men

Original by u/Oncefa2 on Reddit. Still very relevant today:

This is something I noticed in a thread where men were asked what it meant to them to be a man.

There was only one response, which could probably be summed up as, "meh".

And I honestly think this is how a lot of men feel.

You are yourself first, but also you're a man, if you'll even admit to it.

Women on the other hand seem to be proud of their gender and actively celebrate their womanhood. You see this in popular media and on places liked Twitter. And it even shows up in psychological association tests. Women are associated with traits like "good" and "valuable" whereas men are associated with traits like "bad" and "worthless".

Men are never told that they can be proud of who they are. And many are made to apologize just for being alive. Instead of celebrating men, we attack and demonize them on a daily basis. And I think this difference in treatment and identity has an overall negative effect on their mental health.

Society thinks we are useless, and it is time for a change!

It seems that the community once concentrated at LWMA is now fractured. Some are here, some stayed and I suspect that some will follow thetinmen in his boycott.

I am not much of an activist myself. Growing up, I was quite lonely and occassionally bullied for not fitting in with the main group, and so I have operated under the assumption that I don't want that to happen again. Thus, I have largely kept thoughts of advocating for mens rights or not being a feminist to myself.

So this community has been a breath of fresh air to me, seeing that I am not alone in my thoughts and seeing people argue for helping men without devolving into conservative talking points.

So how do we assure this community is not lost and broken?

I remember this was linked on the LeftWingMaleAdvocates subreddit before it was privated. I do not know who made it, but it is an archive of all posts and comments submitted there. The association with the red pill is unfortunate, but this seems like the best way to read the old posts now.

Edit: Seems like the subreddit is back up. https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/

progress!

Across the life span — from infancy to the teen years, midlife and old age — boys and men are more likely to die than girls and women.

A silent crisis in men’s health is shortening the life spans of fathers, husbands, brothers and sons.

For years, the conventional wisdom has been that a lack of sex-specific health research mainly hurts women and gender minorities. While those concerns are real, a closer look at longevity data tells a more complicated story.

Across the life span — from infancy to the teen years, midlife and old age — the risk of death at every age is higher for boys and men than for girls and women.

The result is a growing longevity gap between men and women. In the United States, life expectancy in 2021 was 79.1 years for women and 73.2 years for men. That 5.9-year difference is the largest gap in a quarter-century. (The data aren’t parsed to include differences among nonbinary and trans people.)

“Men are advantaged in every aspect of our society, yet we have worse health outcomes for most of the things that will kill you,” said Derek Griffith, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Men’s Health Equity in the Racial Justice Institute. “We tend not to prioritize men’s health, but it needs unique attention, and it has implications for the rest of the family. It means other members of the family, including women and children, also suffer.”

The longevity gap between men and women is a global phenomenon, although sex differences and data on the ages of greatest risk vary around the world and are influenced by cultural norms, record keeping and geopolitical factors such as war, climate change and poverty.

But data looking at health risks for boys and men in the United States paint a stark picture.

• Men are at a greater risk of dying from covid-19 than women, a gap that cannot be explained by rates of infection or preexisting conditions. The age-adjusted death rate for covid was 140 deaths per 100,000 for males and 87.7 per 100,000 for females.
• More men die of diabetes than women. The death rates for men are 31.2 per 100,000 people vs. 19.5 per 100,000 for women.
• The cancer mortality rate is higher among men — 189.5 per 100,000 — compared with 135.7 per 100,000 for women. Black men have the highest cancer death rate at 227.3 per 100,000. Among Black women, the cancer mortality rate is 149 per 100,000.
• Death rates for boys and teens ages 10 to 19 (44.5 per 100,000) far outpace that for girls (21.3 per 100,000). Even among infants, the mortality rate is higher for boys (5.87 per 1,000 live births) vs. girls (4.95 per 1,000).
• Men die by suicide nearly four times more often than women, based on 2020 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate of suicide is highest in middle-aged White men, but teen boys also face a high risk.
• In 2020, 72 percent of all motor vehicle crash death victims were male. Men also accounted for 71 percent of pedestrian deaths, 87 percent of bicyclist deaths and 92 percent of motorcyclist deaths.

Advocates for more research into men’s health say the goal isn’t to steal resources from women, girls and gender minorities.

“Some people think health care is a zero sum gain and one dollar to men’s health is taking something away from women,” said Ronald Henry, president and co-founder of the Men’s Health Network, an advocacy group. “That’s wrong. We are fully supportive of women’s health efforts and improving quality of life for women.”

Derek Griffith is the director of Georgetown University’s Center for Men’s Health Equity in the Racial Justice Institute. He is also a health management and policy professor at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. (Lisa Helfert/Courtesy Derek Griffith)

But by viewing men as the privileged default, health experts are ignoring important sex differences that could illuminate health issues across gender and minority groups.

For instance, for years the widely held belief in medical circles was that women used too many health-care resources compared to men. As a result, men were viewed as the standard for seeking health care, while women were often dismissed as hysterical or “anxious” when they sought care.

“We used to think women were overutilizing health care, and men were doing it correctly,” Griffith said. “What we realized was that women were doing it better, mostly for preventive care, and men were actually underutilizing health care.”

Explaining the longevity gap

The reasons behind the longevity gap aren’t fully understood, but the global nature of the disparity suggests that biology probably plays a strong role.

For instance, high levels of testosterone, which can weaken the immune response, may be a factor in why men, and male mammals in general, are more vulnerable to parasitic infections. Estrogen may explain why women have lower rates of heart disease throughout life — and why the gap narrows after women reach menopause. (Even though estrogen appears to be protective in women, studies in the 1970s showed that when estrogen was given to men, instead of being protective, it caused double the rate of heart attacks as those in a placebo group.)

Cultural biases around masculinity that teach boys and men to hide their feelings and not complain also can influence men’s health.

“Depression in men is quite deceptive,” said Marianne J. Legato, a physician and founder of the Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine in New York. “Men are socially programmed to not complain. Suicide is often unexpected as an early end to a man’s life compared to that of a woman.”

Cultural expectations to remain stoic can also delay men’s care. For instance, although diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and hypertension are common in men and women, men often wait longer to seek care and the illnesses are diagnosed at later stages, leading to more damage and poorer outcomes.

“It’s an interesting conundrum and in many ways it’s not well understood,” said cardiologist Steven Nissen, chief academic officer for the Cleveland Clinic. “Men need to pay close attention to cardiovascular risk factors. Treating risk factors early can mitigate a lot of the risk.”

Men also are known to engage in more risky behaviors, such as drug and alcohol use, smoking and reckless driving. While the reasons behind these trends aren’t fully understood, behavioral risks are also a reason men’s health doesn’t get studied, Griffith said.

“It’s hard to convince people that men’s health is an issue if we think it’s just because men don’t do what they’re supposed to do,” he said.

Fewer doctor visits

An oft-cited concern is that men are also less likely to visit the doctor. Although boys and girls visit the pediatrician at the same rate, the trend changes in adulthood and medical visits by men decline. CDC data show that the physician visit rate in 2018 among females was almost 40 percent higher — 3.08 visits per woman vs. 2.24 per man.

One reason is that women regularly visit the gynecologist in their reproductive years. “There is no similar pathway for men,” Nissen said.

But even when visits for pregnancy are excluded, research suggests that women still are twice as likely as men to schedule regular annual exams and use preventive services.

