers and my friends and everybody I bumped into - it's socialization, after all. I think that the way you're putting it is unnecessarily drawing lines in the sand that don't exist.

Also, I like how that this thread was about sexism as experienced by men, but we have to talk about women's issues in an overly generalized manner.

What a world, eh? I've thought about the sciences and social experiments I could carry out were I the opposite gender. Sometimes I think us men get the short end of the stick as we all have to sign up for the draft. Women do not. In Vietnam, that cut down thousands of men to size while the women were free to roam around.

This is a good place to start. Men are pressured to be strong, and to sacrifice themselves. It's not something that one chooses to do as a male.

 

[Silais]

I think this comes down to the question of whether or not we believe one gender's struggles is more important than another's. Just because only 3% of men will be raped in their lifetime does not mean that their suffering is not as important as women's simply because women are victimized more often and on a grander scale. By minimizing one group's struggles we create more disparities between these groups. As Magical Christmas Lights said, when we isolate a group we never truly know how severe their struggles really are. More than half of rapes against women go unreported; how many rapes against men go unreported? If we do not show an interest in helping this group of victims simply because they are a minority, we may never know how truly large the problem is, which can lead to learned helplessness and a lack of hope from these individuals, adding to the isolation.

Think of it this way. A very marginal percentage of Americans are homosexual. Around 3.5%, to give you a clearer number. This small group of people have been fighting for years for equal marriage rights; the majority (96% or so) of Americans have the collective right to marry, yet this group of 3.5% struggles to claim the same rights even though they are human beings. Should we not consider their suffering as important simply because they are such a small group of Americans compared to the remainder of the population? It's not a perfect example, but it does show that we should recognize a group's suffering is important regardless of size or political strength.

 

[Rezilia]

I don't know where you get your statistics from, but they suck. About 7% of the people I've met in my life have been homosexual - very rarely men and nearly all women in that amount.

And then, that's only the percentage that I KNEW about. 7/100 - in terms of the entire nation, that becomes much greater.

Statistics rely on participation. This means that only people that fill out a sheet when asked to in the same session are included, and many people in areas where homo is deemed wrong or if they are insecure themselves, they'll select straight or no comment.

Trust me, there's ALOT more than 3.5%.

--

And 3% of men raped? Please! The majority of the time that males say they were raped, people laugh at them, say they were lying, or - like was said before - since they "orgasm'd" it WASN'T legally called rape.

3% and 3.5% - you need to use new sources.

 

[Silais]

I don't know where you get your statistics from, but they suck. About 7% of the people I've met in my life have been homosexual - very rarely men and nearly all women in that amount.

And then, that's only the percentage that I KNEW about. 7/100 - in terms of the entire nation, that becomes much greater.

Statistics rely on participation. This means that only people that fill out a sheet when asked to in the same session are included, and many people in areas where homo is deemed wrong or if they are insecure themselves, they'll select straight or no comment.

Trust me, there's ALOT more than 3.5%.

--

And 3% of men raped? Please! The majority of the time that males say they were raped, people laugh at them, say they were lying, or - like was said before - since they "orgasm'd" it WASN'T legally called rape.

3% and 3.5% - you need to use new sources.

So you believe that your personal experiences constitute better statistics than the ones I provided? If you would like my resources, please read below:

2012 Gallup report link here:
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-demographics-studies/gallup-special-report-18oct-2012/

A Gallup report published in October 2012 by the Williams Institute reported that 3.4% of US adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Minorities were more likely to identify as non-heterosexual; 4.6% of blacks, 4.0% of Hispanics and 3.2% of whites. Younger people, aged 18-29, were three times more likely to identify as LGBT than seniors over the age of 65, the numbers being 6.4% and 1.9%, respectively.

This link takes you to RAINN (Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network):
https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims

About 3% of American men — or 1 in 33 — have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.

In 2003, 1 in every ten rape victims were male.

2.78 million men in the U.S. have been victims of sexual assault or rape.

If these statistics aren't enough to prove my point, them I'm not sure what you are looking for. I would appreciate if you would tell me how and why these websites do not provide reliable statistics.

 

[Esper]

Think of it this way. A very marginal percentage of Americans are homosexual. Around 3.5%, to give you a clearer number. This small group of people have been fighting for years for equal marriage rights; the majority (96% or so) of Americans have the collective right to marry, yet this group of 3.5% struggles to claim the same rights even though they are human beings. Should we not consider their suffering as important simply because they are such a small group of Americans compared to the remainder of the population? It's not a perfect example, but it does show that we should recognize a group's suffering is important regardless of size or political strength.

An entire minority group facing discrimination isn't the same as a minority of a large group facing discrimination or a large group facing a minor amount of discrimination. If we lived in a world were women faced no real discrimination and yet men were constantly told to "man up" and were pressured out of childcare jobs then, yes, this would be a fair comparison.

The reason women are brought up a bunch in these discussions is because we shouldn't create false equivalencies. We have to make sure that we don't say "Well, men have problems, too" without qualifying that or we may give the impression that men have as many and as serious problems as women. Particularly, if we did we might start focusing on some relatively minor problems men have in comparison to relatively serious problems women have.

Yes, it sucks to be part of a group that's considered no good with children and in need of always being masculine, but it sucks even more to be part of a group that gets passed over for leadership positions and that comprises the vast majority of targets of sexual violence. Don't discount all sexual assaults that aren't rapes. Nobody should have to feel violated in their person.