Hey everyone – we’re back with another installment of data surrounding the Men’s Rights Movement (MRM). You’ll notice that this post departs slightly from previous ones, in that it doesn’t have its own number. Rather, I’ve labeled it Part 3.1 because it falls within the same domain as my last post – data relevant to the MRM as a movement. Because I’ve now laid the groundwork for the three domains of data I want to present (Part 1, demographic information; Part 2, personality dimensions; and Part 3, movement-level considerations), this is a trend that will probably continue for the rest of the content I release related to the study. I may do some reworking of the content as I go – namely, creating summary posts of domains as I accrue more detailed posts under their headings – but the general structure will follow that outline.

Today I want to present data related to the priorities of the MRM. What do MRAs (and the people who engage with them on r/MensRights but do not identify as MRAs) care about when it comes to the real pressing issues that face men in society? My hope is that this information may be helpful to people who would like to organize offline activism for men’s issues. Having a sense of the issues that the most people care about – or, conversely, the issues that people care the most about – will hopefully help activists decide where their efforts are best directed by giving them a sense of where the political will of the movement lies.

I want to present this information through a couple of lenses, with an eye towards potential differences across relevant lines of comparison. The data I present will help answer questions such as: How do the priorities of self-identified MRAs differ from those on r/MensRights who don’t subscribe to that label? How do the priorities of people who scored high vs. low on the Check Scale (see this post for a recap of what the Check Scale is) differ? What are the relative priorities of younger vs. older (the median age of the sample is 28, so for the sake of these analyses I am calling anyone over that an “older” redditor) men’s rights redditors? Unfortunately, I will not be able to present data comparing MRAs to explicitly pro-feminist groups, as the latter were such a small minority of the subject pool. That is one obvious drawback of the study I conducted, and an area in which future research should endeavor to expand. However, I will say in my defense that I did attempt to collect data from a pro-feminist men’s issues subreddit – but the mods of that subreddit did not agree to allow me to conduct research there.

Before we move on to the data, it would be useful to review just exactly what the issues were that redditors were prioritizing. I compiled a list of 33 issues by paraphrasing elements from the Reference Book of Men’s Issues (RBoMI). As I understand it, this is a living document that moderators continuously update, so the issues as presented in this study may no longer currently be in the RBoMI (and/or other issues may have been added since). Participants of this study were directed to choose the ten issues that they believed were most important. Anecdotally, many reported that this was the most difficult portion of the survey because they felt strongly about many more than 10 of the issues. Keep in mind that – while providing insight into the issues considered to be of absolute highest importance – the data I’m presenting do not imply that participants did not care about the issues they did not select for the top ten.

Here is the list of issues that participants had to choose between (the numbers of this list are sequential, in correspondence with the RBoMI, and will be relevant later as I will present the data in numerical format):

Men make up the majority of the homeless population. Men are at the highest risk for homicide, robbery, and physical assault. Men are more vulnerable to developing drug addiction and alcoholism. Men commit the majority of suicides. Men live an average of 4-5 years less than women. Men account for more than 90% of workplace injuries and death. The majority of hate crimes based on sexual orientation are perpetrated against gay men. Prison rape culture (and broader societal indifference to it). Gender-specific mass killings of men do not receive the same attention or outcry as women-targeted mass killings. Men are more likely to be arrested, charged, and convicted of a crime than women, and serve longer sentences on average. Men have no legal reproductive rights if they choose to be sexually active. Men are often discriminated against in divorce courts in terms of financial settlements and custody/visitation rights with children. Rape laws exclude male victims. Infant male circumcision is normalized and commonly performed even when there is no medical need. Only men are required to serve in the military or register for the draft (depending on the country). Men are much more likely than women to be the victims of police violence. There is a social stigma against men interacting with children (i.e., “pedophile hysteria”). Male sexuality is widely regarded as predatory and dangerous to women. Society does not regard violence against men to be as bad as violence against women. Stronger in-group bias in women and out-group bias in men leads to a cultural myth that women are superior. Male body issues exist and are damaging to the men who have them, but are often ignored. There is tremendous stigma against acknowledging male victims of domestic violence and against giving them the help they need. Cultural ideas surrounding manhood emphasize action and achievement, making status difficult to earn and easy to lose. Conversations about gender equality center around areas where men excel, but do not address areas where men struggle. There is a general apathy regarding men’s issues. Sexism against men is socially acceptable. Men are perceived as being more abusive in relationships for doing the same things as women. Men who show weakness or vulnerability often face ridicule and ostracism. Paternity fraud leaves a non-trivial number of men raiding children who are not theirs. The term “creep” has become over-applied in ambiguous ways to demonize and ridicule men who lack desirable sexual traits. Media portrayal of men is largely unfavorable, creating a lack of positive male role models for many young boys. Men face discrimination from employers who often prefer to hire women. Boys are doing worse than girls at all levels of the education system.