Doctors say that men are most likely to visit the doctor because of a sports injury or for the “Viagra” visit — when they seek treatment for erectile dysfunction. As a result, sports medicine physicians and urologists are encouraged to use those visits to check blood pressure, cholesterol and other indicators of overall health.

“Stamina and sexual health are two of the top things that men think about,” said Howard LeWine, an internal medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and chief medical editor at Harvard Health Publishing. “When you’re 20, 30 and a man, you really don’t think about health. The idea of going to a doctor to prevent cancer or heart disease — I don’t think it’s in the mind of many men until something has happened to them.”

The irony is that men for years have been overrepresented in medical research, often at the expense of women, according to a seminal 1985 report that prompted more government investment in women’s health research.

“Men who were overrepresented in medical studies before are still underrepresented in terms of clinical care,” said Harvey Simon, an internal medicine physician and founder of Harvard Men’s Health Watch, a newsletter devoted to men’s health.

Lack of support

Men’s health advocates say one of the biggest factors is a lack of infrastructure to support research specifically focused on men’s health.

For years, the Men’s Health Network has lobbied for the creation of an Office of Men’s Health, similar to the Office of Women’s Health in Health and Human Services Department. Proposed legislation, however, has consistently failed to win support.

While some health systems claim to have departments focused on men’s health, the care is often focused on urologic and prostate health rather than cardiac care, mental health or other issues that afflict men at high rates.

The topic of men’s health simply hasn’t caught on as something that advocates, corporate sponsors and politicians want to get behind. While the pink ribbon has been elevated to iconic status to signal breast cancer awareness, nothing in men’s health has achieved the same level of attention.

“There is an empathy gap,” Henry said. “There are people who shrug and say, ‘Yes, men die younger. That’s the way the world is.’ It doesn’t need to be that way. If we devote attention and resources, we can change the outcomes for men.”

by Tara Parker-Pope and Caitlin Gilbert

Are there official organizations fighting for men's rights?
Debates on Internet are useful but I'd like to do something that has a real impact.

#men

I’d like to talk about bad words, if I may.

Since around the time I hit puberty I noticed that so many of the expletives in English (I’d love to hear from speakers of other languages on this) are based on sex. Sex is typically consider a desirable or positive thing, so why is our strongest swear word “fuck”? Why do we say something disagreeable “sucks”? A hang-over from sex negativity? Excrement-based curse words make sense to me, but there are far fewer of them than the sex and genital-based ones.

Some of these have received pushback recently. In the 90’s and 00’s it was common for kids to casually use “gay” as a synonym for “bad” and “pussy” for “coward”. Maybe it’s because I’m an adult now, but I just don’t hear this anymore. Even if people use these terms negatively they mean their literal referents. I think we came to a place culturally that recognizes this isn’t acceptable (what right-wing weirdos call “political correctness”).

Most female-specific terms are no longer acceptable. “Bitch” has been effectively reclaimed by third wave feminists. “Cunt” is unacceptable in the US and its days in other English-speaking countries may be numbered. “Twat” sounds downright old-fashioned. “Slut” shaming is sure to draw approbation. Disparaging terms for sex workers are all off the table. And that’s great! But then why is the very opposite thing happening for male-specific terms?

“Dick,” “jerk, and “wanker” have been used to describe unpleasant people for decades. Now “bellend” and “scrote” are joining their ranks. We have often used fellatio as a metaphor for something disagreeable (“suck”) but there isn’t a comparable word for cunnilingus. And although it’s unacceptable to criticize a woman for having a relatively active sex life, it’s become more and more common to see men insulted for their putative lack of sex. And it doesn’t even need to be literal. If someone calls someone else an “incel” or “virgin” online they obviously don’t actually know anything about their sex life.

Expletives are an important part of language. Sometimes we need these blunt instruments to properly express our anger. But let’s move away from all sex-negative, and demographic-based cusses.

There’s a common perception that friendships among young men are superficial – but this isn’t necessarily true.

Research shows younger men are engaging in close male friendships and expressing their feelings like never before. They are adept at negotiating the rules of masculinity. They will open up to others in safe contexts – although not all men have these safe spaces.

We believe creating more of these safe zones for young men is key. For example, it seems that by encouraging men to do activities side by side, or that have a “purpose” (such as volunteering or attending men’s sheds to create things), male bonding and important conversations naturally emerge.

Although there are concerns that some online activities and forums can be dangerous, anonymous online discussion forums can help men connect and express themselves about the things that matter without fear of judgement.

Please read the whole article.

As I psychologist, I’m concerned about mental health, especially the mental health of men and boys because it’s been overlooked for so long. Because there was so little interest in how much the negative discourse around masculinity impacts boys, my colleagues and I ran a survey. We found that around 85% of respondents thought the term ‘toxic masculinity’ is insulting, and probably harmful to boys.

My latest research has just been published. It assessed the views of over 4000 men in the UK and Germany, and found that thinking masculinity is bad for your behaviour is linked to having worse mental wellbeing. [... And] positive views of masculinity are linked to better mental wellbeing.

This is why we oppose the usage of the term toxic masculinity and any negative generalizations of men as a gender.

"Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a measure that will overhaul the state's alimony laws, after three vetoes of similar bills and a decade of emotional clashes over the issue."

A true victory for the institution of marriage and the rights of men.

I had an interesting conversation with a feminist on Reddit. She replied to my post about why left-wingers support feminism. In the post, I said I don't believe in a patriarchy or toxic masculinity.

She cited examples of women being forced to marry young as a patriarchal issue. She cited women having to bear children in America without abortion rights as a patriarchal issue. She cited women being domestically abused as a patriarchal issue.

I told her women being forced to marry young was more prevalent in the past. Nowadays, forced marriages are illegal. The examples she cited don't indicate a patriarchy, because the average man (most men) don't have more power than the average women. For example, a man is more likely to be arrested for domestic violence even if he is the victim.

Feminists believe there is a patriarchy because they look at the men, in the top 1% or 5%. They assume all other men have very minimal issues in their lives. Most rich people will be treated better, regardless of gender.

When I disagreed with the feminist, she called me stupid and an "incel." I remained calm and told her I'm not an "incel." It seems like feminists want men to think in a gynocentric point of view. Anything that isn't gynocentric seems misogynistic to them. I don't think advocating for men's issues and women's issues is mutually exclusive.

This article is inspired by a Youtuber Caitlyn V who is a sex coach. I've watched some of her videos and I find them to be very informative, especially about sex. I'll link it here below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agscWsru7Gk&ab_channel=CaitlinV

She actually goes onto explain how not having sex for a long time can contribute to problems on mental health, emotional health, etc.

The second half of her video has the solutions to these problems and the last point is one I want to expand on. The first 2 solutions was to 1. Create feel good chemicals by exercising, eating healthy, leaning on trusted friends, etc and the 2. one is fuck yourself (not regular masturbation where you race to ejaculation, but slowly taking your time with it.). The third suggestion is where I take issue with and it's getting a sex worker.

Note I have nothing against sex work. I believe sex work is work and there's nothing wrong with getting it. My issue with this point is the way I believe society is set up to profit off of lonely and sexually frustrated men.

Paying for sex work is very expensive, like you have to be making the kind of money where the cost to even get these services are casual at best. Even if there are cheap option, I don't believe many men out there feel they should have to pay for experiences just to feel wanted.

