A genuine question (no hate please )

Initial_Zebra100 · 2025-06-06T06:52:01+00:00

Because it's complicated. Women can also downplay and dismiss men's problems as not existing as well. Depending on which side of the internet you go to, even the mere sniff of men talking about their problems will be attacked vigorously, mocked, or dismissed.

Ultimately, it's probably hurt people projecting their anecdotal experiences onto everyone.

I agree it doesn't help to be misogynistic and deny women's issues. Or to invade women's spaces.

But I think we can all do better.

I respectfully ask women to educate themselves about male specific issues. I'd say the same to men about women's.

BhryaenDagger · 2025-06-06T07:06:04+00:00

Mostly your characterization of the general assertions on this particular subreddit are flat-out incorrect, so I simply won't be answering to a strawman. The "common themes" here aren't quite so routinely banal, and if you haven't noticed the plethora of "meaningful conversations about how society as a whole fails boys and men", you simply weren't really looking. If "a lot of people" are "associating... men's health w red pill, right wing, violent, misogynistic ideology", why would that dissuade you from recognizing reality explicated here... unless you're doing the associating? Feminists routinely associate violence w men, and Left political parties routinely associate men w the Rightwing, but that's their failure, not the failure of men or the men's movement.

The big difference too is that there's presently no establishment men's movement going on, just a lot of men from a lot of varied backgrounds trying to determine what's in their best interests given how much in society is seriously against our interests and has been for eons without us ever coming to grips w it effectively and collectively. In the case of feminism, it's the explicitly official position of most Left political parties and the misandry is just shy of being an official tenet and legal precedent. Terms like "patriarchy" are part of their asinine pretense of men being perpetual victimizers- ie., of framing every reference to men antagonistically as an enemy to be demonized. There's very little variation among feminists from the misandrist themes of "decentering men", "mansplaining", and the like. Just monitor the titles alone of the "AskFeminists" subreddit and you'll see there's no concern about the flagrant bigotry, and thus no connection to the Civil Rights era of anti-bigotry and social equality. You don't see misogyny as an accepted tendency among the men's movement because- more in keeping w the Civil Rights era- the approach is more defensive, correction of sociopathy rather than contriving apologism for it. But despising feminists, well, that's just a natural outgrowth of men's self-respect.

SpicyMarshmellow · 2025-06-06T13:41:54+00:00

You may not consider yourself a feminist, but you're repeating many distinctly feminist talking points. One thing that is common among those points is you're universaling women's experiences that mostly only happen in specific situations or among specific types of people. Which doesn't mean they're not legitimate issues. But you're equalizing them against men's issues that are actually universal.

Most of the cultural attitude issues that you mention which women face are prevalent in conservative culture, which is not even a majority in the USA by population.

Such as the common sentiment that women are crazy, over-dramatic, or more emotion-driven than men, and how that relates to attitudes regarding men vs women's mental health. It's not that you're wrong. It's that this belief is only common among a limited spectrum of American culture. (And yes, I'm going to be USA-centric here because it's what I know) Among left-leaning culture, which is today's mainstream, it's actually the opposite these days. Progressives especially believe that women are more emotionally mature than men. That men are emotionally stunted and repressed, which leads to them being more prone to violent lashing out and other toxic behaviors. The exact opposite of your statement. On top of that, mental health academia and services are incredibly dominated by women and female-centric, to the point that they're often openly hostile to men. The Prim Reaper, a licensed, practicing therapist, has a long video series where she reviews the current APA Guidelines and their pathologization of manhood. Yes, in the past, this same sphere was male dominated and pathologized womanhood, but it's the opposite today. And you're doing the feminist thing where you pretend that because that attitude persists among some subsect of the population that this means nothing has changed today, which is egregiously untrue. Which doesn't mean women don't still face issues there in specific situations amongst certain people, but just because that's the case doesn't mean it can be equivocated against the current state of men's issues. This probably sounds to you like downplaying women's issues. But I acknowledge women's issues. I just disagree with your depiction of them.

BaroloBaron · 2025-06-06T12:29:30+00:00

It is generally accepted that women should defend their own interests with no regard for the negative repercussions that that might have on other groups, particularly men. Why can't the reverse be allowed too?