Below, you’ll find a table showing the 10 issues most-commonly nominated to a spot in the top ten for each group I mentioned above. Also shown is the percentage of the sample or sub-sample that nominated each issue to the top ten.

As you can see, there is an obvious majority of people who believe that the relatively high rate of male suicide (issue #4) is a very important issue. This issue was most often nominated to the top 10 list in each sub-group, as well, with the single exception being that redditors over 28 chose issues related to bias in family court (issue #12) slightly more often. Aside from that issue in particular, there is some variation between the relevant subgroups in the sample that I’ve highlighted above. For the most part, however, this variation consists of mostly the same issues being nominated at differing frequencies. For any who are curious, here is a table with all of the nomination frequencies – rather than just the top ten selected by each subsample.

Another interesting way to look at the top ten issue nomination data is in relation to how often each issue was ranked as the #1 most important issue. That data is below, though I’ve limited the subsamples presented to just MRAs and non-MRAs. Highlighted are the ten issues that were nominated to the top ten most often across the total sample.

Unsurprisingly, issue #4 was revealed to be the issue most often ranked as most important, just as it was most often listed among the top ten. Indeed the majority of the issues that received the greatest number of first rankings fall within the ten-most nominated. However, you may notice that there is only limited concordance between the frequency with which an issue made it to the top ten and the frequency with which it was designated as the most important. Issue # 22 is an especially stark example of this – receiving almost zero #1 rankings despite being among the most-selected for the top ten. This pattern of results suggests a surprising (to me) level of agreement within the community of r/MensRights not only regarding which issues are very important, but also which of those issues are the most important.

Another interesting detail that I want to point out in the figure above is the relative distribution of first rankings among MRAs and non-MRAs. The distribution among MRAs is more diffuse, with a greater number of issues being ranked as most important by at least one individual. Non-MRAs, on the other hand, clustered their top rankings more tightly amongst four fewer issues (only 20 issues were selected as most important by non-MRAs, compared to MRAs’ 24). At first I was not sure what to make of this difference. However, after showing this set of findings to the r/MensRights community, I had some helpful dialogue and was offered what I find to be a compelling interpretation. Redditor u/splodgenessabounds had this to say:

The fact that non-MRA’s primary concerns cluster more tightly is (I suggest) partly because those involved with MR are aware of more issues than non-MRA people; this suggests that not only is there a core cluster of issues regarding men and boys that the general public are aware of but that there is more support for pursuing those issues than most MRAs might suspect.

The final thing I want to highlight from the figure above is that the data for issue #24 show an interesting pattern. This issue stands out as one that received top ten status amongst only a small minority of survey respondents, but received a disproportionate number of top rankings. It would seem that those who consider issue #24 to be important feel very strongly.

How do we understand these two frames of reference together?

