Given the recent news articles about boys being sexually victimized by older women (and the subsequent excuse of the abuse), I thought I'd revisit an old notion, specifically that of men's hyper-agency vs women's hypo-agency.

Basically, the gist of this is that men are generally held to be 100% in control of and responsible for their actions, whereas women are portrayed as victims of circumstance or of other people, and never truly responsible for their actions. As Manwomanmyth put it, women are human-beings, men are human-doings.

As we can see with the recent rape cases, the men (or boys, rather) are portrayed as willing participants, capable of consenting or being the solicitor during these sexual encounters despite their young age. The women on the other hand, despite being older than or in a position of authority over these boys, are excused from their actions, saying they were lonely, immature, or in some way victims of the whole situation. In some cases they may even claim the boy took advantage of them, the poor dears.

This idea isn't just confined to rape cases, but I wanted to take this opportunity to go over it again and hopefully familiarize others with the concept. Whether it's men being fully in control of their erections (and thus consenting to any and all sex), or the idea that if a man is abused in a relationship he must have done something to deserve it, society is practically tripping over itself to attach any and all kinds of responsibility and fault to men, while simultaneously doing everything in its power to excuse and downplay women's wrongdoings.

As a side note, I also believe it is this concept that is ultimately preventing the government/people in general from really getting behind programs to help men, or even the MRM in general. After all, why would you waste time helping a man (whose problems are all 100% his fault and within his power to correct) when you can help women (who are poor, helpless victims who are at the complete mercy of everyone and everything around them, sometimes including their own nature) instead?