Imagine that on a college campus in the United States, a
student run group starts issuing posters to put up all around campus that were
extremely anti-Arabian. Each slogan would be racist, connecting them to
hi-jacking and in general, demonizing them. Clearly, this is wrong and
something that should be avoided. Surprisingly, something similar happened on
the college campus of UCLA a few weeks ago. An anti-rape campaign was initiated
by the students in the student run feminist group, Bruin Feminists for Equality,
that made various flyers that read “dudetip #(1-6)” with saying such as “If you
are in an elevator and a person gets in, don’t rape them,” or “If you offer
someone a ride, remember not to rape them,” or, my personal favorite, “Use the
buddy system! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask
a friend to stay with you while you are in public.” (Bruin Feminists for
Equality, 2012) These slogans have already generated a lot of negative feedback
in the form of bloggers and students on the campus saying that the campaign is
a blatant display of sexism and is the equivalent of writing sexist slurs
against women. In a world so obsessed with the discrimination against women, it
is easy to forget and overlook the discrimination that occurs against men.
This discrimination
happens all the time. Women work 44% of the total hours worked in this country
compared to men working 56% and yet, men constitute 93% of all workplace deaths
according to the US Department of Labor’s Census of Fatal Occupational
Injuries. ("Census of fatal," 2010) This means that even though women
work a large part of all hours, they don’t get killed in the process nearly as
much. This doesn’t include military service, which are almost solely men.
In a study done in 2005 and published in USA
Today, men are not going to college as much as women are. (Marklein, 2008) In
fact, women make up 57% of the students in college at that time and this number
has been growing since the making of this study. This may be because women get
more scholarships than men do or more programs are made for them; but think
about it, have you ever heard of a male-exclusive scholarship?
According
to the National Coalition for the Homeless, the single homeless population
which makes up roughly 76% of the homeless population has a male percentage of
67.5%. (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2011) Even though the percentage
of men in households with children is lower, the percentage of the homeless
with children is much lower than that of single people who are homeless. There
are various reasons for homelessness, but not very many try to describe the
relationship that gender plays on who is homeless.
The
University of Texas finds that in their state, there is an incarceration
discrimination in which women are jailed less and jailed for shorter times. (Rodriguez,
Curry & Lee, 2006) Even though in severe cases, they will likely be sent to
prison as often as men, it is for shorter times. In less severe cases, the
women are jailed much shorter times than men of similar crimes. (Rodriguez,
Curry & Lee, 2006) This is definitely a clear cut showing of legal
discrimination. Women are treated nicer in society than men and no one is
really trying to stop it.
There
are other points to be made, but clearly, these studies show that huge
discrimination toward men is very prevalent in America. Again, even though I am
not arguing the thought that women are discriminated against, I agree that
there are studies that would show women in peril too.
Everyone knows that women get raped, I won’t deny it; in
fact, I concede that they get raped more often than men, but there are times
when a man (or boy in statutory rape) can get raped too. Whether it is from a
man or from a woman it can happen. Most people laugh at this thought, but one
of the most notable accounts that has drawn a lot of criticism from how it was
written is from a British tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which recounts the
story of an alleged sexual assault in Germany by a 43-year-old woman. (Mirror.co.uk,
2012) This woman invited two different men at two different times into her
apartment for a one night stand. Afterwards, she wouldn’t let them leave until
they were forced to have sex with her again and again. One of the men was
desperate enough to escape through the balcony and was found crying in the
streets after a 36-hour ordeal with the woman. What is most surprising is that
the article didn’t ever call it rape and never called the woman a rapist, but
rather a nymphomaniac. Social norms in the world have been reversing, instead
of attacking women, they now shield and protect them.
Another example of how these codes of
conduct hurt men was written the Toronto Star, when an elderly 74-year-old man
in Canada was beaten and taking into custody after being misinterpreted on the
911 hotline. (Wallace, 2012) He called after two
men came into his apartment and beat him after he refused sex for money from
his female neighbor. The operator wouldn’t use a polish translating service and
the 74-year-old was taken to jail for more than two months. What is important
to note here is that the woman that he escorted out of his apartment
intercepted the police and claimed that the old man tried to pay her money for
sex, pulled her hair out and bent back her finger nails.
Unfortunately
in America, men can be hurt legally. In the education system, under the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, which protects against bullying, the law itself cannot
protect white male students from bullying. (Russo, 2010) This was seen in how a
white openly gay male in New York was bashed repeatedly, violently, verbally
and mentally to a point that his grades dropped, he skipped school and
eventually, sued the school. The plaintiff reached an agreement to take steps
to prevent the situation from happening again, but this didn’t change the
original act. (Russo, 2010) When something happens to a man (or boy), usually,
the law does little to help him.
When two
people are dating and having consensual intercourse, the woman decides if they
will have a child or not if they are using birth control like the pill.
