Men’s Issues: Rights and Systemic Conditions

Male face with a short beard and strong jaw looking down

“If we honestly want to discuss gender equality, we need to invite all voices to the table.
If one group is being silenced, that is a problem for all of us.”
Cassie Jaye, Filmmaker

“If you are not at the table, then you are on the menu.”
Sheri Brady, Aspen Forum for Community Solutions

There are many human rights issues that uniquely or disproportionately affect men.  What follows is mostly just a list – simply the headlines for many stories that have complexity, pain, and trauma.  There is no attempt here to prove the argument on any particular issue; the purpose here is to name what is happening.  A few facts are presented to augment the definition of an issue but most facts are left out for the sake of brevity.  All issues deserve detailed analysis, and in some cases, a debate which seeks balance and common ground. These issues deserve care, attention, and motivation for solution. Just naming them is apparently a radical act in our current environment.  Censorship and protest against the naming of men’s issues is one of the problems faced by men and their advocates.

Men’s Issues

Sourced from research articles, The Red Pill documentary, and surveys from The Good Men Project

  • Father’s rights to see children; divorce and child custody issues
    • Only 1 in 6 custodial parents are the father; more than 1 in 4 fathers with children live apart from them
  • Fair alimony and child support payments; family court bias
  • Male suicide rates – 73% are men. Veterans account for 20% of all suicides.
  • Workplace fatalities and high-risk jobs (93% male in 2016)
  • Male all-cause mortality rates and rates of injury for ages 15-25
  • False allegations of rape
  • Military deaths – 99.9 % are male
  • Disposability of men and boys – cheap manual labor and sex trafficking
  • Lack of services for male victims of domestic violence and rape
    • 2,000 shelters in the US for women only 2 specifically for men; 43% of domestic violence victims are men.
  • Sentencing disparity
    • Men receive prison sentences 63% higher than women for same crimes
  • Criminal court bias
    • Father rights vs. mother rights for the incarcerated –  a gender disparity
  • The “boy crisis”- boy’s mental health and education; failure to launch
    • Educational system not adapted for boys; boys falling behind; drop-out rates in higher education
  • Lack of reproductive rights after conception
  • Male homelessness – 9% are veterans
  • Paternity fraud and wrongful paternity
    • Lying about who the father is when the woman knows or claiming someone is the father when the woman does not know.
  • Life expectancy – men live 4 years less than women on average
  • Veteran’s issues
    • Depression, drug use, treatment for PTSD, homelessness
  • Infant male mutilation (circumcision) – deaths in the U.S.
  • Higher rates of violent victimization
    • Police are 24 times more likely to shoot a man than a woman.
  • Disproportionate funding and lack of research on men’s health issues
    • Breast cancer vs. prostate cancer
  • Male gender role
    • Pressure to be providers and protectors; no emotion or weakness allowed
  • Male loneliness and social isolation (especially in the U.S.)
    • Need for expansion of male relationships to other men, daughters, fathers, mothers and romantic partners
  • Oppression of most men by class-based patriarchal hierarchies
  • Lack of men’s/masculinity academic programs compared to the great number of women’s studies programs
  • Societal tolerance of misandry
    • Hatred or contempt for men; negative portrayal of men in the media
  • Censorship and denial of first amendment rights for men’s issue advocates

 It should not have to be said, but the naming of men’s issues does not deny the human rights issues that uniquely affect women.  Almost universally, men’s rights advocates support women’s rights.  While in some cases balance or compromise may be sought, this is not primarily an “either/or” set of issues that must straddle battle lines of gender.  It is a “this and that” set of concurrent social problems.

Men and women each have privileges and burdens, but they are different from each other; they are unique to each sex.  In today’s environment, it is ok to speak primarily about male privileges and female burdens.  It is not ok to speak about female privilege and male burdens.  Men’s rights advocates speak mostly about male burdens.  They sometimes speak about female privilege when there appear to be trade-offs to male burdens.

Right now, one group is being silenced.  The analogy of “me-too” makes sense.  These human rights problems need awareness — the light of day.  The American public has been trained to think that men have all the rights, all the power, and all of the privilege.  Until one of these conditions affects their family.