You're all wrong.

First time poster long time lurker. I'm genuinely fascinated by gender politics and this bizarre battle of the sexes thing that goes on here.¹

However, I think many (though not necessarily all) of the issues discussed here are trivial and that many of the complaints both men and women in rich countries have are exaggerated. The average man and woman in the Western world both have a similar and relatively high standard of living (by global historical reckoning) and have achieved equality under the law.² Most complaints about unfairness are overstated and there are relatively few truly sex-selective issues, rather there are issues that disproportionately impact one sex. Ultimately, the differences are more marginal, and thus the debates should be more on the margins and not the extremes. Many important gaps can be explained by rather benign factors related to individual choices (more men end up in prison but men are much more likely to be criminals) rather than patriarchy or misandry. I would be willing to forward that there are no decisive advantages to either being a man or woman, rather there are many small advantages and disadvantages that roughly balance out. For almost any complaint one group has there is a roughly parallel complaint the other group can throw back, although they are not always morally equivalent.³ My ideal would be for feminists and MRAs to focus on creating a more fair society for everyone which means at times prioritizing women's issues and at other times prioritizing men's. This is closer to genuine egalitarianism.

This list illustrates how for every way one group struggles, there is a reasonable explanation, and/or a counter complaint from the other group. Regarding all of these facts, there are deeper subtleties and nuances. A few sentences devoted to each issue can't fully capture the dynamics at play.

• Men view women as sex objects. Women view men as success objects.
• Women are viewed as childish and helpless. Men are viewed as violent and buffoonish.
• Men are often overrepresented at the top of society. Men are also often overrepresented at the bottom of it.
• Women perform more (unpaid) child and elder care. Men spend more time commuting and doing paid work. Even amongst people who report working full time, men still report more hours.
• Men generally do worse in divorce court (women more likely to initiate divorce). Men are more likely to abuse their spouse or cheat.
• Women make less money. Men sacrifice more for the sake of earnings. Women also benefit more from welfare and transfers while they pay less in taxes.
• Men have higher death rates than women at all stages of life (this starts at birth). Some of this can be explained by self-destructive male behavior and women making somewhat better healthcare choices and utilzing the healthcare system more.
• Women are doing much better than men across almost all aspects of education from kindergarten to post graduate school. Men still tend to do better in private sector business especially at high levels.
• Men still hold most politcal offices. Women are more likely to be registered to vote in the USA (about 7-10 million more women are currently registered). Women also constitute a majority of civilian government workers.

There are some caveats. My general views are really only applicable to the Western world and maybe some non-Western developed and OECD nations. There are some places where being a feminist is something I would support. I do think that at present men in the Western world have a slightly lower standard of living on average than women, at least by certain measures. I think male issues are taken less seriously and that generally speaking society has an innate pro-female bias that existed prior to and independent of the feminist movement (which has compounded it) and this results in much of our mainstream discourse focusing on women's issues. We simply spend more time focusing on unfairness towards women. I think that mainstream narratives have thus made it more difficult to discuss male issues let alone generate concrete solutions for them.⁴ I'm unsure if men have an equivalent advantage. This does not mean there aren't a few areas where women have it worse but if women just one key advantage I do think this is it.

Also, there are some women's issues that are the result of biology that have no male equivalents such as

• Menopause
• Menstruation
• The risk of getting pregnant from unprotected sex

1. My post here is partially influenced by the book Don't Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice by economist Bryan Caplan. He does not argue that one should be an anti-feminist. I am not arguing that people should become MRAs or anti-feminists. I'm actually somewhat more favorable to the historical feminist movement than he is.
2. Some of this is contingent on your views towards bodily autonomy and how you feel about abortion rights for women and the conscription of men (and in some rare instances for women).
3. Men complain that women "don't approach" and that men often go ignored in the dating market and that women have lots of options. The female parallel would be too much unwanted attention. Being lonely isn't good but I don't see it as morally equivalent to "romantic" advances that are just sexual harassment.
4. Hyperbolic narratives about how men "dominate" society or are always privileged relative to women are very counterproductive because they make it seem unfair to ever consider male issues. Even if feminists pay lip service to caring about male issues by arguing that fighting patriarchy serves to benefit men they aren't actually predisposed to helping a group they think is already privileged. At best this has made people indifferent to disproportionally male problems.