Sexism against women causes sexism against men too, but men’s rights activists refuse to see that
Several Studies, including a study from August 2012, by Sonja B. Starr from the University of Chicago, state there is a sentencing disparity in federal criminal cases favoring women (source: here).
The paper says: ” It finds large gender gaps favoring women throughout the sentence length distribution (averaging over 60%), conditional on arrest offense, criminal history, and other pre-charge observables. Female arrestees are also significantly likelier to avoid charges and convictions entirely, and twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted”.
This should, of course, worry us because we now face systemic repression against men in national court systems. However, what men’s rights activists often do, is try to fight against feminism. They have less responsibility than men. We will see that in the end, sexism against women and the belief that women shall have less authority than men, pushes sexism against men as well. Patriarchy doesn’t mean the authority of men over women but the authority of fathers (the “paters”) over the entire society.
Women are no longer seen as less competent than men, according to research by the American Psychological Association. However, we still favor men when it comes to the distribution of authority in our society. Men are regarded as more suitable for leading roles, they are more dominant, disagreeable, and stress-resistant. Progress has stalled on how comfortable people are with seeing women in leadership roles:
“The Reykjavík Index for Leadership measures the extent to which society is comfortable with women in leadership positions, as compared to men, across 23 sectors – from pharmaceutical to government, childcare to media. A score of 100 would indicate complete agreement that men and women are equally suited to leadership, and any score of less than 100 indicates prejudice.
Despite widespread global movements calling for greater equality between men and women, the 2020 research finds that the average G7 Index score remains at 73 – no change from 2019, and up only one point since 2018″ (source: here).
This study also found that young women, even though they show bias toward other females as well, hold substantially more progressive views than their male peers regarding the Index scores. This trend worries many feminists for a long time now. We should also not forget that most men’s rights activists are young men who obviously are fed up. However, we should teach young men the price they pay for being granted more authority than women, even authority over women. Because if you have an unequal distribution of authority, you also have an unequal distribution of compassion, since authority needs to be deserved, you need to have skills and strengths other people miss. This is why society keeps telling us, men are physically and mentally stronger, thus people are less willing to help them. I mean, come on, a man needs to be capable of helping himself, right? That was sarcasm.
Let me give you an analogy, perhaps. Imagine we had a presidential candidate who holds a speech where he says: “Well dear citizens, how about you solve my problems?”. No one would vote for this candidate. He shall and must solve his own problems so he can solve our problems. This is expected from him.
Now, what has all that to do with Sentencing disparity? I will tell you what. We regard people as being capable of committing crimes who we simultaneously regard as capable of having authority over other people. Rape, is not about a man wanting sex, but a man who wants to have control over women. This article of DW, for instance, states: “Sherry Hamby, a research professor of psychology at the University of the South in the US state of Tennessee, told DW that “sexual assault is not about sexual gratification or sexual interest, but more about dominating people“.
We can look at other crimes. A mafia boss is regarded as having enough authority to lead a Gang. A tall, muscular man is regarded as capable of hurting and dominating others physically, women, and weaker men.
Often when women engage in terrible crimes, they are seen as the victim of a man again. They are just accomplices, manipulated by a man, the real predator, to help him. Because again, it always needs to be the man, who dominates the woman. I am sorry, but for many people, a woman who raped a man is still an unimaginable scenario. “How he is stronger than the woman?”, “A woman that dominated a man sexually? She just does what every man wants haha”. These stereotypes are mostly pushed by young men themselves, who honor men who have authority over other people, who are sexually experienced, and who are alpha males. Now, it’s not their fault but instead of fighting against feminism, men’s rights activists should work together with women, to fight stereotypes, and establish an equal distribution of authority and thus an equal distribution of compassion.
I, more than anyone else, want women to take more responsibility, but they can only do so if society finally accepts that there is a huge bias against women that prevents them from taking responsibility. I have been told so many times that men are better at fixing stuff and building furniture. This is why I always asked my brother to do that for me. I mean, why should I take responsibility for that when there are people who can do it better than me? Well, it turned out after I tried building a piece of furniture myself, that I am actually pretty damn good at it.
Even in these Disney movies, it is always the beautiful princess waiting to be rescued by a man.
It is also funny how conservatives in their podcasts always, “who would you call to fix your sink, a man or a woman?”. Well, did you know that women dominate men in the pharmaceutical field? Yet, nobody goes to the pharmacy and demands to be counseled by only a woman.
It is frustrating that we keep debating about IF there is a problem, WHAT the problem is, instead of finally arguing about HOW to solve these problems. Men’s rights activists and feminists finally need to understand that we are in the same boat, hateful attitudes are bringing no one further. And ultimately, we shouldn’t complain about individuals or about women as a group of people, for instance, but about the government, which is also responsible for the distribution of wealth in a society that decides about the harmony of a country as well. I wrote a separate article about this.
So what do you think? Is it all the feminist’s fault or are we slowly learning how messed up patriarchy really was?