Controlled-Alternare · 2025-06-06T05:10:12+00:00

Nobody here really claims men benefit from the patriarchy, many argue it doesn't exist.

With how weaponized feminists get with their language and how sexist their language can get, example being mansplaining, it causes a lot of bitterness.

As you learn more about the movement and its past and even its present, you get more bitter.

I think downplaying women's issues comes from feeling that those issues are over focused on to the point of being overblown, and as a black man who constantly gets accused of being anti-black women by proxy just cause some black men say some shit, this sub may not be too far off.

It also feels like whenever women are included in these conversations, any blame that can be laid at their feet won't be allowed to be, making the conversations one sided.

Upper-Divide-7842 · 2025-06-06T08:43:17+00:00

This may come off a little abrasive and I apologise in advance for that but if this was a genuine question then here is my genuine answer:

"I saw a post that said lesbian women don’t experience homophobia for example bc they are women."

It would be completely absurd to suggest that lesbian women do not suffer from homophobia. In fact they do and sometimes they suffer it's most extreme consequences.

However it is frequently true that they are not targeted by laws either at all or to the same extent as gay men. For example lesbian women were not explicitly targeted for extermination in nazi Germany the way gay men were.

This is likely to be because they are women.

"And another saying bc women live three or four years longer on average than men that medical misogyny isn’t real"

If men lived 4 years longer than women feminists would be straight up saying men should be killed 4 years early.

The discrepancy in life expectancy is not likely to be because of any form of discrimination against men. It's possible and, indeed likley that men just naturally don't live as long on average.

That said medical misogyny DOESN'T exist. Plain misogyny does, so it's possible that you might encounter misogyny whistle interacting with the medical system but the specific "medical misogyny" theory is woefully lacking in evidence. The studies used to prove it's various claims are invariably cherry picker from a body if evidence that also contains studies showing men suffering worse by the same metrics or show that there is no difference between the genders.

Then you get studies like the one neurophen did recently as part of their pro feminist propaganda marketing push.

This study was used to prove the claim that women's pain is dismissed by uncaring, villainous, misogynistic medical practicioners (the majority of whom are women, by the way). the difference in reported pain dismissal between the genders was 7-8%. 81% to 73% for the ages 17-24 and 56% Vs 49%.

That is pretty fucking negligible of a difference already. And that's before you take any confounding factors into account (which, of course neurophen did not), like for example that women visit the doctor vastly more often than men do, like that women are more neurotic, like the fact that women receive constant messaging that the whole fucking world is a conspiracy to make them suffer.

Look up Studies on which gender people feel more comfortable allowing harm to come to. Spoiler alert: it's men!

Now ask yourself how the fuck it makes any sense that a society that has that as a general value would also produce medical professionals who are all subconsciously conspiring to do harm to women.

It's bullshit. It is a lie. I'm not going to repeat women's activists lies because they hold their sympathy for men hostage. Their sympathy isn't fucking worth anything.

"and another saying women’s mental health is taken seriously when it’s a common sentiment that women are crazy , over dramatic and emotional when they express distress."

Some people say shit like that and obviously that is despicable. Some people say men are universally privileged monsters who's every waking thought is about how to do more harm to women.

Of these two groups which is more likely to be in the field of psychology? I'll give you a hint: psychology is an overwhelmingly female field of study and it is shot through with feminist ideology.

"This is the same to me as misandrist saying men’s issues like how they disproportionately commit suicide"

Does the existence of this fact lend any credence at all to the idea that women are better served by our mental health ecosystem in your mind.

"or can literally be called gay for having human emotions isn’t real or trying to downplay it "

I don't consider anyone who lists this as a primary mens issue to be particularly serious about the subject.

It's not bad to be gay so this is barely an insult. And ultimately, while people calling you names can suck it's is just words at the end of the day.

This is a the sort of "mens issue" that feminists bring up so they can look like they are throwing a bone to men when in reality this is just another thing to berate men over.

It's actually fine and good to berate men for being homophobic but that is feminists real interest here, first another reason to berrate men and secondly their concern is eliminating homophobia so more people can be gay because they believe that heterosexual sex is inherently exploitative and bad for women.

