MEN’S RIGHTS

Who are men?

Your fathers, brothers, friends, sons, husbands, and maybe even you.

What are men’s rights?

Men's rights relate to the role of the male in contemporary society. Traditionally, this role
has been largely influenced by the physical and mental attributes of the man in his ability
to provide protection and sustenance to his partner and offspring. This role, and the rights
relating to it, has changed over time due to social, legal and religious influences.

In the last several decades, with the arrival of feminism, changes in technology, and the
reduced need for violent and aggressive physical protection, the role, and subsequently
the rights, of men have become vague. Various groups and movements have emerged in
an effort to clearly define this role.

The Men's Rights Movement is concerned with the perceived diminishing legal and
societal rights of men, primarily in Western cultures. This includes disparity in
conviction, sentencing, custody, matrimonial and alimony laws, as well as the perceived
discrimination of males in society at large, including in the work place and in the media.

What are the legal issues?

Men are systematically discriminated against in the areas of family law, violence law,
criminal sentencing, sexual assault law, public health policy, military conscription, and
more.

What are the societal issues?

Men account for 80-99% of job deaths, homeless adults, prisoners, combat deaths, and
suicide deaths, are the majority of dropouts and special education students, die younger
than women and have higher death rates for the ten leading causes of death. Men in
general are devalued in modern day society.

What men’s rights IS NOT:

The men’s rights movement is not about seeking privileges for men. It is not about
attacking women’s rights.

What men’s rights IS:

The men's rights movement is about providing the same rights, protections, and choices
for men and women. It is about equal human rights regardless of gender. Much like
women’s rights, men’s rights are something both women and men can support.

What can YOU do?

• Realize that men’s rights issues affect everyone: men, women, and families.
• Recognize discrimination and bias against men and boys in society and the media.
• Respond to men’s rights with an open mind.
Perceptions of Men in Society and the Media:

Men in commercials are routinely portrayed as foolish and incompetent. It would never
fly if women were portrayed this way. When the media is infused with examples of male
bashing it’s no wonder many young men begin to believe they are not intelligent enough
to succeed in school.

Saturday Night Live aired a skit involving Tiger Woods’s wife Elin Nordegren physically
abusing him with a golf club. The skit never would have aired if the roles were reversed.
Violence against men is considered humorous whereas violence against women is
considered a serious matter. The media rarely refers to abuse of a man by a woman as
domestic violence. Society calls into question the masculinity of a man who is abused by
his wife because men are physically stronger, even though men are conditioned not to
retaliate when a woman is violent.

Men are routinely seen as status objects, measured by their net worth, the price of their
car, and how expensive their home is. Dating men are still expected by many women to
pay for dinner and for drinks. Men feel obligated to be providers and so are more likely
to choose a career path that pays better but is more dangerous or stressful over one that is
fulfilling.

It is considered funny to see men punched or kicked in the genitals. This has led to an
epidemic in Indiana schools, where 50% of middle school and high school nurses have
seen male students seeking aid for injuries to their genitals. The number of incidents is
likely to be higher than reported as it is considered shameful for males to seek assistance.
Years of such torment has resulted in at least one boy requiring emergency surgery to
remove scar tissue that was completely sealing off his urinary tract.

When men publicly express their support for men’s rights they are often scoffed at by
men and women alike and labeled weak, un-masculine misogynists. In fact, men’s rights
are not at all in conflict with women’s rights – both are intended to be about seeking
equal rights regardless of gender. It is notable that although most people know what the
word “misogynist” means, very few know what “misandrist” means. In fact,
“misandrist”, “misandrism”, “masculist”, and “masculism” show up as misspelled in the
Microsoft Word application in which this was originally written.
The Statistics of Men’s Issues:

Men’s Health:
• On average, men die five years younger than women in developed countries. Men die
younger and more often than women for the ten leading causes of death.
• Men are about 50% of the workforce but account for 93% of job related deaths.
• Males between 20 and 24 have a seven times greater rate of suicide than their female
counterparts, and overall, men commit suicide at rates three to four times greater than
women.
• Government funding for prostate cancer research is 60% less than the amount for breast
cancer research although prostate cancer and breast cancer diagnosis rates are identical.

