Allero
Yes, in the dating sphere women do wield more power. They, however, are also more common victims of stalking, more commonly chased by men they never asked for.
Sentencing gap is also very real.
But then there’s a pay gap, lower representation in politics (and also patriarchal traditions of diplomacy requiring high-ranking female politicians to show themselves as rough and cold to uphold their image), the common expectation to bear and rise children almost singlehandedly (despite also having to work full-time), etc. etc.
Women still face many real issues, and so do men. It’s just that men’s rights is a newer concept and it takes a lot of effort to overcome things that are sometimes as basic as the right to refuse sex.
Things along the lines of “women don’t matter” are commonly spoken by feminists much the same way you said a similar thing about men - as a statement that this gender group is a victim of modern society.
You wouldn’t hear “men don’t matter” in another context, either.
And I’m not saying that the pressure of traditional expectations is equal on women vs men, I don’t have what it takes to compare, so I won’t even try. I just state they hurt everyone, and you don’t have to sink one to raise the other.
And I specifically meant to say we gain ever increasing knowledge that women are not safer in many regards - not just inherently, but overall. While brute-force attacks against men are less common, harassment, coercion, mental abuse and manipulations are rampant, and are weaponized against everyone, including strangers. (With that being said, some women, especially armed, do engage in direct physical abuse, and men can use mental one).
And I wonder what part of fears average woman faces is personal experience vs culture and upbringing. Same events can be interpreted in many different ways depending on how you are preconditioned, and if we’d train men to be wary of women, we’d certainly see more fears spread around. (Mind you, I do not say women do not face real and clear instances of abuse; some do!)
The thing is, the amount of fear displayed against men is disproportional to the actual risk they pose. This probably has cultural roots, as awareness of such risks turned into an overreaction.
More and more research comes out showing women are fully capable of abusive behavior and display it much more often that we’ve come to believe, yet as little light is shed on this in the public eye, women are still perceived as much more safe, which isn’t true either.
And besides, “men” are too big and diverse of a group to reasonably tie to any possible behavior.
I follow you, until the last part.
“Men don’t matter”, “women don’t matter” - those statements often seem to imply that the other gender is dominant and treats the other as disposable. This is not true - both men and women heavily suffer from bias, discrimination, and abuse - both in their own ways.
Traditional expectations hurt everybody, men and women, and should be thrown out the window. This includes a traditional concept that men are always perpetrators but not victims of abuse, among other things - something that is still commonly ignored, sometimes out of genuine ignorance, sometimes in bad faith.
This is only natural because the post features a picture of a woman holding a highly misandric and hugely misleading sign.
Besides, it’s one of the rare venues to talk of what’s important. And when there actually are rare posts or comments regarding abuse of men, many women flock in as well to tell about women rights.
As a non-rapist, I’m sick of constantly being seen as a high-risk individual just for having a penis despite dedicating a lot of attention to consent and being generally a highly empathetic person.
People who know me well trust me and see me as a very safe and gentle person - but in the outside world, I’m equated with rapists around a random trait.