I'd rather focus on material issues, like how men are more likely to be homeless, getting longer sentences for the same crimes, falling behind in education, subject to genital mutilation, how women have unilateral control over whether a child is born or not but can still make a man pay for their decision and many others.

I'm not even asking for these problems to be fixed! I just want it to be acknowledged that they exist and to have that factored in to people's general assesment of how society works and why it is the way that it is.

But instead we just get this constant drum beat that we are not doing enough to make up for past treatment of women no matter how much women pull increasingly ahead in all areas of life. That the only explanation for how our society came to be the way it is is that men maliciously designed it for their own benefit at the expense of women.

We get told that we live in a culture that is designed to make rape happen to women. Even though women do actually have non consentual sex with men (quite possibly vastly more than people assume) and yet it wasn't even illegal for them to do that until quite recently. Feminists make a big deal over marital rape being legal but a woman could have sex with a man under literally any circumstance married or not and that was legal for just as long.

So while it's more than possible that women do experience rape more or even vastly more than men. Society's permissiveness towards the rape of women by men is obviously not the reason why. Because society was AND IS literally, legally more permissive the other way around.

But if a rape happens on the other side of the country feminist want that to be MY fault. They want that more than they actually want to seriously address the problem.

For the record, I've been sexually assaulted by a woman. I have literally no expectation to ever see justice for that. And instead I have to live with being constantly told by feminist that if I don't believe their obviously bullshit theories about why rape happens then I'm basically a rapist myself.

And if I complain about misandry from feminists I'm told I'm in the wrong because they're allowed to be that way after all they've probably been abused by a man and not gotten justice because of "the system."

So I have to be, (and can be) rational about the situation despite my experiences but if I expect the same thing from women thats ridiculous and um actually kinda misogynistic of you, sweetie.

But if I conclude from this double standard that women are irrational. That would make me the asshole.

Fuck!

And you wonder why we have no patience left for women's issues.

Low_Rich_5436 · 2025-06-06T07:17:47+00:00

What you are referring to is mostly a reaction to issues being overblown to the point of erasing men altogether.

Lesbians do face homophobia, but on a different scale than gays. They don't get sentenced to death, [rarely] get hatecrimed, and generally face discrimination to a degree that is more on the level of discomfort than life changing. I was talking to a lesbian friend recently who was complaining how she felt threatened in the streets because as she was walking with her girlfriend a passing guy mumbled "lesbians". She then turned around and yelled at him and he apologized. Us gays don't get to do that. We get the public insults but we know to keep our heads down and keep walking because we know of those who didn't and ended up in the hospital. She thought she had it uniquely hard. The gay movement has been largely taken over by feminists who claim lesbians have it worse, and often even' fight against gay issues such as surrogacy.

Women do receive less painkillers because they are considered more expressive with their pain, but this is often overblown to the point of reversing reality. The reality is that gendered medicine is almost exclusively in favour of women, there is close to no research on male specificities in medicine. Most experimentation is done on female mice (despite reality defying claims to the contrary) because females are easier to keep in captivity. While it is true that most human experimentation is done on men, it's for protection's sake as women could be pregnant and you can't experiment on an unborn child. Being a guinea pig isn't exactly a privilege. To top it all off, the vast majority of medical expenses are spent on women and men are underserved by medical systems everywhere. Social security systems are also geared towards women, with women taking most medical leaves and being retired early, despite men having more chronic diseases, much more professional conditions, and, indeed, dying younger.

As for mental health, it is no secret that the whole mental health system is ultra dominated by women and geared towards women. There is little to no research or training in male mental health, guidelines on therapy for men are often about fighting "toxic masculinity" for the sake of women. In general the whole system is failing men big time. A recent study found the vast majority of men who committed suicide tried to reach out to mental health help and received inadequate help or none at all.

This all doesn't mean that women face no issues specific to them. What most male advocates are fed up with is that even a much smaller scale female issue will be used to completely erase male issues in the same topic. Let's prioritize the women homeless even though women are less affected by degrees of magnitude. Let's prioritize girls'access to education even though they have better access than boys. Let's prioritize violence against women even though they are much less exposed to violence than men. Let's prioritize women's oppression in Iran even though most of victims of state repression there are men. It goes on and on and on.