I think there are three important themes that can be extracted from the data. First, the issues of male suicide, bias in family court, and bias in the criminal justice system consistently came up among the most frequent issues nominated to the top ten. This suggests that there is broad interest in tackling these problems, and that these may be fruitful areas for MRAs to go about their activism – particularly if they hope to recruit the help of people outside the MRM. Non-MRAs listed these issues among the most important at least as often as MRAs did. The problem of male suicide rates is an area of particularly strong feeling amongst both of these groups, as it was far and away both the most often nominated to the top ten and the most often ranked #1. Activist initiatives that aim to reduce male suicide rates, then, may be particularly effective.

Second, I think it’s important to note that although issues 25 and 26 did not appear quite as often on the list of most important issues as, say, 4, 10, or 12, they were among the most often chosen across the entire sample and were also listed as the most important issue more frequently than some issues otherwise nominated at higher rates. This implies that participants – MRAs and non-MRAs alike – recognize that there are some systemic barriers (such are the subject of issues 25 & 26) to work that would improve conditions for men and boys. That strikes me as a bit of a silver lining, and would seem to indicate that there is considerable will to challenge such barriers.

Third, I want to point out the findings related to issue 33. The problems faced by boys in the education system was ranked of high importance by MRAs and non-MRAs alike, but substantially more non-MRAs than MRAs listed it as the most important issue. This is perhaps related to the fact that greater numbers of MRAs listed systemic issues like apathy and sexism against men as the most important issues. Regardless, MRAs might do well to keep in mind that non-MRAs view this problem as among the most important. Targeting education disparities – or referencing the problem as a reason why efforts to address systemic issues are important – may be beneficial for recruiting support.

Testimonials

In addition to asking participants to rank the issues from the RBoMI in terms of importance, I also asked them to write about why they made their choice about the most important issue. The rest of this post is consists of quotes from this portion of the survey. Keep in mind that I have exercised editorial discretion here in choosing what I think are the most interesting quotes about various issues. I don’t have the space to publish all of what was written by every individual – though I will release it all when I upload the data to OSF. Some quotes here may appear slightly different than in the raw data, as I have edited them to be grammatically correct. I have attempted to find at least one good quote for each issue, but some issues were never ranked as number 1 (meaning nobody would have had an opportunity to write about them), and not every person wrote something compelling in the response field.

Before we get into it, I just want to thank everyone who participated in the survey and took the time to write so many detailed responses.

Issue 1: Men make up the majority of the homeless population.

I think the homeless issue, circumcision and prison rape are lumped together in the same category. Male suffering is just not important. This notion permeates every aspect of our society and those three issues highlight it in spaces.

— Egalitarian from the US

Issue 2: Men are at the highest risk for homicide, robbery, and physical assault.

Because society only seems to care about violence when it happens to women at the hands of men.

— American, anti-feminist MRA

Issue 3: Men are more vulnerable to developing drug addiction and alcoholism.

Men seemingly have fewer outlets and places where they can find help. Drug addiction and alcohol addiction are a major problem specifically for men because drinking and using drugs is a way of finding some relief from whatever problems are affecting a man’s life. Men often believe they cannot seek counseling or therapy, or even talk to others about their lives, problems. This issue stems in part from the issue that seeking help is weak, and that men cannot be weak. That’s why it’s my number one issue.

— American man who eschewed all labels

Issue 4: Men commit the majority of suicides.

Every other issue on that list contributes to the make suicide epidemic that’s only gotten worse ever since the start of the 21st century. I haven’t had a single male friend that hasn’t been actually suicidal at at least one point in his life, myself included. Men are just expected to be tough and get over what few issues society will even acknowledge that we can have. Issues caused by women can’t even be addressed without you being labeled a misogynist. Men are only considered people if they are successful or provide some value for society or their families, and even then, our lives aren’t as important as women’s, as we’re expected to throw them away to protect women and children at the first opportunity. I’ve wanted to die ever since I was 13, and didn’t get out of that until a few months ago, almost 7 years later. This shouldn’t be relatable to so many men.

— Pro-feminist MRA

I think it’s linked to every other male issue. Men commit suicide because they face hardships in life without possibility of good or content outcome for them. There is no empathy for men and they are taken for all they have got and when they don’t have anything more to give, they are disposed and they kill themselves.

