# The Male Inequality Problem **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 27, 2025, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440 "2025-09-27T21:57:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/121 "2025-09-29T14:07:19Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > What you often see is claims that any problems men and boys might have aren’t actually worth caring about and that in fact they deserve it because “insert decades or centuries old grievance here.” We’re seeing different stuff. I don’t “often see” claims of that sort and I’m not seeing them in this thread. > [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#): > > > [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > > > Is the burly, manly man going to be a good role model for someone who’s is realizing he’s gay, > > I think a teen homosexual boy could benefit from _any_ role-model who was empathetic, wise, and open-minded, regardless of whether that person was (the horror!) a “burly manly man” And some burly, manly men are gay. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/122 "2025-09-29T14:48:05Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > > [@Pleonast](#): > > > > Just get rid of gender and let people be themselves. > > Except that gender seems to be baked into human nature. (Has there ever been a human society in which gender didn’t play a significant role?) I don’t think you can “just get rid of gender”; or if you could, people would no longer “be themselves.” Humans expressing their sexuality physically, emotionally, socially, and culturally is natural. Humans coercing others into compulsory, exclusionary categories not so much. We certainly do it at times, but I don’t think it’s necessary, and it’s definitely not admirable. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/123 "2025-09-29T14:59:29Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Strong disagree. They are viral because they reinforce a narrative of entitlement. Seriously women expressing anger less than men? Not in the world I have lived in. Women can express anger just fine, the difference is how people react to it. Have you ever heard the expression, ”You’re cute when you’re angry"? Has a man ever been told that? When women express anger it’s often viewed as fodder for entertainment, and not taken seriously, especially because women are viewed as less emotionally stable than men. That’s how you have situations where women are acquitted of murder because the assumption is they had less agency than if a man had committed the same crime. See also: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/UMHz6FiRzS8/maxresdefault.jpg "I'm Just a Girl In Love - "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" Season 2 Theme Song") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMHz6FiRzS8) When I was growing up there was this TV show called _Wings_ where the romantic interest was a woman with a fiery temper. In one episode she drives her car into his office building and this is entirely played for laughs. My Mom thought it was hilarious. And then my Mom actually did it. My Mom intentionally drove her car into her husband’s work building. Then she hit reverse and did it again. It wasn’t funny. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/124 "2025-09-29T15:39:22Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > the difference is how people react to it You did read > [@DSeid](#): > > are perceived differently when they express it. Women risk being labeled “hysterical” and men as a possible physical aggression threat. Yes? In short, agreed. I am interested though in your thoughts about the other post. That root cause of the symptoms described is _not_ a lack models of “positive masculinity”, that the crisis is instead of those without college education, a class crisis, for both men and women without college educations. Who are as a fraction increasingly more male. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/125 "2025-09-29T16:02:47Z")
I don’t really know. But it seems to me like men and women are probably responding differently to said crisis. Women tend toward seeking out social support whatever their crisis. Men are more likely to disengage. The latter is more likely to result in other problems: depression, addiction, being influenced by the manosphere, etc. Women are vulnerable in other ways. But a lot of women who would be working minimum wage jobs are taking care of children, because the cost of childcare generally eclipses a minimum wage income. So I would imagine that’s where the women are/what they are doing. The men are harder to pin down. We know they aren’t working, volunteering or providing child care, so what are they up to? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/126 "2025-09-29T16:09:10Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > In my social circle I see plenty moderately\* successful, nice, masculine men. Most of them in a stable relationship. The idea that they are somehow feminine instead of masculine because they’re not raging assholes is weird to me. So are these working class uneducated men? Because that’s the demographic the author is trying to target. I’m a college educated professional and my friends are college educated professionals. I see men showing up as highly engaged, active parents, contributing to household income, totally have their shit together. I have one male friend who did SAHD for a long time. But I think this article is really not about those guys. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/127 "2025-09-29T16:22:32Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > We’re seeing different stuff. I don’t “often see” claims of that sort and I’m not seeing them in this thread. Well, here’s an article in the NYT from about six weeks ago. [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/opinion/men-boys-crisis-progressive-era.html?smid=nytcore-android-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/opinion/men-boys-crisis-progressive-era.html?smid=nytcore-android-share) With this being the most recommended comment: [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/opinion/men-boys-crisis-progressive-era.html?referringSource=commentShare#permid=144297348](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/opinion/men-boys-crisis-progressive-era.html?referringSource=commentShare#permid=144297348) You will see this pattern all the time in comment sections in the New York Times. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/128 "2025-09-29T16:29:48Z")
You realize that women’s issues are not a thing of the past, right? I’m opposed to the outright dismissal of men’s issues, but not because women really don’t suffer all that much these days. I work for a domestic violence and sexual assault services organization and have for ten years. Things are worse now than they were when I started the job. And it’s been 25+ years since my own trauma and I’ve gotta say I haven’t seen much meaningful change. Don’t think social media is an accurate reflection of reality. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/129 "2025-09-29T16:36:20Z")
On second thought I wouldn’t say I’ve seen no meaningful change. I don’t know if this is really the place to get into those nuances. My point is that women are not talking about the past tense when they lodge their complaints. They are talking about their lives. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/130 "2025-09-29T16:41:13Z")
I have to say I’m shocked that grandfathers and uncles aren’t mentioned. In my experience, they’re as important as parents, as they’re often closer than community role models but not part of the nuclear family. I mean, my grandfathers and uncles were more formative than my scoutmaster or football coaches. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/131 "2025-09-29T16:42:01Z")
