As a man, I am well aware of many advantages and privileges my gender affords me. For example: I almost never worry about being raped or sexually assaulted. People take me seriously almost by default and assume that I know what I'm talking about more than they probably would if I were a woman. I have much less pressure to conform to body/image beauty standards. Ageism is probably a non-issue for me until I reach retirement age. I don't have to go through pregnancy. I don't need to always be hyper aware of my surroundings because I don't appear to be easy of a target for predators as women might be. I don't usually get leered at and harassed by members of the other gender to the point that it makes me uncomfortable. Et cetera.

To be fair, I could list off plenty of disadvantages to being a man (especially a man of color) as well. But the point is that it isn't too hard for me to call a spade a spade and admit it when I have a clear advantage. Most men IME are reasonably able to do this when comparing thier situations to women.

On the other hand, probably the biggest power imbalance that women have in thier favor is in the realm of sexuality and romance, but you'd never know it of you took women's words for it. Sure, there is a small minority of very attractive men that have it better than everyone, women included, but that doesn't warrant extrapolating thier situations to all men. Maybe it's just the PPD echo chamber. Women offline seem to be more willing to level about these issues IME, albeit more in a "Oh well, tough shit" kind of tone.

But it seems like the most you can get out of most women in discussions here is an implication that any advantages are basically negated by other disadvantages, at best. At worst, these things are hamstered away, and NAWALTed ad infinitum, and even argued up and down as disadvantages in reality, contrary to all evidence and common sense. It's almost like suggesting that women have the upper hand over men, in any appreciable way whatsoever is the worst kind of heresy and sacrilege.

Not for nothing, I'm not suggesting that we just devolve into round after round of oppression Olympics for the sake of complaining. I just think it's important for men to accurately know where thier advantages and disadvantages lie so as to formulate effective strategies. Why is it that women seem to be completely averse to this?