Fathers, Families, and Reproductive Rights:

• Women initiate 90% of divorces. Fathers receive primary custody of children less than
10% of the time. Children's rights to a father are usually all in the hands of the mother.
• Fatherless children are at a much greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness,
suicide, poor educational performance, teen pregnancy, and criminality.
• Men paying child support who lose their jobs face not only the label “deadbeat dad” but
also jail when they are unable to find a job providing sufficient pay.
• Even if DNA testing proves a man is not the biological father of a child, he may be
forced to pay child support or face jail in many U.S. states.
• Men do not have reproductive rights. Women can engage in sexual intimacy without
sacrificing reproductive choice; men cannot. Women can terminate a pregnancy without
the consent of the father when an unplanned pregnancy occurs; men cannot similarly
relinquish their parental rights and financial responsibility.
• Lifelong alimony exists in some U.S. states. Ex-spouses – usually men – face jail if they
cannot pay. Even common law marriages may result in alimony payments.

Combat and Military Conscription:

• No gender oppression is comparable in magnitude to the deaths of males in war, which
includes forced conscription. About 500,000 male U.S. soldiers died in WWII alone.
Young men are required to register for Selective Service or they face fines, jail, revoked
citizenship, and denial of financial aid and federal jobs.
• Men have made up 84% of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, but
experienced 97.6% of the deaths.
• Men are sometimes said to “make war” although 76% of women and 86% of men
supported the U.S. military attack in Kuwait and Iraq during the Gulf War. In World
War I, British women organized the White Feather campaign in which they gave a white
feather to men who refused to fight, as a sign of their unmanliness.

Violence:
• Women commit domestic violence against men 33% more often than men do against
women. Women also commit severe domestic violence twice as often as men.
• Male victims of domestic violence are systematically neglected, stigmatized, and denied
outreach and services. They’re less likely to report it, which makes crime data unreliable.
• Innocent males are between 1.5 to 2 times more likely than females to be assaulted. Even
so, there is an Office for Violence Against Women but no equivalent for men. Laws such
as the Violence Against Women Act provide for lengthier pretrial detention and greater
penalties for crimes committed against women than for crimes committed against men.
The Statistics of Men’s Issues, continued:

Criminal Sentencing:
• Overall, men receive sentences for serious crimes 48 months longer than the sentences
women receive. Men get higher sentences than women – and women are more likely to
receive no jail time – for the same crime even when all other factors are equal (age, race,
priors, family situation, etc.).
• The gender of the victim matters as well. A drunk driver will receive an average of a 3-
year higher sentence for killing a female than for killing a male.

Education, Employment, and the Workplace:

• For every 100 women who earn a degree, only 73 men do. Men earn 38% of associate
degrees, 42% of bachelor’s degrees, and 40% of master’s degrees.
• Men have accounted for about 75% of job losses during the late-2000s recession. The
unemployment rate for men is 10.5% for men and 7.9% for women.
• The male and female pay gap is based entirely on raw numbers without any explanation
as to the reason behind them. It does not account for overtime (about 90% male), the
type of work done, or other important factors such as experience, education, and length of
employment that, when accounted for, make the gap disappear.
• The U.S. Department of Labor has reported, “The differences in raw wages may be
almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female
workers.” These factors include the greater tendency for women to work part-time, to
leave the work force for childbirth, childcare, and elder care, and to value family friendly
and less dangerous work environments.
• Societal forces and parental leave policies partially explain women’s employment
tendencies as well as men’s tendencies to seek higher paying, less satisfying jobs.
• Concepts of masculinity prevent many male workers from reaching out for help against a
sexual harasser, as it can be perceived as emasculating to admit that belittling from a
female affects them.

Rape:
• 43% of teacher sex abuse comes from female teachers but over 90% of prosecutions are
of male teachers.
• Male victims are frequently raped in jail, prison, and the military, but sometimes are
raped elsewhere as well, and not just by men. Jail/prison rape is a punch line.
• Studies show that between 9% and 60% of rape accusations are false. Men accused of
rape are immediately arrested and held for months awaiting trial, are assumed to be guilty
by law enforcement and the judicial system, and are commonly branded rapists by their
communities even when an accuser recants or they are acquitted. Men falsely accused of
rape are subjected to repeated acts of rape in county jails and prisons where HIV and
other infections are prevalent.

Male Circumcision / Genital Cutting:

• Removal of the male foreskin is equivalent to the removal of the clitoral hood, a form of
female circumcision / genital cutting banned by international human rights laws.
• Infant male circumcision is still routinely practiced even though the American Academy
of Pediatrics has said there is no medical purpose for it.