— Polish MGTOW

Nobody cares about male health. If you’re a woman and you need to talk, vent, cry or anything else, there will always be people – men and women – who will show empathy, understand your problems and help you. If you’re a man, you don’t have the right to suffer from any issue, be them psychological or not. Once you’re depressed, there’s nothing to stop you from committing suicide.

— French anti-feminist

Issue 5: Men live an average of 4-5 years less than women.

5 more years life expectancy would be nice!

— Canadian MRA

Issue 6: Men account for more than 90% of workplace injuries and death.

I feel that men shouldn’t be disposable. I feel that the workplace, somewhere all men will spend a large part of their lives, should not mean the death of many. There are clearly men in workplaces risking their lives every day, and as I said no man should feel or be disposable. Which leads into many of the other issues.

— Australian MRA

Issue 7: The majority of hate crimes based on sexual orientation are perpetrated against gay men.

N/A

Issue 8: Prison rape culture (and broader societal indifference to it).

N/A

Issue 9: Gender-specific mass killings of men do not receive the same attention or outcry as women-targeted mass killings.

N/A

Issue 10: Men are more likely to be arrested, charged, and convicted of a crime than women, and serve longer sentences on average.

Men are criminalized at the slightest of accusations and misunderstanding (trust me, I was a deputy sheriff for ten years) and are OFTEN incarcerated for simple defending themselves. This removes them from their families, their children, their career paths, their constitutional rights, and more. Women, on the other hand, are excused for so many heinous crimes on a regular basis, including molesting children where the children are instead being blamed. The inverse would never happen despite females maturing faster and being sexual instigators as often or more often than boys (not an excuse for the adults, either way is the point). Meanwhile women can legally best their husbands and boyfriends and get them arrested instead. Or if they are both culpable in a crime, only the man gets charged. Believe me, I spent 3/4ths of that career sending innocent, or at least, less guilty men to jail and prison while women got excused constantly. Our feminist DAs would come up with every excuse imaginable to let women off of crimes, including attempted murders, stabbings, vehicular assaults, etc… This creates a culture where men live in anxiety about not being able to even stop violence from happening to them. I watched my partner arrest a man for causing a bruise on a woman’s arm from BLOCKING HER PUNCH. Felony corporal injury to cohabitant. The guy lost his career and his custody of kids. For not wanting to be punched. Most men just accept defeat, makes jokes, and internalize their plight, but that’s why they killing themselves constantly, or being isolated from their children. Children growing up without a father is one of the I most significant indicators of childhood delinquency and adult criminality.

— Former Sheriff’s deputy

Issue 11: Men have no legal reproductive rights if they choose to be sexually active.

As someone who has watched and listened to the whole “prolife” and “prochoice” debate, the role and the rights of the male involved has always frustrated me. Understandably, the issue on the surface is a women’s issue, however, knowing that majority of men have little to no control to what happens to their child if a mother decides to make that decision by herself has always brushed me the wrong way. Therefore, I see it as a pivotal mens rights issue as it is an area that does not not have a lot of focus on in mainstream media and debate.

— Female MRA from Australia

From a Norwegian’s perspective, this (no legal productive rights) is the biggest injustice that is commonly practiced. A step towards solving this would be to force 50/50 child custody by default between the mother and the father if the mother wishes child support(not saying this is easy). The father can opt out of custody at will, but would then be forced back into paying child support, as the child should not be punished by a terrible choice of their mother. It should also be HIGHLY discouraged by the welfare state to have children with an unsuited partner, or from a hookup. This would in turn reduce the consequences of fatherlessness, which I believe would top my list if it was an issue on the previous page. I am baffled as to how fatherlessness isn’t seen as a gigantic issue in the west, with how much easily available statistics we have to back it up.

— Norwegian anti-feminist

Issue 12: Men are often discriminated against in divorce courts in terms of financial settlements and custody/visitation rights with children.