Think about it this way. When you go outside to try to make friends, or to try and talk to a woman you find attractive, you notice how cold and distant people treat you in social places. In the first initial meeting, you're treated as a potential predator that has to prove himself to be a good person first, and even after you passed the test, you need to be mindful of not making her feel uncomfortable, and make having sex with them feel completely natural. It's also on you to make the sure interactions you lead the interactions in a way to keep her around, and basically really sell yourself. Couple that with the expectation society has for the man to be the pursuer, all of these things make a very daunting experience for men.

Men don't have a lot of options when it comes to dating and when they to have the opportunity, are expected to make sure it goes well. This setup creates a very convincing need for sex work, with a high demand of it coming from men because their basic needs aren't being met consistently.

I believe there needs to be a better solution rather than spending money on experiencing intimacy via sexual services. The most obvious way would be to stop demonizing men at a very ridiculous level, especially at the first meet, but most people on the left space don't like that idea cuz 'safety' and 'patriarchy' so obviously getting to a point where we don't do that is gonna take a long time, we need better short term solutions that doesn't cost money for that. Sexual services are fine when you get them here and there, not when it becomes a potentially long-term thing (I've known men who consistently get sex through prostitutes)

One of the solutions offered by Aba and Preach would be a solution I would offer in helping with this situation as well, mostly short-term.

https://youtu.be/P22ZpncT8B4?t=738

Now they're saying not to approach women and I don't think most women put men that approach them on blast that regular, but that's perfectly valid given the society we're living in. Me personally, I've done a lot of approaching and have been very experienced in it and I haven't been blasted on media, but this is because I gauge most situations I have going in. The process of learning it today is fucking hard so one slip up in an unlucky situation can turn your life upside down if you get blasted on social media.

Other solutions?

Read books and websites on people skills so you can work on talking to people. Don't get me wrong, we've all had natural experiences with talking to people, so I'm not implying you're all very socially inept that can't hold a conversation. I think a lot of the guys here actually have no problem with conversation, especially when talking to women. But maybe you don't have the kind of friends you do like having around, or maybe you don't have any afab friends or maybe you do, but again not the ideal person you want in your life. I'm mostly recommending this because if you want to have control over your own life and build better relationships, people skills are crucial. So the next time you're in a situation where you want to make friends with certain people or talk to a woman you find attractive, you know have the experience backed up to do it

Read books on dating material so you can make up for a lack of experience. However, this bit is very tricky as there's a lot of toxic dating advice out there. I got proper sources of healthy dating advice if you want my suggestion message me.

Next step is practicality. For social skills, go to a hobby-based group or club and put what you learned to the test. Preferably a new one, as if you're in an old group, they probably have a set image of you and depending on that, maybe harder to break out of. Finding a new social setting will give you a fresh start if this is the case. For practicing dating skills, I would highly recommend speed dating. Now don't expect to actually get dates from speed dating. In fact, as a man if you wanna find a date via speed dating, you're gonna be spending money for a long time. Instead, use them to practice your skills. Each date you have last up to 5 minutes so you have a very short timeframe to work with, but this is perfect as you get to work on initiating conversations and internalizing body language signals being sent out, and you'll be 'dating' multiple people in one setting so you have a lot of volume to work with for one night. This is to help improve your skills quickly, arming you with enough knowledge and experience to navigate life with a prepared lens.

Now the article is written from the perspective of someone that hasn't gone to any sexual services and don't really plan to. Has anyone gone to get sexual services? What was it like going there? Do you agree it to be a solution for guys problem with a lack of sex?

As egalitarians, we want all people to be treated with equal consideration. There should be no favorites. All people, be they men, women, or children, deserve the same human rights, and the same amount of support.

As it comes to gender, which is our focus here, there are still many problems to be addressed. But we call upon all, paraphrasing a famous actress: you're either an egalitarian, or you're a sexist.

What do you think?

I currently use fetlife as a way to connect with likeminded individuals. Sometimes they would make post about gender issues (usually female centered, and when it's male-centered it's usually about toxic male behaviour or how our problems are created by the 'patriarchy'.)

To the premise of the post is that the original poster thinks that men get angry at women because they're allowed to be sexy and feel desirable in ways that men aren't. Considering fetlife is a kink community, I didn't see any of that as I've seen men in dresses in that community. Though outside of it, I would think it's more of a case.

However, during that discussion, it seems the term "desirability" is discussed in a way that they mean compliment. When women interact with each other, they compliment each other such as "Omg you're soo sexy" "slay queen, you are gorgeous" "you have a nice fat ass" or anything of that variant, however most women understood these are just compliments and a way to make other women feel good, not always as an indicator that they wanna fuck. They don't accept this from men as they see it as an invitation to fuck (and I wouldn't blame the women here, our society has still conditioned men to their gender role and expectations of men to be the pursuer are still there.)

In terms of the term desirability being treated as a compliment, it's true men don't get that often as women do. As a man, I don't get compliments on how sexy or handsome I am. But I can count the rare times I do get them and even then, I personally saw it as nothing more than a compliment. I know that if I wanted to date a person, I would put in the effort to build that relationship and my potential partner would also put in that effort too if they want the same thing.

But there's a different kind of desirability I want to talk about. It's about the feeling of being wanted especially by women. We're taught that women send signals to show if she desires or wants someone or not, but many of these signals are very subtle. This is because men aren't brought up in that way and women expect us to just know these signals. Because of this, men sometimes do not feel desirable. What I mean here is men are expected to go up to the person, almost always be the first ones to express desire in a person and wanting to go out. I've very rarely had any woman seduce me, had any woman ask for my number, wanting to take me out. This is the desirability that men very much lack, and was a conversation not covered by that post.

Now women don't show these desires because of their safety. No, I'm not saying women don't express interest cuz of fear of being raped and murdered, that's ridiculous. What I am saying is that because society expects a lot from men and the abundance of PUA/TRP material out there, men are training themselves to pounce on every opportunity they get to experience intimacy but can come off as trying to getting some action and aggressive, leading to women closing themselves off and not wanting to 'tempt' a man into thinking she wants sex, so this understandably creates a double bind for both parties involved. So if she does express interest in him, there's a likelihood he'll latch onto that (tho you can tell me from your experience if this is true as that's just a theory in my head. I don't get approached by women like this a lot but maybe there's a guy out there that does.)

Because most women don't usually court guys and expect to be courted, guys feel like they have to give their efforts to make them feel good, but they themselves don't receive that same effort or even appreciation for trying. Anyways, lemme know what you guys think.

#men

so overtime i have been seeing the left after the convo's about men's place in society, and it has been dismal. There was this video of a trans man talking about the loneliness of men went viral on TikTok and A channel named Aba and Preach covered it from their perspective (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZF7k9nVNRw&t=1088s) but it brings up a point i want to touch on

Which is that we will only listen to men's issues when it is someone who politically agrees with the right things, (patriarchy, toxic masculinity, feminism) but if it was someone like Jordan Peterson, who has actually pulled young men from the brink of suicide, and has been someone who has been someone very critcal of feminists in the past, they do this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZxz7WrW2Yo) literally laughing at the man for crying about men's issues. Aba and preach also covered this actual video and the responses. heres that video too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abQo5wWkMxs&t=532s)

Or when Dr Michael Reeves, made a video about male inequality, which is linked here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBG1Wgg32Ok&t=1s), when he want on the we are man enough podcast, a feminist podcast about men's issues, Liz Plank, A feminist, essentially wasn't actually concerned about the actual argument but rather the language of calling men not being represented in HEAL Jobs (Heath, education, admistration and language) as seen in this clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVo-sCPR5CA&t=44s)

But what i want to discuss about these two things is that on one end of the spectrum, a trans man rightfully talks about the void of lacking the connections that he had when was still a woman, and because he said men should take advice from women to become more emotionally vunerable. but when someone, Jordan Peterson has an emotional moment and cries at the plights of disaffaceted young men, The Left cant help but point and laugh at him.

