Help me out, here. I‘m finding myself disagreeing or feeling downright alienated by certain men’s rights discussions, and I wonder if others are feeling it too. Or maybe I’m just an asshole.

I became involved in men’s rights because I think men are different from women — physically, socially, and emotionally — and I am upset about how modern Western society responds to those difference by shaming or handicapping, and pushing false narratives about how the differences are the result of choices by men. Men are twice as likely to face serious addiction, three times as likely to commit suicide, and ten to twenty times (depending on the source) to be incarcerated. They get lower grades in school, and less access to higher ed. If any other demographic were the subject of these statistics, our culture would be tripping over itself to fix it.

But, man, we seem to dwell on such minor and unproductive shit. We can be a little more creative and constructive than ranting over and over again about how female rapists get less jail time than male rapists. Or posting one off TikTok videos of a woman doing or saying stupid and then acting like all the world is like that. Or acting like the practice of circumcision is the root of our problems. It seems like we took the shallowest and most irritating forms of feminism and simply applied them men.

Men *are* different. Men are stronger. Many if us are more stubborn. Many of us are more aggressive, emotionally dull, or take a view of sex such that getting raped by a woman wouldn’t traumatize us as badly as — say — a 13 year old girl would be traumatized by being raped by an adult male. I think we have better senses of humor. Millions of years of evolution have produced these differences, and those differences have literally saved societies. I think our discussions need to focus on acknowledging these differences, and when they create problems, demanding empathy instead of shaming and jail sentences.

Am I on crack?

EDIT, later in the day: Thank you to everyone who has engaged with me on this issue — particularly those of you who have done so respectfully. I’m trying to figure out what I really believe as a human and as a man, and this is helping.