My top 3 picks are closely related. I myself considered suicide after falling victim to the family court system. I believe the court’s bias is an underlying reason for many men’s issues and a symptom of a larger societal problem. Men are disposable, women are protected.

— American anti-feminist

This (and I suppose the rest of my top five) is the primary reason why I still find there to be something worth exploring in the men’s issues spaces despite the recent insane reactions to the Gillette ad which I wholly do not agree with. In a truly equal society we need to treat men and women equally, and father figures are as important to have as mother figures, and bad mothers should never get custody just for being the mother…kids need their male role models, too.

— American, egalitarian woman

At the moment, more than half of marriages end in divorce, and in the majority of these cases, children are involved. In North America at least, it is often the default position of the courts that custody should go to the mother, regardless of the personalities or situation of the parents. Men often end up paying child support even when the woman is better off financially than the man, and even when they share custody. The legal system is predisposed to believe the woman in divorce/custody cases, regardless of the facts. I believe that children are far more likely to suffer mental illness and engage in socially unacceptable behaviour when their father does not play a significant role in their life. The same cannot be said for the mother’s role, although, ideally, both parents should be actively involved in their children’s lives.

— Canadian woman

Issue 13: Rape laws exclude male victims.

It’s not the most important MRA issue. It’s just the most important one for me because I’m a survivor of female sex offenders.

— American anti-feminist

Issue 14: Infant male circumcision is normalized and commonly performed even when there is no medical need.

Circumcision is male genital mutilation. I am a victim of it and I almost killed myself over it at 16. Nobody cared. At high school I was mocked for caring about it by female peers and told to be thankful by friends, family and people I dated. I contrast this with FGM and the amount of care those victims receive. I also wonder what psychological problems I and other men may have from having their genitals cut apart and being seen as less valuable than religious tradition or social wants. My body my choice.

— American MRA

I’m uncircumcised. It infuriates me that someone could have cut off part of my body without my consent. But more than that, the attitude that *that* is somehow trivial but men catcalling women is a human rights violation is unbelievable.

— American anti-feminist

Issue 15: Only men are required to serve in the military or register for the draft (depending on the country).

After I heard of the ‘disposable male’, it struck me to my core, I personally experienced this, as a pediatrics resident. In Turkey all males have to go through mandatory military service (about 6 months for me, shortened term), People around my age had the fortune of having the option for paying their way out of military service with a 18.000 lira fee (circa 2015) roughly 6200 $ equivalent to 4 months salary for me… I basically had the privilege of buying my freedom for 6 months, and I was lucky. My female colleagues had to pay no such fees, they spent that money on what ever they wanted. The men who do military service (regularly 1.5 years) don’t even get paid while on military duty. God forbid there is a war or something in the future where I end up risking my life… What bugs me more is females don’t even pay a fine (to finance the men), once the men return from military service they don’t receive any discounts or help from the government it is viewed as debt of service. in traditional Turkish culture male is not considered a ‘man’ until he completes his military service (fathers may not give their daughters as brides if a man hasn’t done military service).

— Turkish, feminist MRA

Over history women have demanded that they be treated the same way that men are treated but whenever it comes to going overseas or going to war they decide to opt out. Yet for whatever reason men are still evil even after laying down in the trenches with bullets going over their heads and still get no respect for it.

— American incel

Issue 16: Men are much more likely than women to be the victims of police violence.

N/A

Issue 17: There is a social stigma against men interacting with children (i.e., “pedophile hysteria”).

It’s difficult to be a father when your actions are always under scrutiny.

— Australian MRA

Issue 18: Male sexuality is widely regarded as predatory and dangerous to women.

N/A

Issue 19: Society does not regard violence against men to be as bad as violence against women.

I based it on personal experiences, I’ve been hit/attacked/felt up by lots of women and it always goes unnoticed or laughed at.

— American, feminist MRA

Issue 20: Stronger in-group bias in women and out-group bias in men leads to a cultural myth that women are superior.