Which is the point i want to make is that when it comes to all the talk about toxic masculinity and men being emotional, it seems to only be for a specific sect of the population, ie, Leftist or Liberal men who curtail the line of being serious about men"s issues but never focus on how society plays a hand in those issues, which includes women, or if they do focus on society, it is quick to blame men.

And even if a man is vunerable with their emotions, ie like Jordan Peterson, because he is a right winger, they just will make fun of him, which reinforces "toxic masculinity" and the gendered stereotypes and expectations that they claim to want to get rid off. And helps not only make Jordan Peterson a viable alternative to them. Or even if they agree with the inequality that men can face, they are often critical of the language or the imprecise nature of what they are saying.

And with the often times toxic and very hypocritical nature of their arguments, the mass generalizations, and painting of men as the bane of existance of women, queer folk, and minorities, dispite the fact that men with in these groups are vicimized much like them. Young men are just deciding to be done with the left, as they really offer no solution other than some false class conciousness as with these 2 videoes by a youtuber named That Dang dad

1 is a critique of a song by Dax, named to be a man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN3-32AcQMQ&t=764s) which just to me, dismisses alot of what men go through and tells men to essentially build community with women, minorities and queer people, (which isnt a bad idea but ill get into why i think it and his other video are a kinda tacit dismissal of what men feel and also just a very bland way of what i like to call the "give a man a mission" play)

2 which is his attempt to answer the question, is the left failing men?, an answer with a resounding yes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVXZo1ld5Nc)

The second reason as to why i feel that young men are essentially not aligned with the left, and feminism which i highlighted earlier is called the "give the men a mission play", which is essentially, though used by both the right and the left, we are talking about the left which is like this.

"What you are mad at is late stage capitalism, which is fucking us all over so join with us and it will make life easier for not just you but everyone else" Or as it is most commonly used like in this tiktok, where the woman responds to a strawman of man who is frustrated with the current dating market, and feminism with the perils of living under "late stage capitalism"

(This is the tiktok in question https://www.tiktok.com/@elisse.01/video/7198671535073316142?lang=en)

but this is a broader sentiment on the left as stated, mostly in jokes, that if men could instead of "being mad at women" could focus on destroying capistalism and patrarchy, the world would be better, but that is built on 2 false premisies

1 that a communist or socialist revolution would better the lives of anyone, as in history, it truly hasnt and in fact has been more destructive to peoples lives.

2 the presumtion that men have any privilage that men have some one up over women. and have never been the victims of a society that they themselves built to benefit themselves, but has them suffering.

but the entire left does this with mens issues, which is why young men dont really find the left appealing, as the only solutions for men are to either mire in depression, join one side if the political isle that want to use you to enforce a fascist christian theocracy, or the one that will constantly tell you you are privilaged and must sit down shut up, and maybe die in a class war that probably wont liberate people at all, and might make life worse.

There’s a certain copypasta that gets posted in men’s issues spaces online. I think it might have originally been said by Karen Staughan. You may know the one I’m talking about. If you have it handy, please post it in the comments. I want to go ahead and reiterate it because it’s a very important point about online gender discussions. It bears repeating here as we start off on a new platform:

“I’m a real feminist. I support equality for men, too. Only fake feminists oppose recognizing abuse and laws against men.”

Have you ever posted a comment like this before? Well, I’m glad to know that you support men and boys. We need all the allies we can get. Too many people deny that we even face any gender-based disadvantages, or if we do it’s our all fault, anyway, so it’s on us to address them. It’s hard for guys to find sympathy from either side of the culture war, but especially from the progressive-leftist side. There’s just one problem.

What you say doesn’t matter.

I mean no disrespect, but you are an anonymous commenter on the internet. I have no reason to assume you have actually done anything to confront the anti-male policies or stereotypes that rule our lives. Unless you have “leveraged your privilege to call out” those who stand in the way of progress, your egalitarian ideals mean nothing to me.

First of all, I need you to understand who the “fake feminists” who oppose gender equality are. Quite simply, it’s all of the major feminist organizations. There’s a convenient list of those who proudly stood behind husband-beater Amber Heard: https://amberopenletter.com/ . Despite numerous recordings of Heard admitting to violence against Depp, they backed her. This isn’t the first time feminist organizations have stood behind violent women. Donna Hylton, who participated in the torture and murder of a man and spent 26 years in jail for it, has reinvented herself as a feminist activist and was even a featured speaker at the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, DC.

Not only do feminist organizations support female abusers, they have created and fight to maintain policies which exclude men and boys from being recognized as victims. Many countries and territories around the world legally define rape in such a way that men cannot be victims. When efforts to reform the laws to being gender-neutral started in India, feminists worked to shut them down (https://timesofindia.com/india/Activists-join-chorus-against-gender-neutral-rape-laws/articleshow/18840879.cms)

Aside from laws, feminists have also engineered the standard operating procedure of law enforcement to be biased against men. A framework for understanding interpersonal violence known as the “Duluth Model” was created by feminist Ellen Pence in the 1970’s. It assumes that men are more violent than women, based on stereotypes rather than scientific evidence. The Duluth Model informs the way police in many countries respond to domestic violence calls. This usually involves assuming that in a heterosexual relationship, the man is the aggressor, even in cases where he makes the call to the police to report violence against him.

This bias against men cuts across gender lines. Male feminists like Lundy Bancroft and Chuck Derry have made their careers on perpetuating the view that men are always the aggressors and women are always the victim. Bancroft even goes so far as to say that men who claim to be victims are actually doing it to hide their abuse, and that all men are potential abusers (https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/10/31/lundy-bancroft-anti-vaxxer-who-thinks-all-men-are-abusers-14370)

Feminists fighting to maintain legal inequality is bad enough, but they don’t stop there. Any time an advocate for men and boys makes a speech or starts a new organization, feminists are there to harass and undermine them. Erin Pizzey founded the first domestic violence refuge shelter in 1971. When she turned her attention to creating services for battered men, her feminist colleagues went so far to as threatening to bomb her house. Despite moving away from the UK she is still regularly harassed for her promotion of a gender neutral approach in her services and writings. The experiences of self-described feminist filmmaker Cassie Jaye had a similar experience. She directed an unbiased documentary about the men’s rights movement, and was subsequently shunned by the feminist movement.

Prominent feminist individuals and organizations have demonstrated time and again they oppose equal treatment for men. So that begs the question, who are the “fake feminists”? Does NOW, an organization which platforms abusers and opposes 50/50 child custody laws (https://floridapolitics.com/archives/206474-womens-rights-groups-host-statewide-media-conference-sb-668/), not count as real feminists? Is Hillary Clinton who once called women the primary victims of war, despite them not facing conscription anywhere in the world, not a real feminist? Are the various gender officers in universities around the world setting up kangaroo courts for accused men not real feminists?

