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Comment by FireBeyond | Hacker News Reader

"since men at large are not discriminated against based on their gender"

Some examples at random: percentage of males in teaching professions, and/or daycare?

Breast cancer funding and research versus prostate cancer funding and research, despite the relative frequency of each? Hint - 1:6 men will get prostate cancer, 1:8 women will get breast cancer. But the National Cancer Institute allows for $1,318 worth of research into prostate cancer per new case, and $2,596 for breast cancer (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/cancer-funding-does...)

Just some thoughts...

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That's totally a valid point. I wish more men would speak out against this and, honestly, that it is not used to diminish the equally valid point of sexism in technology.

But we have to understand that in those situations it is not oppression. And that is a key point. Men are not oppressed by society when they are discriminated, because by-and-large, men make more money, have more opportunity, stay within their industries longer, are (perhaps due to last point) promoted more often, tend to be selected with a gender bias to speak about their subjects. Women currently get more college degrees in general today, yet the gender pay gap remains. That's evidence of systemic oppression. That's why we can say men at large are not discriminated against.

Men die earlier.

Go volunteer at a homeless shelter - they must be sexist as they are full mostly of men.

Go to a morgue in a place of heavy industry - mostly men.

Go on a cargo ship, spending weeks at sea in less than comfortable conditions. Oil rig, mine, etc

>Women currently get more college degrees in general today, yet the gender pay gap remains. That's evidence of systemic oppression.

No, that's a correlation of two things.

And if a man's wife has the illegitimate child of another man, even while married to the first man, the first man is financially responsible for the child. Cuckolding blames the male victim.

"Women currently get more college degrees in general today, yet the gender pay gap remains. That's evidence of systemic oppression."

That's just bad maths, sorry. First you have to look at what subjects men and women chose and what average pay is for careers in those subjects. Some people graduate in computer science, other people graduate in "do you want fries with that" liberal arts or whatever.

"percentage of males in teaching professions, and/or daycare?" I agree it isn't fair. But this can be seen as misogyny/sexism backfiring against men. One main reason why men are discriminated against in these professions is that for a long time many societies have considered that women should only care for children and domestic work. These societies have adapted to that, elevating gender roles and hierarchies, and making it hard for people to escape their grip. And although this has mainly been to the disadvantage of women, many men have also suffered from being limited to male jobs/roles etc.

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