Why Men's Issues Matter

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Alright everyone. I need to release something that I have been bottling up for years due to the fear of being called a "crybaby" or whatever. Let's talk about men's issues.

Men have a higher suicide rate than women. That's a fact. In most countries, man can be drafted and women cannot. Men can be rape victims and abuse victims. That's also a fact, though many people like to deny this.

Some feminists have acknowledged these facts, but there are still many self-proclaimed feminists who scoff and make cruel, caustic penis size jokes whenever saner people mention men's issues. The crueler feminists are seldom called out on their BS … mostly because most people too disgusted to even speak to them.

Their most common argument is this: "Well … maybe men face discrimination … but women face more discrimination … so any discrimination that men face is irrelevant."

Today, I want to dismantle this argument once and for all so that it can never be used the shame male victims onto silence ever again.

Why is that argument invalid? Simple. It is just another version of the "first world problems" argument … which all feminists despise.

If you can say "Women face more discrimination than men, so men's issues don't matter." then I can just as easily say "Afghani women face more discrimination, so Western women need to shut up and stop being so sensitive." Same basic argument.

I already know that every response in this thread is going to be as harsh as possible. Go ahead. I've stopped caring.

I’m a feminist, and I still care about men’s issues. I care about all victims of abuse. I was in abusive situations.

I think it’s unfair that there is stigma which prevents men from getting the help they need. I didn’t get help that I needed due to victim blaming so I can sort of relate.

This is an important issue and I hope it receives intelligent responses.

Yes, I'm familiar with that argument...

"Look! That child was born without legs! How dare you cry for having no shoes!"

"Poor kids are starving in <name of third-world country>! Now stop crying and eat those leftovers!

"So someone beat you up! Big, fat, hairy deal! People on chain gangs get beaten every day!

Yeah ... the old "Someone suffers more than you, so you're not suffering at all!" argument ... all men have heard it at least once in their lives. This is why we don't report our chest pains, our bloody stools, our constant nausea ... because someone else will always have it worse, and we have been  taught  brainwashed into believing that our pain and suffering don't matter to anyone, not even to those who "love" us.

All of that should suggest that modern 'victimhood' is a zero-sum game and without counterpoised oppressors the whole thing runs out of gas.

Part of the problem as far as I can tell with any of the activist movements over the last several decades, possibly since time immemorial, is that the most obnoxious idiots get the public attention and drift to the top while the people most insightful, even-keeled, and generally qualified to lead such movements productively leave either in disgust or lack of ability to relate anymore to what it becomes in short order.

*whew* This thread went better than I anticipated. Thank you all.

When I was younger, I was fascinated by the "men's rights movement". I abandoned them when I realized that most of them are extremely right-wing.

I've noticed that some right-wingers have been talking about men's issues lately, but they damage the cause because they scare away non-white men, gay men, trans men and friendly women.

I once told my fundamentalist dad about men's issues. He claimed that Christianity was the solution to all of those problems, and he also claimed that feminism was a product of the "Satanic New World Order". That sort of insanity helps nobody.

I totally get why a lot of confused young men on 4chan and Reddit are turning to the "Kekistani" far-right. A lot these men are men who see very real social issues regarding the rights of men, and see far-right politics as the only solution.

If there ever was a successful men's liberation movement, I imagine that it would be centre-left and would have strong ties to the LGBT+ movement.

The extreme left is openly hostile to mankind, but the extreme right offers men false promises as well as false divisions.

I'm excited about the Ruth Bader Ginsberg moving coming out - 'On The Basis Of Sex' - since Ruth realizes that the system is also saying men can't be nurturers which is sexist towards men. It's progressing feminism - women can work in an office - and men's rights, men can be great anywhere.

And trying to shut down every single discussion about any difficulty related to women, even tangentially, that socially awkward men face, by strawmanning them as misogynists.

Or maybe there could be a movement advocating for both men's and women's issues, so both could be discussed freely without accusations of "hijacking".

We could have a political centrist movement while we're at it too.

I think the trouble with selling moderation is it can't really sell itself - ie. there's nothing shiny or exciting about. It has to demonstrate its integrity in dealing with other issues and perhaps circumstantially be made up of moderates so that moderate stances are getting sold rather than moderation itself.

I think that feminist extremists or male rights extremists may have had bad experiences with the opposite sex or have been raised by extremist parents. I do try to understand people with differing viewpoints.

It’s best when people are concerned about the rights of everyone. I have had experiences that align me more with feminism, but I’m interested in men’s issues and LGBT rights as well.

When a person has the experience(s) of being discriminated against, they should be considerate of the experiences of other people but that’s not always the case.

I’m really just thinking out loud here.

There will be no true equality between the sexes until any man can walk into a divorce court, sit down, cross his legs, wink at the judge, and be awarded full custody of the children, all of the joint property, and 3/4s of his ex-wife's income for the rest of her life.