It’s time for an uncomfortable realization. When it comes to equality, feminists’ actions speak louder than their words. If you still think the term “feminism” is worth reclaiming at this point, it’s up to you to stand up against the feminist institutions which have created and uphold the treatment of men and boys as second class citizens.

#men

I just stepped down as moderator from all five of the subreddits I used to moderate over on Reddit. I just can't ethically justify continued activity on Reddit, and especially free volunteer labour for an openly greedy company that is engaged in scummy behaviour, forcing mods to open protesting communities or be demoted.

So my online activism for boys and men is now focused here and on Mastodon. And I am welcoming everyone coming over from Reddit, especially from LeftWingMaleAdvocates, the sub I put in the majority of my time and effort as a mod.

Let's build something good here, as we did previously on Reddit. It appears we have a wider reach here, so let's debate in good faith and with civil manners.

Here, in this magazine (i.e. community or subreddit in Kbin-speak) we wish to discuss and spread awareness of various issues that disproportionately affect males.

We believe men are not being well-served by either side of the mainstream political spectrum. We oppose the right wing's exploitation of men's issues as a wedge to recruit men to inegalitarian traditional values. But we also oppose feminist attempts to deny male issues, or shoehorn them into a biased ideology that blames "male privilege" and guilt-trips men.

We have no objection to the genuinely egalitarian aspects of feminism, but we will criticize feminist ideology wherever it is inegalitarian and/or untruthful, especially now that it holds institutional power. Too often feminism has promoted a one-sided "equality", dismantling male advantages while exploiting, reinforcing, preserving, and downplaying female advantages - particularly in cases involving alleged abuse.

In practice this means that most of us are politically homeless. The natural home for male advocacy should be the left wing, which professes to be explicitly egalitarian. But in modern practice, men's issues are habitually ignored, denied, or even opposed.

We seek to address male issues without falling into the traps of an impossible return to the past or a disastrous sexism. Men and women have equal value, and we need to work together for a better future.

There is a tendency among some academics to prescribe individual solutions to systemic problems, when those problems are men's problems. For example, Diprete and Buchman, sociologists, in chapter 6 of the book “The Rise of Women: the growing gender gap in education and what it means for American schools.” Write that boys get worse grades than girls because they have lower emotional attachment to school than girls do because male adolescent role models like Batman and James Bond don’t emphasize academic success, which fosters an adolescent male culture that is oppositional to school. The solutions that they propose in the conclusion to the chapter is for parents to provide their sons with information about the relationship between academic success and financial success and provide them with emotional rewards for academic success and for fathers to role model good study habits and ways of achieving financial success and masculinity through academic success to their sons. Andrew Reiner, who teaches men’s studies at Towson university in Maryland, says that men don’t go to other men for emotional support because male heroes in popular culture don’t do that. But that causes mental health problems for men. So he prescribes men to discuss what about masculinity to change with their male friends and for men to write about the emotions they experienced in the past, along with other recommendations for men. https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-be-a-man-who-has-inner-strength-and-emotional-resilience But what is missing from both accounts, is addressing the source of the problem. If the problem is the role models that boys and men see in the media don’t exhibit the behaviors that are necessary for them to thrive, then the solution is to change those role models. Telling individual men and families to change is just passing the buck. Those role models did not always exist. Someone created them on purpose. They can be changed. Is there something obvious that I am missing? Is it just impossible to make healthy and positive male role models profitable in fiction?

#men

###Article 21: Right to partake in public affairs

Everyone has the right to take part in their country’s political affairs and equal access to public service. Governments should be voted for regularly.

• Public services are often designed for women and exclude men
• The women's lobbying industry seeks to exclude men and men's human rights issues from public discourse and government decision making processes
• There are very few government arms anywhere in the world (including at the U.N.) dedicated to the health and wellbeing of men

A great example of this is the public research funding bias that focuses on women's health, as well as medical services that are not offered to men, despite men being in poorer health and not living as long as women. Another example are victims services which in many cases simply do not exist at all for men.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We should not forget about men when proposing and implementing publicly funded services
2. We need to establish government offices that focus on male issues and concerns

###Article 22: Right to social security

Society should help individuals to freely develop and make the most of all advantages offered in their country.

• As noted in several previous sections, men are often excluded from public services and benefits
• Gender stereotypes against men prevent them from participating in many important areas of society, including domestic life, education, childcare, and public discourse

Men are often limited to their role in constructing and maintaining society, but are not included in the benefits that this construction and maintenance affords to others.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Efforts should be made to better include men in publicly offered benefits and services
2. Efforts should be made to include men in all aspects of society instead of limiting them to predetermined roles consisting of labor, construction, and maintaince

###Article 23: Right to work

Everyone has the right to work in just and favourable conditions and be free to choose your work with a salary that allows you to live and support family. Everyone should receive equal pay for equal work.

• Men work in less favorable conditions than women and make up well over 90% of occupational deaths and occupational related injuries and health conditions
• Men work longer hours than women in order to support themselves and their families

This one has obvious relevance to existing men's rights discussions around working conditions and work-life balance.

The second bullet point intersects with the active transfer of property from men to women that was discussed in previous sections.

Even if we ignore the human rights questions around alimony and child support, this article would still be relevant because a man should be able to earn enough money to pay for those obligations to support his "family" and also support himself. Many men who are forced to transfer property to women live in abject poverty despite earning decent incomes on paper (a problem that creates biases in statistics and research about poverty).

Many separated fathers want to voluntarily provide support for their children, and be involved to a greater degree than society currently allows. But the economy often prevents them from being able to contribute financially. What makes this worse is that many child support and alimony laws were created decades ago when the economy allowed for a single parent to support an entire family, which means that child support obligations at the time did not create as large of a burden for separated fathers as they do today.

Anther note is that the ability for a single parent to be able to provide for an entire family seems to be a human rights issue on it's own according to this article.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We need to improve working conditions, pay, and work-life balance

###Article 24: Right to leisure and rest

Each work day should not be too long and everyone has the right to rest and take regular paid holidays.

• Men spend less time outside of work than women do
• Men spend less time relaxing, less time taking naps, and less time sleeping than women do
• Men have less time for leisure and rest even when you include domestic work and childcare

Much like Article 23, this implies that we need to pay people better so that we can spend less time working.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We need to work on reducing the amount of time men spend laboring to support themselves and their families

###Article 25: Right to adequate standard of living

You have the right to have what you need so that you and your family do not go hungry, homeless or fall ill.

• Men are significantly more likely than women to be homeless, hungry, and destitute
• Men receive less funding and care for their health than women do at basically every level of society
• The amount of labor men perform for other people often prevents them from taking care of themselves and receiving preventative medical treatment
• Men die younger than women and are in worse health in almost every nation on the planet

This is another article that has obvious relevance for many traditional men's rights issues.

The pressures to work longer hours at jobs that provide less time off makes it difficult for men to take care of their health and receive preventative medical care. Governments also spend much more money on women's health than men's health, despite men being in poorer health and dying younger than women.

Men are also more likely to be homeless and destitute.

One interesting thing I saw in this article is a statement granting special status for women and children:

Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance.

I have not looked at the original declaration or studied the theory behind it, but I imagine this is because pregnant and nursing mothers do actually need special care and assistance for biological reasons, as do children.