Of course many men and allies are furious. It's infuriating. And of course they will minimize women's issues. It's an emotional response to them being overblown to the point of eclipsing more severe issues faced by men and boys.

I don't think it's fair to do that. But I also don't think it's fair to say men and women equally have issues as a retreat solution. In this day and age men and boys are overaffected big time by a series of massive issues, and it is NOT fair to say both men and women are affected in different ways without any notion of scale.

PS: I should have mentioned reproductive rights, it's the main example. Why tf is the world in uproar about Roe v Wade when men have no reproductive rights whatsoever and very tenuous parental rights at best? Oh no, I gotta take the greyhound to get an abortion out of state! Never mind men have literally no recourse against being forced into parental responsibility once sex has happened, this is the worst thing to ever happen to anyone!

CeleryMan20 · 2025-06-07T02:04:57+00:00

What is the question?

A genuine question (no hate please ) … noticing a pattern within many of the subs … downplaying women’s issues , pretending they don’t exist or very dismissive of them … I want to know why the things I mentioned seem to be such a common theme through out the movement / how is this different from what you guys accuse feminism of being. …

Firstly, we could dispute the extent of downplaying women’s issues. I do care about genuine female (i.e. girls and women, not feemales in the Ferengi sense) issues, and many men here also do. We may disagree strongly about which issues are genuine or deserving, that is not the same as blanket dismissal of all “women’s issues”. And conversely, stop by twoX or askfeminists and see how many people there are not just downplaying but outright explicitly denying men’s issues.

Of course, there is anti-woman sentiment too: many men have suffered through bad relationships or experienced other abuse, and it can be hard to not let that leak out. You see that on women’s and feminist subs too, but in those places there is a greater tendency to generalise it to “yes all men” or “not all men but always a man”, “rape culture”, “femicide epidemic”, etc.

Yes, I am doing the whataboutism, the “we’re bad but the other side is worse” thing. Yes, it would be better if we could focus on pursuing the positive instead of always decrying the negative. It would be better if there were no “sides”. But we’re human and I personally am fckn imperfect. Plus, part of your question was literally “how is this different from … feminism” - you are inviting the comparison, so this angle is fair game.

Secondly, a lot of the downplaying is a reaction to feminist’s overplaying. (Other commenters have addressed this.)

Thirdly, your specific examples like anti-lesbian homophobia and medical misogyny may be lower priority to various people, or may be criticised as not having factual support. I’m not going to delve into that, as it is secondary to your main point that “many subs” downplay or dismiss women’s issues generally.

Edit to insert: I have been thinking on this, and I believe we need a movement that advocates specifically on men’s issues, and holds back on the anti-feminism stuff except where feminism is actively harming us (twisting the narrative on domestic and intimate-partner abuse, eroding the principle of innocent-until-proven guilty, promoting affirmative-action reverse discrimination that has outlived its usefulness, using a warped interpretation of history to denounce men as the oppressor class etc.). Do we need to “decenter women” or “smash the gynocracy” to stay focused? I dunno. I believe that we also need an egalitarian movement that minimises the gender wars and treats people’s issues seriously, explicitly refusing to divide along gender, race, and other identity lines. I’m beginning to believe that we can’t effectively do both in the same space, even though as individuals we may support both.

Lastly, you say you’re not a feminist. And you also write “what you guys accuse feminism…”, indicating that you’re not one of us guys either. So where do you align?

Banake · 2025-06-06T12:27:16+00:00

OP is a new account with only a comment and this post. I suspect that it is a concern troll baiting.

Aggravating_Code_927 · 2025-06-06T13:08:49+00:00

You notice these things because the tent of "caring about mens issues" isn't policed as "caring about men who have the 'right opinions' issues"

It naturally attracts men who don't like women very much. I don't agree with these people, but excluding them for men centered spaces misses the mark.

It might be interesting to consider the dissonance you feel is similar to the dissonance felt by "right thinking" men trying to actively consider women's issues.

rump_truck · 2025-06-06T16:34:54+00:00

You're right that bad behavior on our side is often excused with "But feminists did it first!" And feminists excuse bad behavior on their side with "But men did it first!" The bad behavior of individuals is used as an excuse to take shots at entire demographics out of revenge, giving the innocents who were hit an excuse to fire back out of revenge. The cycle never ends.

