When three men and three women are murdered, we focus completely on the women. When men are overwhelmingly disproportionately the victim of homicides, violent crime (including violent crime from strangers), we instead choose to have a society-wide struggle session[1] on the plight of western women.
Western culture is hypersensitive to women's issues. In particular, hyper-affluent White men seem to derive some carnal pleasure from throwing other men under the bus.
As long as people care far more about the plight of women than the plight of men, and as long as Twitter/HN activists mock anyone who points out the compassion disparity ("WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ?"), we're never going to achieve anything resembling equality.
> As long as people care far more about the plight of women than the plight of men ... we're never going to achieve anything resembling equality.
I'm unclear on your thesis here: is your position that the reason women are disadvantaged in society in general and tech in particular because we "care more about the plight of women"? Because that seems illogical.
But the only other interpretation I can think of is that you think men are at a disadvantage to women, which is a laughable assertion.
Your account is 6 days old, of course, so I may be just feeding a troll here.
It is possible for it to be simultaneously true that men are more frequently victims of violent crime, perform worse in standardized tests, and earn less than women[1] and also that women are more frequently the victims of sexual assault[2] and other forms of harassment, prevented from taking the careers of their choice[3], and subject to a greater degree of criticism in the media for the same actions[4].
The existence of things that are bad for men does mean that men have things harder than women. The fact that there are things we should fix for men does not mean we can ignore the things that are broken for women. This is not a zero-sum game, and it is not productive to determine who "has it worse". There are things that are bad for women that happen to women, and we should stop those things happening without questioning whether they are "deserving" of doing so.
[1] Though I have never seen any stats that back up this last assertion, ever.
I have a sneaking feeling that the #YesAllWomen thing might have gone a bit over your head.
It wasn't because more women died. It wasn't because of the plight of the western woman. #YesAllWomen was a more-or-less spontaneous response to the killer's motives. It was because the killer thought that he was entitled to get whatever he wanted from any woman he wanted, and wanted to make them suffer for depriving him of what he felt he deserved (sex with beautiful women). While most men will never go to that extreme, all women have experienced some form of punishment from a male for denying their sexual advances.
If you can't see why society would respond to that the way that it did, I'm not sure that a western society is appropriate for a person with your worldview.
While #YesAllWomen was eye opening in many ways, I don't think your snark was constructive.
I think there's a problem with the sancrosanct way #YesAllWomen is being treated. In my casual browsing, I quickly found someone complaining that she feels guilty for 'friendzoning' a guy and cursing society for that. Guess what, I and many other guys have had that feeling with respect to a woman at some point.
If you can't see why someone might get defensive after reading these tweets (as they were urged to do), I'm not sure that reality is appropriate for you.
Are you trying to say that you have felt threatened, unsafe or like you were going to be alienated because you had to friendzone a female? Because I can't say that I have. And I honestly have a hard time believing that you have either.
I wasn't being snarky, but you appear to take this subject much more lightly than I do. That's fine. I was being serious about what I said. The commenter above mine was either or troll or someone who actually thinks that men have it harder because of the women's rights movement. If it's the latter, he needs to know that it's not an okay attitude to have in our society.
I'm not a hyper-affluent white male, so unfortunately I'm not just confirming his hypothesis.
> Are you trying to say that you have felt threatened, unsafe or like you were going to be alienated because you had to friendzone a female? Because I can't say that I have. And I honestly have a hard time believing that you have either.
Women tend to feel unsafe in situations in which they are statistically not unsafe, at least when compared to men. In fact, men are overwhelmingly more likely to fall victim to violent crime, including violent crime from strangers.
However, because of sycophants like you, a woman must merely say "I felt so unsafe and threatened when the man in the mall wouldn't take the hint that I wasn't interested in talking to him!" for her to suddenly become an example of western injustice against women.
> If it's the latter, he needs to know that it's not an okay attitude to have in our society.
It's not okay to even believe men have it worse (which is itself a subjective measure)?