Legally, she doesn’t have to inform the man if she stops taking the pill and
could try to get herself pregnant without his consent. I have a relative that
had one of his girlfriends try the same thing and stop taking birth control
pills in hopes of getting him to marry her because of the child. She didn’t
tell him as well and she did get pregnant. It didn’t work out like she planed
and my relative just dumped her; which in my opinion is ok, because she
betrayed his trust and tried to force him to do something he didn’t want to do.
Also, if she didn’t want an abortion and he did, he wouldn’t have a choice.
Also, he had to pay child support for the child he didn’t intend for. Also,
this isn’t just an isolated case.
A long time
Men’s Rights Activist and Feminist, Warren Farrell, at one point, leader of NOW
in New York City, writes in his book, The Myth of Male Power, that,
Today, violence against women is rightly abhorred.
But we call violence against men entertainment. Think of football, boxing,
wrestling... All are games used to sugarcoat violence against men, originally
in need of sugarcoating so "our team"--or "our society"--could
bribe its best protectors to sacrifice themselves. (1993)
Social
situations seem to always place women on top with children. When an innocent
man is killed, it is sad, but it would have been sadder if it was an innocent
woman. Men are seen as protectors and this would be considered their duty. In
Norah Vincent’s book, Self-Made
Man: My Year Disguised as a Man, she recounts her
experiences of being a man. (The Gaurdian, 2006) She describes it as being in
an unbreakable social contract where you are expect to be two things at once,
in that in her dating experiences,
The
women I met wanted a man to be confident. They wanted in many ways to defer to
him. I could feel that on many dates, the unspoken desire to be held up and
led, whether in conversation or even in physical space, and at times it made me
feel quite small in my costume, like a young man must feel when he's just
coming of age and he's suddenly expected to carry the world under his arm like
a football. And some women did find Ned too small physically to be attractive.
(Ned being her drag
self) and
Yet
as much as these women wanted a take-control man, at the same time they wanted
a man who was vulnerable to them, a man who would show his colours and open his
doors, someone expressive, intuitive, attuned.
Her time as a man prompt her to feel a lot more
sympathetic to men and even at times to feel like a misogynistic (woman hater)
and sexist, herself, towards women who in her eyes, held all of the power in a
relationship with a man. (The Gaurdian, 2006) She even felt as if this was part
of the pressure that men must feel in abusing women, because to her, it was the
one aspect where they have complete control.
Equality is the goal of civil rights and as of today it
needs work. Women have gotten ahead and even though they still face a huge
onslaught on injustice, men are being pushed into a corner and used as a
scapegoat to blame all evils on. All of the feminist organizations need to become pro-male
as much as they are pro-female to become perfect, because as of today, men are
almost completely ignored. The unfortunate truth is that in today’s
chauvinistic society, you see that men are primarily there for protecting
everyone else. They sign the draft, they take the most dangerous jobs (miners,
construction workers, firefighters, any sort of driving job, fishers) and they
are scolded in the media for not being able to provide for their families or
not spending time with them. In the future, equality can and will be realistic
when people understand that feminism isn’t a complete solution.
(1773
Words)
Works
Cited:
Bruin
Feminists for Equality. (2012, May). Dude tips / anti-rape campaign.
Retrieved
from
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10150903038570239&type=1
Farrell,
W. (1993). The myth of male power. New York: Berkley. Retrieved from
http://www.warrenfarrell.org/styled-2/summary.html
Marklein,
M. B. (2008, October 19). College gender gap widens: 57% are women . USA
Today.
Retrieved from
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-10-19-male-college-
cover_x.htm
Mirror.co.uk.
(2012, May 1). "It was hell, i can't walk!" man found sobbing in
street after 36-
hour sex ordeal with german nymphomaniac.
Mirror. Retrieved from
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/man-found-sobbing-in-street-after-813563
National
Coalition for the Homeless. (2011, December 15). Who is homeless?.
Retrieved from
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/who.html
Rodriguez,
S. F., Curry, T. R., & Lee, G. (2006). Gender differences in criminal
sentencing: Do
effects vary across violent, property,
and drug offenses?. SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, 87(2), 318-339. Retrieved
from http://digitalcommons.utep.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=gang_lee&sei-redir=1&referer=http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=sentencing%20gender%20disparities&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcommons.utep.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1001%26context%3Dgang_lee&ei=oeRgT8DaHcuosAKC7d2WCA&usg=AFQjCNH8Q8gfgFry6_Hb2FbTQ_a3l-TfBQ
Russo,
T. U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. (2010). The civil
rights division
releases
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website: http://blogs.justice.gov/main/archives/1088
The
Gaurdian. (2006, March 17). Double agent. The Gaurdian. Retrieved from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/mar/18/gender.bookextracts
U.S.
Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2010). Census of fatal
occupational
injuries. Retrieved from
website: http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0009.pdf
Wallace,
T. (2012, May 12). Beaten ottawa senior jailed after calling 911. Toronto
Star.
Retrieved from
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1179010--beaten-ottawa-senior-jailed-after-calling-911
(1976
Words)
-The Observer
