Gender roles are bad for women, but absolute shit for men

Before you read this post, please understand these are my own views, it's okay if you disagree but please do so respectively. I'll do my best to provide sources for what I'm saying, but sometimes, Its based off of my own opinion. Also be aware that I'm a woman, so men might have firsthand experience that I dont about. You are welcome to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Secondly, I'm going to be discussing some controversial topics about religion, especially Christianity and Islam, so be warned.

Now on to the post.

As the title says, gender roles are bad for women, but absolute shit for men.

Now, even if you think gender roles are needed/good, I think they should not restrict anyone. I think that if a woman wants to be a high powered CEO, she should, and if a man doesn't want to get married and 'provide and protect' for the rest of his life, he doesn't have to.

However, you cannot deny that in recent years, gender roles have come under attack as being sexist, patriarchal, and restrictive. Some feminists believe that gender roles were created to benefit men at the expense of women. When confronted with the issues that men face in society, they usually say that 'gender roles hurt men too' but the common consensus is that gender roles still advantage men over women.

I'm going to try and discuss key issues that gender roles cause. Now keep in mind that gender roles may differ from culture to culture, so I'm just going to give a general overview.

Provision

One of the toughest responsibilities of men throughout history has been to provide for women. Don't say consider work nowadays, consider work in the history, when men had to descend into mines and develop lung cancer to provide for their families, work that women weren't allowed, or atleast discouraged from doing.

How it affects men - More working hours

In almost all countries, on average, men worked longer hours than women. Now I obviously don't need to explain this, but almost no one (except those in love with their jobs) wants to spend more time at work.

How it affects men - More workplace deaths

Most of this sub already knows this, but men make up over 90% of those who died at work, and men all around the work take more dangerous jobs.

How it affects men - Lower work satisfaction

Women are happier at work than men are, Its pretty obvious why. Women are more likely to take up jobs that are more emotionally fulfilling, are closer to home, less dangerous, more flexible, and we are more less likely to do overtime.

How it affects boys

The view that males should do more dangerous work than females starts young. Boys are more likely to do child labor than girls, and are twice as likely to do hazardous work.

Summary (Provision)

Because of gender roles, many women's advocates have decried the fact that in some cultures, women were expected to stay home, and take care of the children. While I certainly think this was wrong, Being at home generally protected women from intense heat from the sun, from rain, from hail or smoke, and kept them in comfort, where they were closest to their home comforts, such as their beds, food and water. They also got to spend alot of time with their children, which is alot more emotionally fulfilling than say, going down into a mineshaft and almost dying. The importance of men providing for women has caused men to die alot more than women, and men to be unhappier at work.

Protection

In almost all cultures, men have been tasked with protecting women, so how did this work out for men?

How it affects men - Murder rate

In almost all countries, men are killed more than women. This is due to a number of reasons, first being than people would much rather kill a man than a woman, second being that men do go out more than women, especially at night. But we must not forget that if a man and woman go out together and a criminal attacks the woman, the man is supposed to defend her, even if he gets killed.

How it affects men - Military rate

Men are required to sign up for selective service in almost 60 countries, but women are only required to do it in six. Obviously, men are way more likely to die in combat than women are.

Because men are seen as the ones that can defend their country, sometimes men and boys are targeted during a massacre. https://web.archive.org/web/20150712192651/http://www.gendercide.org/case_srebrenica.html

Among child soldiers, about 60% of these are male: https://www.un.org/youthenvoy/2015/02/4-10-child-soldiers-girls/

How it affects men - Unequal sentencing

https://repository.law.umich.edu/law_econ_current/57/ Men get much longer sentences for the same crime, especially if the crimes are sexual offences. One reason for this is that female criminals are more likely to be single mothers, but women are also seen as more sympathetic than men, people to be protected. Meanwhile men are punished, not just for their crime, but also for forsaking their gender role as protector of women.

How if affects men - Women and children first

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_children_first, the women and children first policy has existed in our society for thousands of years. Any society that doesn't protect women and children is expecting an end to their civilization. Unfortunately, this leads to men being viewed as the superfluous sex.

Emotions

Much as been made of the fact women used to be viewed as the more emotional sex. But people forget that women were also viewed as kinder and more empathetic than men. Women were seen as angels, incapable of doing any wrong in many cultures.

How it affects men - Suicide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide#:~:text=This%20is%20also%20known%20as,more%20often%20than%20do%20females. Men commit suicide more often than women. The rate of suicide starts about the same as children, but as boys grow, the gender gap grows wider and wider. Men's emotions arent taken seriously.

Religion

I don't know about all religions, so I'm just going to focus on two of the largest, Christianity and Islam. Many people view them sexist...to women.

However, in both religions, women are seen as angelic compared to men. In the bible, almost all the stories are about some evil man or another. Very rarely is a woman viewed as evil, unless she walks into complete monster territory, like Jezebel. Otherwise, women like Sarah are viewed as angels, even though she was unkind to her slavegirl. Even Eve is never seen as downright evil, just misguided, and in the Book of Genesis, God questions Adam before He questions Eve,

In Islam is it the same, women are rarely ever portrayed as evil.

Neither religion addresses the topic of men being raped or men being victims of domestic violence. It just gets completely glossed over. The closest it comes is the story of Lot, and even then the victims are young boys, and then it just gets ignored again.

Both religions emphasize good treatment of women. In the Bible, men are told to honor their wives lest their prayers be hindered (1 Peter 3:7) and men who don't provide for their families are called worse than unbelievers (1 Timothy 5:8)

Conclusion

So, why did I make this post? I didn't make this post, necessarily to say that women shouldn't complain about gender roles, because we should. All I'm saying is that, by objective standards and data, gender roles are harsher on men than they are women. Men might make more money, and that hasn't stopped women from being less likely to be homeless, and women still control most consumer spending. Men might spend more time outside the home, but that has led to more death for men. Women might be seen as more emotional (which is wrong) but men are literally killing themselves to show their emotions are to be taken seriously.

My point is, gender roles weren't created to oppress women and privilege men, and if they were, whoever created them did a shit job.

And when someone tries to bring that "Misandry hurts, misogyny kills" bullshit, bring them this.