A thought exercise for our friendly, reasonable, fact-driven hangman:
If far more men than women were graduating from college; if men universally received far lighter prison sentences than women for the same crimes; if young men were earning more than young women; if women had zero reproductive rights beyond "don't have sex with a fertile man"; if women were overwhelmingly more likely to fall victim to violent crime, including (but not limited to) murder; then would you not make a public, loud, brave scene about how unfair life is for women?
I'm still not 100% sure I'm not just feeding a troll, but here goes.
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> Women tend to feel unsafe in situations in which they are statistically not unsafe, at least when compared to men. In fact, men are overwhelmingly more likely to fall victim to violent crime, including violent crime from strangers.
I googled "statistics women safety" and wasn't able to find anything that pointed to any sort of conclusive study as to where or when a woman should feel unsafe. All I found was page after page of statistics on sexual assaults, rapes, and domestic violence that all seemed to paint the opposite picture of these mysterious statistics that you have been bringing up. For example:
* 12.4% of women had been sexually abused before the age of 15, compared with 4.5% of men, between 1996 and 2005. (Australia) [1]
* Of men who reported that they had experienced physical violence in the 12 months before the survey, 73.7% said that the perpetrator was a male (Australia) [1]
* One in 6 women and 1 in 33 men have experienced an attempted or completed rape (USA) [2]
* 1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men have been stalked in their lifetime (USA) [2]
* 81% of women stalked by a current or former intimate partner are also physically assaulted by
that partner; 31% are also sexually assaulted by that partner (USA) [2]
I could go on, and on, and on. I wasn't able to find any of these mystery statistics that you've been citing to prove your points, though. They all seem to show that it's probably a decent idea for women to listen to their intuition about a guy they find creepy, even if they are not statistically unsafe.
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> If far more men than women were graduating from college; if men universally received far lighter prison sentences than women for the same crimes; if young men were earning more than young women; if women had zero reproductive rights beyond "don't have sex with a fertile man"; if women were overwhelmingly more likely to fall victim to violent crime, including (but not limited to) murder; then would you not make a public, loud, brave scene about how unfair life is for women?
This obsession with a perceived unfairness between the genders is starting to get creepy. What man has zero reproductive rights? If you don't want to have a kid and aren't sure if she's on birth control, use a condom for fuck's sake. It's not rocket science.
The study that showed young women earn more than men also showed that women in the same industry with the same degree level earned less than male counterparts, and that their wages tended to stagnate or fall after having kids.[3] It is assumed in the study to be related to the fact that a significantly higher percentage of young women hold college degrees.[3] If it bothers you this much that women with degrees earn more than men without degrees, maybe western society isn't the best choice for you. There are plenty of countries where women aren't even allowed to go to college. I'm sure you could earn more there as an uneducated man than most women.
While it's true that a majority of murders are perpetrated against men, an even larger majority of murders are perpetrated by men! The FBI's latest data on murders in the US shows that 22% of murder victims are female, while only 7% of those that commit murder are female. It's clear from those numbers alone that a male murdering a female is at least twice as likely as a female murdering a female. Had enough yet? How about this: of the 594 cases of murder where a spouse killed their opposite gender-ed partner in 2012 in the US, 84% (496) of the time the victim was the wife, not the husband.[4]
None of your complaints regarding the hardships of males due to females have ANY MERIT IN REALITY. If you're going to pontificate about facts and statistics, at least cite the facts and statistics that you're claiming to be the basis of your opinion. You sound like you are spiteful towards women in general and grasping for reasons to justify your malice.
When three men and three women are murdered, we focus completely on the women. When men are overwhelmingly disproportionately the victim of homicides, violent crime (including violent crime from strangers), we instead choose to have a society-wide struggle session[1] on the plight of western women.
Western culture is hypersensitive to women's issues. In particular, hyper-affluent White men seem to derive some carnal pleasure from throwing other men under the bus.
As long as people care far more about the plight of women than the plight of men, and as long as Twitter/HN activists mock anyone who points out the compassion disparity ("WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ?"), we're never going to achieve anything resembling equality.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session