Personally, I think everyone should be held to a higher standard across the board. The raw, unfiltered anger at being mistreated should be processed through close relationships with people you know, not broadcast on social media to hit innocent strangers. If you're going to broadcast it, you need to filter it. Blame should be placed on behaviors and the people who perform them, not on genes. The internet would be a better place if everyone was held to that standard.

That said, I hold feminists to a higher standard for a few reasons.

"Feminist" is a label that people choose to identify with, and can choose to stop identifying with at any time. "Male" is an accident of birth and cannot be disavowed. Judging people for the behaviors they choose is more reasonable than judging people for their biology that they didn't choose.
Feminists control national and international-scale institutions. Men's movements control Youtube channels and subreddits. Feminists have far more power to change policy.
Feminists control an entire department in every major university (Gender/Women's Studies). Men's movements have wikis. I expect more intellectual rigor from university departments than from wikis.
Feminists justify seeking revenge against men based on men committing crimes like rape and domestic violence. But the rates at which men commit those crimes against women have plummeted in recent decades. Conversely, men's complaints about feminists are in large part about policies that they are actively spreading today. Feminists are punishing men for the sins of their fathers, men are punishing feminists for policies passed by people who still hold offices in many cases.
Related to the last point, every time researchers ask how often women commit those same crimes, they find that women commit them at similar or even higher rates. So either both are entitled to seek a similar level of revenge, or neither are. Personally, I prefer neither.

TLDR: It would be great if people could judge individuals based on their individual behaviors, instead of sweeping generalizations. But failing that, group affiliation is a better basis for generalization than biology.

QuantumBullet · 2025-06-06T12:19:11+00:00

Please someone save this for after they delete it.

Lets_Remain_Logical · 2025-06-06T15:13:23+00:00

It's extremely simple. The extremes are loud and they don't seek equality but power they don't want to listen to the other but dominate and cancel and BRUSH OFF ALL WHAT CONTRADICTS OUR NARRATIVE. Meanwhile the huge majority, men and women are distrusting, lonesome and miserable.

Solution? Wome' should call out their extremists and men should call out their extremists. And sit on a table, talk about our pain and expectations and find a new deal.

Successful-Advanced · 2025-06-06T15:12:48+00:00

All these post you talk about can you link? Because we can't talk if we can not even verify.

If you want an answer right now, I would just disagree that these post are the main narrative because I've never seen them.

forgottenoldusername · 2025-06-06T17:03:28+00:00

share many of your concerns.

In fact I've actively avoided posting on these subs, largely because I didn't want to associate with the more extreme and in my opinion, unsavoury characters around.

But I've come to the realisation that behaviour is in and of itself the very problem I would hope to see change when it comes to discussions about men's mental health - a sense of collective responsibility.

I am not responsible for the fact historically women have been downtrodden. So why should I be responsible for idiots on this side of the fence either?

That is to say I realised I shouldn't keep silent because some other guys here are huge dicks.

Acknowledging my issues does not mean there are not real issues elsewhere. Raising concerns about male centric topics doesn't mean I feel any differently about male-on-female violence. I'm capable of holding two thoughts at once, and I say that as a gentle reminder not to settle for black and white - or as some call it "footballification" where you are either team A, or team B, right or wrong.

I have seen some very questionable comments on this sub but by enlarge, I feel this place takes a much more reasoned view in matters.

Of course the problem with this topic - gender issues on both sides - typically only the aggrieved raise their voice.

I believe in truth much misandry and misogyny comes from somewhere internal. That's not to say there aren't genuinely terrible people on both sides - but I believe much of the "men are xyz", "women are xyz" comes from a place of personal experience rather than true beliefs of any sort.

And people with grievances don't tend to voice themselves in the best light. So it tends to attract extreme and emotionally charged views as a general topic.

Femi_gnatzee_hunter · 2025-06-06T17:58:19+00:00

"medical misogyny"

Please tell me that is a joke.

aqlr · 2025-06-06T15:21:13+00:00

I kind of understand why a lot of people in this thread were harsh to you, but I just want to say thank you for trying to have an open mind about this. It is very rare to see a leftist actually denounce feminism in some way.