The only place where a note like this was included was in this article, so the context is specific to this article. It does not establish that women and children are more important than men or that their human rights supercede a man's human rights. I think at most this implies a need for general welfare specific to women and children that do not otherwise apply to men, and is not meant to affirm traditional gender roles from men towards women such as providership or protection. Since those gender roles frequently get abused to infringe on the human rights of men, we need to work on dismantling them instead of making excuses for them.

Moreover, if this article is used to justify the enforcement of traditional male gender roles, I believe that Article 29 (discussed later) would impose complementary gender roles and obligations onto women as well. This mirrors conversations that question the relationship between rights and obligations.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We need to work on safety nets and make sure that men aren't falling through the cracks
2. We need to work on facilitating better health, wellness, and support for men, women, and children in society

###Article 26: Right to education

You have the right to go to school, continue your studies as far as you wish and learn regardless of race, religion or country of origin.

• Men have been falling behind in all levels of education for decades
• Education has been reformed over the years to cater to women and this has been partially responsible for male underachievement
• All levels of the education system have been demonstrated to discriminate against men
• Men receive lower marks for identical work
• Men are more likely to be punished for identical behaviors
• Men have been shown to suffer from a stereotype bias in education
• Men do not receive male specific affirmative action or support for these shortfalls, and many people continue to believe that it is actually women who need extra help

This is another big one that men's activists have been talking about for a really long time.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We need to investigate male underachievement and enact positive policy reform on these issues
2. We need to care about male underachievement and acknowledge that work needs to be done here
3. We need to put an end to systemic and institutionalized discrimination against men in the education system which only make these problems worse

###Article 27: Right to take part in cultural, artistic and scientific life

You have the right to share the benefits of your community’s culture, arts and sciences.

• Men are stereotyped as not being creative
• Masculinity and masculine hobbies are stereotyped as boring, uncool, and sometimes as dangerous and harmful
• Men are stereotyped in media representations as ignorant, incapable, selfish, malicious, and villainous

I don't see many issues here despite the list of bullet points. The main issue is probably that women are the biggest consumers of art (mainly through television and social media) so they get catered to the most. As noted earlier, men have less time for themselves than women do so they have fewer opportunities to participate in culture and the arts, especially as consumers.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We should work on better media representations of men
2. We should put an end to sexism directed towards men in popular media and on social media
3. We should work on work-life issues affecting men so that they can better participate in the consumption and utilization of culture and the arts

###Article 28: Right to a free and fair world

To make sure your rights are respected, there must be an order that can protect them. This order should be global.

• There are very few efforts to protect men's human rights in society
• This is especially true when men's issues are gendered and not shared closely with women
• Men's human rights are not taken seriously by many people and many organizations
• Many people wrongly believe that men's human rights are already protected

Of note here is that this comes from a human rights proposals created by the U.N. but the U.N. does not have a specific branch to address the concerns of men in this world.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We need to affirm that men's human rights concerns are valid and do not come second to women's rights
2. We need to establish governing bodies that are tasked with protecting men and addressing men's issues in society

###Article 29: Duty to your community

You have duties toward the community within which your personality can fully develop. The law should guarantee human rights. It should allow everyone to respect others and to be respected.

• Men are commonly seen as protectors and providers who help others, but should not receive help in return
• Many men do not believe that their roles in society are properly respected and compensated
• According to time use studies, men spend more time and labor contributing towards society than women do
• Modern culture and gender discussions encourage women to take from society, but to not contributing back in kind. Instead of being seen as selfish, it is instead seen as an empowering and worthwhile goal to strive for.

This one is interesting because it affirms a duty for individuals to work towards a better society. This is of course what the traditional male role is, and this is sometimes compensated by female roles as well. We have gotten rid of many of these obligations for women but have kept our obligations for men. So in some ways this article could be seen as affirming that women need to step up and either take on traditional masculine roles in society or take on complimentary feminine roles.

I do not believe that gender roles are a good thing, but I do think this point needs developed to be fair to this article.

Of course we could also say that men need to step up in traditional female roles as well, but this is in fact what we already see happening in society, and is something that we are actively improving. What we haven't seen are complementary changes to hold women equally responsible for the maintenance and progress of society. I do not think it is fair to encourage men to take on a larger role in society while women are only expected to do their part if they want to.

It is also the case that men currently spend more total time and labor contributing towards society than women do, and this is still true when you include childcare and housework. A possible implication of this article is that women need to do more so that men can have more time, energy, and resources to engage in rest, leisure, preventative medical care, and the consumption of culture and the arts.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We need to make sure that society is properly supported by everyone
2. We need to make sure that everyone is doing their part so that human rights can be universal to everyone and not restricted to specific groups of people or genders
3. We need to make sure that we are not sacrificing or ignoring men's human rights because it is convenient to do so

###Article 30: Rights are inalienable

No one, institution nor individual, should act in any way to destroy the rights enshrined in the UDHR.

• We have numerous examples of this happening already, and I'm sure the list could be expanded upon

I'm not going to emphasize this point very hard because I think it's important to look for solutions instead of complaining. I was however surprised by just how many of these articles were relevant to men, and how often they are overlooked when they apply to men. Men are human beings with thoughts and feelings. Men can suffer, and love, and therefore deserve all of the same compassion and care that we give to women in society. Human rights are supposed to be inalienable and do not stop mattering just because they apply to men.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We need to remind individuals and institutions that human rights do in fact apply to men because men are human
2. Men's rights are human rights

article originally by u/Oncefa2 on Reddit

##Background

These 30 articles were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 and represent some of the most widely agreed upon human rights standards in the world.

Some history and information can be found here:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/what-are-human-rights

And an overview of the 30 articles can be found here:

https://standup4humanrights.org/en/declaration.html

I am going to use this site to go through all 30 articles, point out their relevance to men's human rights, existing shortfalls in society, and then offer condensed policy recommendations. I am not an expert on any of this and it is definitely not perfect but I think it can give us some ideas to look into. I am also not trying to imply that women do not face issues in any of these areas. The nature of this exercise is to look at issues affecting men because those issues are often ignored by society.

##The 30 articles and their application to men's human rights

###Article 1: Free and equal

All human beings are born free and equal and should be treated the same way.

• Men and women are commonly not treated the same by society, institutions, or under the law

This is a very broad article and covers many of the later categories where I will get more specific. One example that stands out is the Hayden rider modification to the US Equal Rights Amendment which sought to preserve discrimination and unfair treatment against men but not women. Presumably the Hayden rider modification would cause the bill to be in violation of this article because it would establish unequal treatment between men and women. This is true regardless if you think discrimination and unfair treatment against men exists, rendering that argument (which is usually made from a place of ignorance) invalid according to basic human rights standards.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Policies should be mindful of unequal treatment and double standards between men and women
2. Policies should not exclude one gender
3. Policies should not focus exclusively or disproportionally on one gender
4. Policies should not treat men differently from women

###Article 2: Freedom from discrimination

Everyone can claim their rights regardless of sex, race, language, religion, social standing, etc.

• Men are commonly discriminated against by sex, marital status, and parental status

• There are many articles in this document where active effort to protect women already exist but men are still denied equivalent rights because of their gender

This is another broad category that covers many of the later categories, so I will be expanding on those topics under those articles. A couple examples include education, freedom of movement, freedom from forced labor, and bodily autonomy.

Another thing that comes to mind are discriminatory definitions and implementations of laws concerning sexual assault and domestic violence. The UK's Sexual Offences Act of 2003 and the US's 1994 Violence Against Women Act are likely in violation of this article.