This is super interesting that it seems to be a non-college-educated problem rather than a male problem, thanks @DSeid. I wonder what the solution is. I don’t know a whole lot of working-class people but I do know a few, mostly but not exclusively through church. Many of them (especially the ones at church) are working hard and as far as I can tell are doing more-or-less fine. A few of them are really not doing fine. I think part of the issue is that middle-class folks and upwards tend to have a social safety net, so if something goes wrong their families and friends will help them get back on their feet. But the working-class folks tend to be basically one crisis away (and as one gets older some sort of crisis is bound to eventually happen) from their lives really falling apart. The ones I know from church tend to do better because the church acts as that social safety net. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/132 "2025-09-29T16:43:53Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I don’t really know. But it seems to me like men and women are probably responding differently to said crisis. Women tend toward seeking out social support whatever their crisis. Men are more likely to disengage. The latter is more likely to result in other problems: depression, addiction, being influenced by the manosphere, etc. > > Women are vulnerable in other ways. But a lot of women who would be working minimum wage jobs are taking care of children, because the cost of childcare generally eclipses a minimum wage income. So I would imagine that’s where the women are/what they are doing. The men are harder to pin down. We know they aren’t working, volunteering or providing child care, so what are they up to? I don’t know to what extent this is actually happening, but there’s the stereotype of the grown up man who is still living in his parent’s basement, playing video games and eating junk food all day. I’d guess that contributes to a certain extent, otherwise the stereotype wouldn’t have arisen to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/133 "2025-09-29T16:46:32Z")
I have no idea how anyone makes it on minimum wage these days. It looks impossible from my vantage point. It was hard enough when Ehrenreich wrote _Nickel and Dimed._ _I_ feel like I never have enough money and I make way more than minimum wage. With the end of _Roe v Wade_ and the existing dearth of child care, I think we’re headed toward a major crisis. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/134 "2025-09-29T16:51:17Z")
I kind of feel like it’s a question of rigid gender roles and expectations, and the right/working class seems to be holding on harder to those roles than the more educated classes. Almost like those roles are a piece of a sinking ship they’re clinging to in the water. It’s clearly an identity type thing - like maybe the rest of modern society is so emasculating that they’ve got to reassert their masculinity by being hyper macho and refusing anything remotely not masculine, never mind actually feminine. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/135 "2025-09-29T16:52:46Z")
> [@bump](#): > > In my experience, they’re as important as parents, as they’re often closer than community role models but not part of the nuclear family. > > I mean, my grandfathers and uncles were more formative than my scoutmaster or football coaches. I think they are more and more either unwilling or unable to have sustained relationships with their grandkids. They are more likely to live somewhere else or be too elderly to be able to help much (as people are having children at an older age now.) My grandparents were foundational to my childhood and it’s so weird to me that my kid is growing up without any grandparents nearby. They were functionally my parents. I found out recently that before I started school I only lived with my mother about a third of the time. Blew my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/136 "2025-09-29T16:54:15Z")
So nobody here has ever been working class? “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” is as tr tue today as it was when Thomas Hobbs coined the phrase. (Although Hobbes never knew the angst of turning the ignition of a car that may or may not start, to get to a job that he’d lose if it didn’t) ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/137 "2025-09-29T16:58:59Z")
My demographic history is complicated, but I grew up more or less working class, I legally emancipated at age 17 and supported myself while living with my Aunt, who was at the time extremely poor. It’s a different kind of experience though because I had the means to exit that situation through academic success, so I was never looking at a lifetime of poverty the way many people do. But I started college with nothing. The economy in 2001, when I started college, was radically different than it is now. And no I can’t imagine living through that now. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/138 "2025-09-29T16:59:33Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > here’s an article in the NYT from about six weeks ago. I can’t read that without creating an account. All I can see, from either link, is a few lines about this having been also considered a problem around the beginning of the 20th century. Want to quote the short bit? > [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > So nobody here has ever been working class? I didn’t start off that way, but I’ve been various degrees of poor, and working physical labor jobs, most of my life. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/139 "2025-09-29T17:00:48Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > So nobody here has ever been working class? “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” is as tr tue today as it was when Thomas Hobbs coined the phrase. (Although Hobbes never knew the angst of turning the ignition of a car that may or may not start, to get to a job that he’d lose if it didn’t) It depends on what you mean by working class. When I was doing my family medicine residency I was on salary. I did calculate it out, and my hourly wage, had I been an hourly employee, would have been around $7.50 per hour. Of course I also knew that would only be the case for 3 years (which were during Bush Jr.’s second term if that matters any), and the hospital did provide free food at the doctor’s lounge, so that was one expense I didn’t have to worry about. Before that, when I was in college and medical school, I lived off student loans. During that time, in college and medical school, I lived in either dorms or a fraternity house, so some expenses were shared. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440/140 "2025-09-29T17:02:09Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > men and women are probably responding differently to said crisis. _Both_ are increasingly responding with despair and suicide. And [drug overdose](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2810204) deaths. Back to anger. The different responses to expressions of anger is a male privilege. I am a 66 year old probably not even 5’5” anymore literal grey beard and a slight tone of anger gets me attention. A woman less so. And I am not sure it is all learned, or if so it goes very young. Little girls are angry with social finesse, hold grudges, exclude. As a little boy I got into a physical fight, then we each said to each other “you fight good” and became best friends. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-male-inequality-problem/1023440.md?page=8)