I think of male feminists as victims. Think back to your schooling. Gender equality was only ever taught from the female perspective. The same with gender roles. In everything from schools, to mainstream media, to government programs, it's always taught that only females face disadvantages.

Take your grandmother, for example. She was only ever expected to be a homemaker, and everyone agrees that wasn't fair. But nobody ever talks about her husband, your grandfather, who was drafted into WWII and expected to be a provider to be worth marrying. Even if it meant working in dangerous coal mines or mills where he barely even got to see his family. He wasn't a "real man" unless he provided.

None of that is covered in school though. The media doesn't talk about it either. They only talk about the gender role faced by your grandmother. Everyone talks about getting more women into STEM, but nobody talks about getting more men into childcare, teaching, or nursing, where the gender ratio is just as off, if not more. Why are there posters in my college advocating the former, but not the latter? Same for the media. And the government.

In a way, male feminists are guilty of adhering to traditional gender roles. The same gender role your grandfather faced; that of a provider and protector of women. And because women benefit from male gender roles, feminists allow it. These men are being used. They're being held to gender roles no differently than patriarchy is said to. The way feminists define "real man" is no different. And it's allowed, and even encouraged, because it benefits women.

I think it'd really benefit us if we went a bit deeper in trying to understand and explain why a man would throw is own gender under the bus in the name of equality, when any objective person would see that it's clearly not equal. Maybe we could help them. They're being manipulated. They're being held to traditional gender roles by the same people who say they want to end traditional gender roles.