In the later case, the bill was eventually amended due to constitutional challenges on the grounds of gender equality, but in practice it is still often exclusionary. One factor that needs to be looked at is the name of the bill itself, since that can influence the implementation of the bill by implying that it is still only about women. Since this and other articles stress implementation as much as definition I think the name of the bill is in violation of this and several other articles.

Another issue that needs talked about more is discrimination against single men, which I think is protected by this article because your marital status represents a type of social standing.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Policies should protect the rights of everyone, including men, regardless of parental or marital status
2. Policies should not exclude men on the basis of their gender
3. Policies should be implemented fairly and equally
4. Checks should be built in to make sure that this is carried out in practice and not just in definition

###Article 3: Right to life

Everyone has the right to life and to live in freedom and safety.

• Men are the biggest victims of violence in society and have a much higher mortality rate

• The state often perpetuates this problem or is actively part of the problem

The death penalty is pushed onto male criminals more than female criminals, and in some places the death penalty can legally only be applied to men, and not women.

Forced military conscription seems like it violates this article as well.

It is also frequently the case that violence affecting women is taken more seriously than violence against men. Violence against men is often considered normal or may even be invisible to most people.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Policies should seek to protect the safety of all people, regardless of gender
2. The life and safety of men should not come second to women, especially when men are victimized at considerably higher rates than women, often because of their gender

###Article 4: Freedom from slavery

No one has the right to treat you as a slave nor should you enslave anyone.

• A majority of forced labor around the world, including forced child labor, exploits men and boys
• Men are often victims of coerced labor as well, for example inside of their families
• Husbands and fathers are forced by law to labor for the benefit of women and children against their will

This one intersects with known men's rights issues on several fronts. The prison industrial complex systematically exploits male labor, and many laws and policies in this area target the criminalization and arrest of men to perpetuate this system.

Men are also treated like indentured servants by child support and alimony policies where they are forced to labor for the benefit of women and children against their will. The use and exploitation of male labor to support women and children takes on many forms and people are often blind to this.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Policies should investigate and put an end to forced labor, including forced labor inside the prison industrial complex, and peonage in the form of child support, alimony, marriage laws, and divorce laws

###Article 5: Freedom from torture

No one has the right to torture you.

• The treatment of men in prison has been argued to be cruel and unusual
• Enhanced interrogation tactics are still used by militaries around the world, and men are disproportionally the victims of this

One note here is the difference between male prisons and female prisons. If a given treatment is considered too inhumane for female inmates, then it should also be considered inhumane for male inmates.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. A person's gender should not influence our willingness to engage in torture
2. A person's gender should not change what we consider to be torture. If it is something we wouldn't inflict upon a woman, then we should not inflict it upon a man.

###Article 6: Right to recognition before the law

You should be legally protected in the same way everywhere like anyone else.

• Men are commonly excluded from legal definitions of sexual assault
• Men are commonly excluded from protections and funding offered for victims of domestic violence
• Male bodily autonomy is recognized almost nowhere on the planet

There's probably a lot more but all of this should be covered by this article. We need to legally recognize male victims of sexual assault and we need to protect infant boys from nonconsensual genital modifications.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Adopt gender neutral legislation in name, content, and enforcement
2. Extend to men existing protections and rights that are already afford to women

###Article 7: Right to equality before the law

The law is the same for everyone and should be applied in the same manner to all.

• Men are profiled by the police and are more likely to be found guilty given the same evidence
• Men receive harsher punishment for the same crimes and mitigating factors
• When the victim of a crime is a man, the police do not investigate the crime as thoroughly, and the perpetrator is punished less severely
• Legislation may be formally written in a gender neutral manner but still end up being enforced unequally

There is again quite a bit you could put here. While legislation is sometimes gendered, what is more common is that legislation is gender neutral on paper but is still enforced unequally. This ranges from things like clubs being allowed to charge different cover amounts depending on your gender to the police not believing or caring about male victims of sexual and domestic abuse.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Legislation should be gender neutral and apply to everyone equally
2. Special care should be taken so that gender neutral legislation is enforced in a gender neutral manner

###Article 8: Access to justice

You have the right to obtain legal help and access the justice system when your rights are not respected.

• Men who are going through a divorce or child custody battle usually cannot finance their cases and therefore do not have equal access to justice
• Men who are victims of false allegations find it difficult to clear their names and pursue compensatory damages

This category is something that we fall short of in many ways for everybody. But men probably run into this a lot more than women, since the legal system is usually set up for women on issues that are commonly gendered. For example, emergency court ordered alimony and child support payments based on existing prejudices and gendered legislation makes it difficult to seek counsel and fight for a fair and equal outcome to the trial.

Men also find themselves the victims of legal aggression for which they do not have the means to adequately defend themselves. And in cases of libel, men are usually unable to get the state to intervene on their behalf.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Courts should not make temporary orders that interfere with a person's ability to obtain adequate legal counsel
2. The state should pay for legal counsel in civil and family cases like it does for criminal cases

###Article 9: Freedom from arbitrary detention

No one can arrest or detain you arbitrarily, or send you away from your country unjustly.

• Many militaries do not operate under this principle

Since the military is made up predominantly by men, internal military detention affects more men than women. And since women and children receive better protection from military aggression, victims of detainment related to military conflicts are also more likely to be men.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Militaries should not be granted exceptions to this article

###Article 10: Right to a fair trial

Trials should be public and tried in a fair manner by an impartial and independent tribunal.

• Men are more likely to be found guilty given the same evidence and mitigating factors against them
• In cases of hearsay, female testimony is more likely to be believed than male testimony

This indicates that juries are not impartial, likely because of systemic gender biases against men.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Judges and juries should be educated about unconscious gender biases against men and be reminded to remain impartial
2. Courts should formally adopt procedures to strike out testimony and evidence that relies on known gender biases

###Article 11: Presumption of innocence

You are considered innocent until it can be proved you are guilty according to law. If accused of a crime you have the right to a defence.

• Men are presumed guilty more often than women
• A presumption of innocence does not exist in the court of public opinion
• A presumption of innocence does not exist inside family law

In cases of crimes perceived to be gendered, men are usually treated as guilty before the trial, and this treatment often continues even if they are later found to be innocent.

Family court often takes a guilty until proven innocent approach, especially towards men.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. The media should be held to higher standards when reporting on crimes
2. A good model to follow might be what we do with minors, like leaving out the names of accused parties until after a trial
3. A family court judge should not consider a criminal allegation to have relevance in a trial until those allegations have been proven beyond a reason of doubt in a criminal court
4. Special care should be taken to identify legal and administrative aggression which is disproportionately utilized by women against men

###Article 12: Right to privacy

You have the right to protection if someone tried to harm your good name, enter your home without permission or interfere with your correspondence.

• Men are more likely than women to be the victims of privacy encroachment by significant others and digital stalkers
• Due to the weight of a woman's word against a man's, men are often the victims of attacks upon their honor and reputation by women

Basically everything that this article covers is commonly gendered against men, especially in the context of intimate relationships. Men are more likely to have correspondences spied on than the reverse and men are more likely to have their correspondences actively manipulated than the reverse. This comes in many forms and includes things like spying on text messages, cyber stalking, and having your social media monitored or even directly controlled by your significant other.