Much as people like to think they’re rational, biology is a huge influence. Biology drives in-group vs out-group bias, along with most other attitudes towards men. e.g. men are disposable, women aren’t. Countering fake / cherry-picked statistics with real statistics isn’t a good approach to winning people over. The real conversation is about innate biases, assumptions, and biology. In order to educate people, we have to get them to understand *why* their thinking is biased towards women, and uncaring towards men. We have to convince them that men deserve respect and care as people, just like women do. That’s an uphill battle, unfortunately.

— Canadian, anti-feminist MRA

Issue 21: Male body issues exist and are damaging to the men who have them, but are often ignored.

The amount people joke about penis size is amazing to me, especially when they don’t know who has a small penis. I don’t, but the thought of how many men are self conscious about their size even though they are above average really affects me.

— American, feminist MRA

Issue 22: There is tremendous stigma against acknowledging male victims of domestic violence and against giving them the help they need.

I’ve seen what this does to fathers and, if no one stops it, their children since I was 7.

— American, anti-feminist MRA

Issue 23: Cultural ideas surrounding manhood emphasize action and achievement, making status difficult to earn and easy to lose.

Toxic masculinity is often seen as learned behavior and to some extent it is. Ultimately, however, it is a societal construct thrust upon men by both men and women that they are then expected to uphold. This is the kingpin issue. The belief that men have to be successful, strong, and emotionless is exactly what leads to all the other issues on this list.

— Pro-feminist American man

Issue 24: Conversations about gender equality center around areas where men excel, but do not address areas where men struggle.

My number one is parity in the discussion of equality – currently all discussion is framed from a feminist perspective and simply dismisses any arena in which a man may have the short stick. While issues 2-10 are objectively more pressing as they each effect men in a personal and troubling way, I believe allowing open discussion into mens issues with attention equal to those we give women’s issues will help society realize a number of intuitive points. Men do not live a life free from any struggles, men do not live an objectively easier life, men are not the enemy.

— Egalitarian from the US

I’m an anti-feminist for this reason. Feminism is defined as making women’s rights equal to men’s; not the other way around. Once it achieves this goal in every area (assuming the goalposts don’t move forever), there will still be many areas where men are disadvantaged compared to women. The acceptance of feminism as the only true path to equality is a significant contributor to most issues men and boys face these days.

— Irish, anti-feminist MRA

Issue 25: There is a general apathy regarding men’s issues.

The fundamental issue that underlies all other men’s issues is that there is a lack of political will to do anything about it. People will acknowledge that the issues exist and even say that it is important to address them but there is an absence of action.

— Anti-feminist MRA from New Zealand

I believe the lack of attention or even the outright mockery of men’s rights issue is maddening. The fact that time after time issues surrounding men (domestic violence, suicide, etc) gets overshadowed by a woman’s issue OR how it affects women. Or it somehow gets construed in a way to make it the man’s fault to begin with.

— American, anti-feminist woman

If people cared, there would be political will to improve at least a little the conditions for at least the men who are worst off in contemporary society; i.e. many of the imbalances on the survey’s “grievance list” would see remedies applied ‘automatically’. If this hypothesis is correct, the lack of concern, of empathy for men is the root cause of the lack of measures taken to improve the lot of men where men are at a disadvantage (for whatever reason). Perhaps critics of the so-called gynocentrism are right in condemning the majority of both women and men for regarding men as disposable, and simply ignoring the fall-out from this. Reversing this would require a lot of consciousness-raising … The tl:dr version is to apply the Christian concept of loving thy neighbour, and things will improve.

— Norwegian, anti-feminist MRA

Issue 26: Sexism against men is socially acceptable.

Sexism against men being socially acceptable is perhaps the most emotionally impactful item to me because it occurs in a society that places such a large amount of emphasis on gender equality and that is hypersensitive to sexism against women. Thus, it essentially summarises the scope of the overall hypocrisy and double standards of what we consider to be gender equality as promoted by feminism, and, considering how much power and influence this ideology has, and how ruthlessly it punishes dissenting opinions, how worrying it is that we are essentially at the mercy of it.