ExperimentMonty · 2025-06-07T14:21:42+00:00

Most of this boils down to the fact that many people are uncomfortable living in the gray, they only accept black or white thinking. It's hard to hold two "competing" ideas in your head (e.g. women live longer than men, but are treated worse by the medical establishment). It takes practice, and a lot of people weren't raised to, or aren't interested in, putting in that work.

__andrei__ · 2025-06-07T18:20:27+00:00

You’ve got to use paragraphs. This is unreadable.

hefoxed · 2025-06-07T22:57:02+00:00

It's really hard to get the right balance

Awareness of hostile sexism towards women, and benevolent prejudice/male privilege towards men resulted in feminism in response, but overcorrected into these hostile sexism towards men and benevolent prejudice/female privilege towards women (which built on existing issues, as there was originally already hostile and benevolent sexism towards both genders). Then the response to that does overcorrect into more hostile sexism towards women.

Why it's really important not to get caught in echo chambers and have these back and fourths with each other. There's a book I haven't read cause it's too wordy for me, but the title is great "Conflict is not abuse". Point out each other's biases. But sometimes people do need "safe" spaces where they can get validation that their pain is real if the overwhelming message has been it's not (but it can also be super dangerous when the pain is misplaced and irrational blame is fostered). Talked to another trans guy friend who mentioned he'd withdrawn from community organizing cause this combination of benevolent transphobia + hostile sexism was just too much to handle sigh (as similar dynamics exist for other types of hostile/benevolent prejudice).

What I think is importent to acknowledge also is someone having negative biases /prejudice doesn't make them a bad person. It makes them human. However, it's important to work against those biases.

Fit-Anything-210 · 2025-06-08T06:28:58+00:00

Yeah, I definitely won’t defend those kinds of comments. I don’t understand why people need to measure and compete the ways society has failed them. We need to empathize with each other’s problems.

We don’t need to minimize women’s issues to address men’s issues. And we need to minimize men’s issues to address women’s issues.

Parking_Scar9748 · 2025-06-08T14:23:01+00:00

I really don't want this community becoming a left wing version of tate and red pill groups. We don't have control over what other mra subs do, but can discourage dehumanization and invalidation here.

No_Base_3135 · 2025-06-16T15:32:17+00:00

There really isn't a comparison for misandry and misogyny. I stumbled upon this sub and was shocked that these men call themselves left wing while being so close minded and sure that they are the victim.

Misandry is hurtful, lodged in stereotypes, being dismissive towards male victims, fathers having less representation in court (even fathers fight for custody in only about 4% of cases and 27% of fathers completely abandon their children after divorce per this study from Pew Research https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/06/15/a-tale-of-two-fathers/). All of this is bad, and it's something we should be working towards as a society to fix.

Misogyny results in women being stalked, raped, and murdered.

MSDHONI77777778909 · 2025-06-06T05:03:17+00:00

You are absolutely right

What's the difference between them and us if we are doing the same?

Next-Bench-7820 · 2025-06-08T23:28:45+00:00

its very disappointing but this sub is kinda mostly a circlejerk of unintentionally ignorant and misogynistic leftist men who genuinely believe that woman are not oppressed. im here to discuss with the men who seem to be genuine and willing to discuss so that someday we may see eye to eye but yeah theres a lot of strange and not very thoughtful takes on here

Phuxsea · 2025-06-06T06:31:53+00:00

I was about to make the same post but you nailed it, except for your formatting. Please use paragraphs next time.

I agree completely. I strongly believe men and boys suffer unique gender based issues and this doesn't mean women have it easy. In many countries, women are denied basic rights like in Afghanistan and Bangladesh. Even in USA, misogyny exists and is a problem. There are people actively campaigning for deary penalties for women who get abortions.

I've read delusional comments on this sub that throughout history, men suffered and women had it easy. One user believes all historical male leaders were viceroys to women, and all women got to relax while the men died in the mines. It's like they forget women often died in childbirth.

I'm a male advocate who won't fall for this Andrew Tate BS.

Update: this sub has a downvoting problem, like other reddit echo chambers. You can't find me one point I got that's false. I thought this sub was supposed to be advocating for male issues without being another circlejerk. Instead I see the dumbest comments completely downplaying what women experienced in history.

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