In the United States, men are far more likely to be homeless, imprisoned, murdered, or commit suicide compared to women. By a significant margin too. Often times when these stats are brought up, they are dismissed as being the fault of the man (or men in general). Whenever women's issues are brought up, it is almost always framed as being the fault of society. Some kind of systemic issue that affects them, even if it's something that involves their own agency.

We're constantly reminded of the systemic "power imbalance" between men and women. How women are much more vulnerable in society due to lack of representation, sexual assault or endangered reproductive rights. At the very least, most sane people would agree that sexual assault is among the top worst things that can happen to you as a person. Potentially even the worst. If that issue is at the top, I would argue that being homeless, imprisoned, or murdered would at least be in the top 5 or top 10.

For homeless people, activists will site the economic factors, wealth gap, or systemic issues that are responsible. But any kind of class critique, anti-capitalist stance somehow conveniently ignores the fact that men are affected by this disproportionally. Many activists seem to care about the homeless, but never seem to focus on it being mostly men. For people who aren't homeless activists, these men are just seen as lazy bums who should get a job, and that this is all their fault.

The same can mostly be said for men making up the majority of the prison population. Plenty of activism, plenty of critiques about people being "enslaved" as prisoners by the state. The only time anybody cares about the fact that it's mostly men, is when they're specifically talking about men of color. If you're white, nobody gives a shit, and it's assumed you're always at fault.

For suicide, when you're talking about men, it's immediately a blame game. Men are blamed for not seeking out mental health professionals. Instead of ever considering that perhaps there's a flaw in the way those professions market themselves towards men, it's always the man's fault. It's his fault he's dead. Or the claim is that men have access to more lethal means when compared to women (guns, etc.) ... This point should be irrelevant, the point is that they're succeeding. If men are generally more successful, perhaps the treatment and activism should be more geared and intensified towards helping men.

For murder, it's very interesting how it's framed. Men are most likely to be murdered, but then someone gleefully responds with "aha, but they're most likely to be murdered by OTHER men!". Somehow that is a justification for why this is not an issue for men. The bottom line is, as a man in this country, you are more likely to be murdered. Once again, if it's something that disproportionally affects men, nobody cares, and actually it's your (or your gender's) fault.

Less severe but extremely important, men are also graduating from (or even attending) university less and less every year compared to women. Can you guess where this is going? Yeah, it's boy's/men's own fault again. Whenever women aren't working in a certain field. The reason given is that since men are disproportionally in management positions, they must be discriminating against all of the women. However for men's education, it's ignored that the majority of school administrators are actually women, and the VAST majority of teachers are also women.

So aside from parents, women are essentially in charge of men during their developmental years. The years that can basically dictate how the rest of your life will go. Men are falling behind, and nobody cares. This is often not seen as any kind of structural problem, It's that "boys are obsessed with those dang Nintendos". The fact that boys brain development takes a couple years longer than girls is not considered in the way schools are structured. Remember, It's never women's fault when they can't get the 7 figure job they want, but it's ALWAYS a boy's fault he's falling behind in school. Thanks for reading.