— Anti-feminist MRA from the UK

Sexism against men is a broad term, which is probably why I chose it. It isn’t ONE specific thing that society has against men, it’s pointing out that anything they do is likely to be undermined. They are verbally abused publicly and people applaud women for screaming at a helpless man. People no longer view men as people anymore and everyone is okay with it.

— Female American MRA

Issue 27: Men are perceived as being more abusive in relationships for doing the same things as women.

N/A

Issue 28: Men who show weakness or vulnerability often face ridicule and ostracism.

N/A

Issue 29: Paternity fraud leaves a non-trivial number of men raiding children who are not theirs.

N/A

Issue 30: The term “creep” has become over-applied in ambiguous ways to demonize and ridicule men who lack desirable sexual traits.

I believe that the stigmatizing of unattractive men is extreme in today’s society, and it has deep implications. When an ugly man doesn’t get a date, this is usually construed as the man’s fault- that he needs to work harder, or change his attitude. Very rarely will you see criticism of a similarly unattractive woman unable to get a date. Indeed, simply bringing up the fact that a significant amount of attractiveness comes from genetics that one can not control invites deep criticism from those who like to pretend we live in a just world. The truth is that women are generally more shallow than men and care much more about looks, and it is much harder for men in the dating market as a result (which can be easily seen from dating on Tinder, where an average man may have to swipe hundreds of times for a match).

— American MRA & MGTOW

Issue 31: Media portrayal of men is largely unfavorable, creating a lack of positive male role models for many young boys.

Feminists who openly talk and fight for their gender are looked at as heroes by the media. Males even when presenting arguments that comes with research, statistics and proof of what they say are seen as pigs who are full of hate. Derogatory comments and even doing illegal things to males is not punished in the same way that it is if a male does it. When women make disgusting comments to males on TV it’s laughed at but if a male does it’s attacked. Neither should be right. The media allows certain women to play victim cards and use feminism as a shield to attack men. If it’s questioned it’s seen as hatred. There doesn’t seem to be media attention to male suicide rated rising, education in males failing and everything else. The media portrays males as people who should just stay quiet and get on with it. I find a distinct lack of male voice and reason in the media and male role models becoming seen as offensive to women.

— MRA from the UK

Issue 32: Men face discrimination from employers who often prefer to hire women.

N/A

Issue 33: Boys are doing worse than girls at all levels of the education system.

In the past 2 years my journey from “woke” to MRA has opened my eyes to how schools, society and even I treated my son. Everyone denies the OBVIOUS truth that boys and girls are different. This leads to treating boys like they’re defective girls. They’re wired to take risks, break things, build them back up and develop independence. I realized that everyone, me included, was constantly trying to stop these behaviors when they were more that passive. Think of the outcome — a weak-minded, self conscious male that can’t manage difficult things, etc. I’m very, very afraid society is creating a generation of boys that are going to be confused, depressed and lost men.

— American, anti-feminist MRA

Success in education is a great indicator of overall success in life, income over a lifetime, health, life expectancy, etc. My experience in the education system growing up seemed biased against boys at every turn. Shop classes, auto shop classes were getting funding removed, teachers were expecting boys to sit still all day and focus on material that did not engage or stimulate interest and then were told they have learning disabilities for not thriving in that environment and put on really dangerous drugs to tame them into fitting into the classroom. I had teachers flat out say that girls are smarter, or that the classroom was going to be set up in a way for girls’ priority. The public school system needs to be set up in a way that strives to make every student successful and ready for adulthood regardless of sex, sexual orientation, economic status, etc. That flat out is not what’s happening and boys and young men are falling behind in school while the current cultural tone seems to be geared towards women’s empowerment, anti male sexuality, and taking down a patriarchy that doesn’t have any evidence for existing. Women have gained rights in the last 100 years that they should have. Now it’s time to strive to achieve equality for all, not turning away or vilifying men.

— American humanist