Are you brave enough to give the same advice to women?
Often it's the high status women that spend the most effort on enforcing established social norms that hurt most women.
Then there was the wage gap stuff, it was popular for a while, and as that was looked into we found women make different choices at work, they take more sick days, go on more vacations and work less overtime, not to mention they tend to choose less demanding jobs in the first place.
So now it's this undefinable and unfalsifiable "patriarchy", this new one doesn't really make specific claims but rest assured men are the source of all the worlds problems.
No, of course not. It's axiomatic that all women's problems are ultimately caused by men.
Maybe it's all deserved. Paying for generations of misbehavior or something. It doesn't really matter. The reality is that political popularity and public "good graces" _are_ a zero sum game. Politics are currently very much us vs them. And men are very much them right now.
If you live in a majority white country, why is this a problem? Statistically it's inevitable you'll get mostly white people at the top if those are your demographics.
Also in my country women are often in top leadership positions, and out of merit, not out of some pro-feminist corporate PR agenda.
Nonsense. This is just a rhetorical technique to try to dismiss people who hold opinions that differ from yours without having to actually engage them.
I wasn't commenting on your opinion about men one way or the other.
Women have outpaced men in Bachelor's degree completions since 1981, and Master's degrees since 1986. At present they are 57.7% of Bachelor's degree recipients and 60.7% of Master's degrees [0]. You might argue that most of the advance women made was prior to the year 2000, so it isn't reflective of trends today.
Women have a "struggle for reproductive rights". Abortion and contraceptives are "critical reproductive healthcare services", according to the White House [1]. Men cannot have abortions, cannot take birth control pills, cannot receive birth control shots or implants, cannot obtain IUDs, and (mostly) cannot choose to have a child without the support of their partner. I suppose, then, men do not even have a chance at having what is a "critical reproductive healthcare service" and are thus inherently deprived.
Women are the heads of four out of five single parent households [2]. Put differently, four out of five men do not obtain custody of their children in situations where the parents do not live together.
Male life expectancy is more than five years less than female life expectancy in the US [3].
The bigger issue than all of this, to me, is the psychological aspect of this discussion that I cannot quantify with large-scale statistics. When men's disadvantages are brought up, society generally shouts "shut up". Since I left my original comment, I have been told that my post was a "hollow unsubstantiated rant", an "incredibly sexist framing", "disingenuous" and "not constructive", "combative" and "alienating". Can you imagine similar attacks being levied against a woman arguing in support of abortion? I sure cannot. Again, I do not know how to quantify this, but the experience of never mentioning an issue which impacts men for fear of being similarly shot down is in the back of my mind every day, and I'd imagine many men face similar thoughts. The thought police hold far more sway over my discourse than I'd like.
[0]: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_318.10.a...
[1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action...
[2]: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...
[3]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr71/nvsr71-01.pdf
Even if you don't agree with it, people are allowed to express how they feel. Passionate (and this is hardly even passionate -- it's just a statement of this person's perception of the state of things), are ok. Sometimes even needed to spark discussion. He feels things aren't equal anymore -- and they aren't. Again in anglophone societies....
For example, the broad and free availability of sex education and contraception greatly reduces accidental pregnancies, which are a leading cause of elective abortions. And genetic screenings and counseling can help women identify risk factors for inheritable developmental issues and decide whether to have children, or pursue alternatives like adoption.
The substance is not binary; there is substantial overlap and gray areas. Most things are not zero-sum. But it’s beneficial politically to set up an “us vs them” mentality.
So yes, you’re right that the people are in conflict. But the point is, much of that is artificial.
Combative narratives are suboptimal. They are alienating to those you complain about, when obtaining their support would further your cause. It's possible, and more effective, to advance men's rights without complaining about women, or any other rights movement.
Not everything has to be Us vs Them. I'd much rather live in a world where it isn't.