I'm kind of surprised to see that harming someone's reputation falls under this category, but it does make sense when you think of it terms of things you do in private becoming public.

I assume that this has less to do about false allegations and instead has more to do with an ex-lover spilling secrets that you either told them in confidence, or that they gained on their own during the course of your relationship.

One thing that stood out to me was just how commonly this principle is violated in informal day to day social interactions, and over social media. It is so common that I had no idea this was considered a formal human rights issue. I instead always thought that the right to privacy was something that was meant to protect you from the government, or maybe from a nosy neighbor.

I am also unaware of any formal legal avenue to address violations concerning attacks on your name. In cases of libel, what was said about you has to be false. But in this case the defaming information can actually be true, it just has to have been information that was private.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Victims of privacy encroachment should have accessable legal avenues to pursue compensation and hold perpetrators criminally liable for their actions
2. We should educate the public about what it means to encroach on someone's privacy, especially given recent advances in information technology, and the rise of social media

###Article 13: Freedom of movement

You have the right to leave or move within your own country and you should be able to return.

• One strategy the state uses to force men into non-consensual labor is restriction of movement
• Driver's licenses and passports are commonly revoked for debtors and peons

It's also common for people convicted of crimes to have their passports revoked in some countries, including after their sentence has been fulfilled, which to me seems like is in violation of this article as well.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Efforts should be made to facilitate the escape from peonage by crossing legal districts where peonage is being enforced on someone

###Article 14: Right to asylum

If you are persecuted at home, you have the right to seek protection in another country.

• Men are more likely to be the victims of political persecution than women

I don't see this is as being gendered except to the extent that men are more likely to seek political change and be targeted by existing power structures for speaking out against them.

It also seems to me that our definition of political persecution has been eroded over time, and that certain countries have gained near global access to be able to extradite nearly anyone they want for political purposes.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We should look into how extradition treaties are written and enforced

###Article 15: Right to nationality

You have the right to belong to a country and have a nationality.

• There is a very well known immigration bias that favors women and children over men
• This is especially egregious given the fact that men are more likely to be persecuted in their home county and are more likely to be victims of violence because of their gender

A key part of this article is that you cannot be denied the right to change your nationality. And we commonly see that men have greater trouble with this than women do.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. A person's gender should not affect their ability to travel or gain nationality in another country

###Article 16: Right to marriage and to found a family

Men and women have the right to marry when they are legally able without limits due to race, nationality or religion. Families should be protected by the Government and the justice system.

• Men and boys are commonly not recognized as victims of forced marriages due to gender biases that see men as the more culpable party in a marriage
• Boys are commonly not recognized as victims of child marriages due to similar gender biases
• The family unit is increasingly coming under attack in Western nations by neoliberal policies

This is an article that looks like has been "solved" in the modern world until you start looking at some of the details in the definition for it.

I'm not one to raise flags over the "destruction of the traditional family" but I think it's interesting that this article specifically protects the family unit and even calls it the basis for society. It also calls on states to protect the institution of marriage. So I've included this bullet point for the sake of completeness and possible discussion.

Another note is that we've raised flags over forced marriages and child marriages for women and girls but not for men and boys. The perception is that men are forcing women into marriages but it is very often the case that both parties are forced into a marriage against their will, not just the female partner.

Traditional Western martial ages that are being enforced through cultural hegemony onto non-Western nations also impact our perception on this issue. For example a marriage between an 18 year old male and a 17 year old female will be contextualized as a child marriages for the female partner but not for the male partner.

Note also that in many of these countries it is common and legal for younger people to enter into marriages due to lower life expectancies, and this practice seems to be explicitly protected by the wording of this article because it mentions "legal" and "of age". This gets defined by the state in which you are married, and the state is then given an obligation to protect these marriages.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We need better research into forced marriages and child marriages that both respect local customs and laws and that are inclusive of male victims as well

###Article 17: Right to own property

You have the right to own things. No one has the right to illegally take them from you.

• Men commonly lose their property through marriage and divorce

This is another article that on the surface looks like shouldn't be a problem, but the full definition does have obvious relevance to gendered issues that men face in society.

In particular there is a very active and state enforced transfer of property from men to women. This primarily happens during a divorce but you can find examples of it elsewhere as well.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Men should not be denied a right to their property in the course of a divorce proceeding
2. Special care should be taken to look into the various strategies that are used to transfer property from men to women, including coercion, manipulation, assisted suicide, proxy violence, and spousal homicide

###Article 18: Freedom of religion or belief

Everyone has the right to freely manifest their religion, to change it and to practice it alone or with others.

• A man's religious inclinations are seen as more dangerous than a woman's religious inclinations due to racial, religious, and gendered stereotypes in society
• Prejudices against religious men might interfere with their right to movement and their right to nationality

Just making a note that religious prejudices intersect with gendered prejudices against men.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. Religious beliefs should not be seen as problematic when they are practiced by a man

###Article 19: Freedom of Expression

Everyone has the right to think and say what they like and no one should forbid it.

• Men are expected to be quiet and listen to women, especially in domestic spheres, and on topics of gender
• This is often enforced institutionally, through the media, and through social media

While this is not a recent problem, we have seen this manifest more and more often in modern times through social media. Moral panics over the empowerment of women in society have facilitated buzzword like mansplaining to silence men and shut down conversations. This is especially true around the topic of gender which is just as important of an issue for men as it is for women.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. We should reiterate that gender issues affect men just as much as they do women
2. We should reiterate that men are allowed to have opinions about gender issues that affect them
3. We should reiterate that opinions and views held by men are equally as valid and as important as opinions and views held by women

###Article 20: Freedom of assembly

You have the right to organize and participate in peaceful meetings.

• Men are seen as bigger threats than women so peaceful assemblies involving men are more likely to be shut down
• Assemblies advocating for men's human rights are met with opposition and are not adequately protected by the state

This bias is so apparent that movements have organized women's only (and sometimes children's only) marches in order to gain sympathy from the public and prevent the police from using excessive force against peaceful demonstrators.

Such a strategy would not have proven useful if this gender stereotype was not an active issue in society.

We have also seen this in the past with conferences for men's issues and even for suicide awareness seminars where the police do a poor job containing crowds, which prevents men from speaking out against issues of sexism and discrimination that affects them.

####Proposed policy recommendations

1. The gender makeup of an assembly of people should not influence whether that assembly is seen as peaceful
2. The gender makeup of an assembly should not influence the amount of protection it receives from the state
3. Assemblies for men's human rights should receive the same amount of protection as any other assembly

I propose that we take a human rights based approach to men’s rights. That is, treat men as rights-holders. This means governments and other duty-bearers have an obligation to men as rights-holders.

Duty-bearers should apply the PANEL principles when developing their polices and practices. The principles are:

Participation
Accountability
Non-discrimination and equality
Empowerment
Legality

This video is based on work by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

The video above is a collaboration between Aba and Preach who mostly do reaction videos to cultural issues and Shan Boody who delves into discussions about relationships and sex. The video above focuses on the weird double bind men are forced into by the wider culture and people in their lives with zero concern or forethought into how being more vulnerable affects the men themselves. I'd be interested to hear people's takeaways or disagreements with the points made in the video as there's interviews with both men and women on the topic of men expressing vulnerabilities.

Our society doesn’t respect the bodily autonomy of our boys and men, and it doesn’t emphasize getting their consent. Yet we're demanding that they respect the bodily autonomy of others.