Comment by bArray | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bArray | Hacker News Reader

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Reading this makes me sad and bitter. You have groups of activists such as feminists that claim to be for equality of all (scope creep), but yet they are silent on important subjects such as this. Don't be convinced that feminism simply doesn't care about men's rights, they sometimes actively work against them [1]. To suggest that men may experience oppression weakens their perceived oppression, therefore it's in their interest to fight against it.

It's no surprise that men are outnumbered in higher education too. There is always talk of increasing the number of women in STEM fields, but never any talk of increasing the number of men in the arts, English or the -ologys.

Don't get me wrong, I am very happy to see equal opportunity. I am glad to see the riddance of "toxic" environments that discourage people from fulfilling their objectives based on arbitrary characteristics. But I also look at the future young men of today with genuine concern.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_X4DkwA_Q

Also, to modern feminism equality doesn't mean treating everyone the same but rather to give advantages to what they consider "historically oppressed minorities".

I think the idea is simply to give resources to those based on what they need rather than to give to everyone equally. It costs more to educate a kid from a poor/disadvantaged background.

It doesn't really make sense to "treat everyone the same", since different people have different needs. Not everyone needs a wheelchair, but some people do, for example.

So women need a wheelchair but not men? Doesn't seem like sex/gender is a good criteria here. Socioeconomic background would be far more applicable.

> So women need a wheelchair but not men?

That's a strange thing to pull out of my mouth, given what I said. If you're trying to say that gender shouldn't be a factor in determining a person's needs, then you're obviously wrong. Cis men don't need access to feminine hygiene products, for example.

You'd obviously want to take into account as many factors as possible when trying to work out a person's needs relative to someone else's. Socioeconomic background is a good start, but obviously doesn't capture all of the relevant variables. A trans person can come from a middle-class background, but be at a higher risk of bullying than the other middle-class children at a high school, for example.

That sounds reasonable but you don't see mainstream feminism even acknowledge men being disadvantaged against women in certain contexts (family courts, homelessness, etc) and if they do they just blame men for it and continue to advocate for women and minorities only.

> There is always talk of increasing the number of women in STEM fields, but never any talk of increasing the number of men in the arts

On this particular point, I think it's because STEM-like fields are quite economically useful compared to the arts. On average, it would probably "hurt" men (in financial/power terms) to encourage more of them to go into the arts.

I don't argue against STEM fields typically yielding higher paid careers. But there is more to consider than finances: For example I think mental health is a major issue (suicide, prison, depression, etc). I don't see encouraging men into other fields where they learn to express themselves as a detractor. Putting more men into the arts for example doesn't mean less men in STEM fields.

A lot of the male prison population usually have mental illness, sexual assault histories, were raised by a single parent (often the mother) or more generally a broken home. It's not ideal, but if we encouraged more male teachers into the early education system, perhaps young boys would have a good male role model to look up to.

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