In the long fight for women’s rights, we sometimes forget that there can be collateral damage. As we work to bring them up, we have to make sure we aren’t accidentally dragging men down.

10 Career Choices

While men don’t face the same problems in the workplace as women, they do battle against stereotypes that society has placed upon them. Certain careers, like being a nurse or nanny, are considered reserved for women. The inherent comedy of a male nurse was even a recurring gag in the film Meet the Parents.

9 Better Employment Opportunities

Men are recovering from the recession more quickly than women. One study revealed that men gained 768,000 jobs after the recession, while women actually lost 218,000 jobs.

But is this really a case of gender inequality? Are women getting beaten out of jobs simply because of their gender? Although that’s plausible in some situations, this particular study says more in what it doesn’t say: it fails to account for the women that turned to other sources of employment. For example, after the recession women were starting more of their own businesses than men. Could that account for the difference?

8 Lack Of Intelligence

Countless cartoons and sitcoms portray the father figure as being constantly outwitted by the mother. The father makes stupid mistakes, says stupid things that get him into trouble, is incapable of handling everyday household chores, and is sometimes forbidden from entering the kitchen. But he can fix things and he brings home a paycheck—because that’s what really counts, right?

No, it is not fair that men are far more likely to be depicted as lacking intelligence than women. This is yet another example of how we discriminate against the male gender.

7 Acts Of Kindness

Do women expect too much? It’s not unfair to want men to treat women nicely. Opening doors, offering to pay for dinner, and general acts of kindness are expected. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be treated well—unless it’s an act of selfishness.

For the women with male partners that are reading, when is the last time you held the door open for your mate? Opened his car door? Paid for a meal or done something kind for him without expecting anything in return? It’s important to give respect to get respect. Women want their men to treat them like queens and have a tendency to bash or insult them when they don’t do it. But how often do we treat men like kings?

6 Lack Of Emotion

How often have we heard the term “real men don’t cry“? We expect men to be tough and hide their emotions. Men are supposed to shake things off and move on, not turn into emotional beings.

The truth is, real men do cry. Every man has emotions. Why should it be unacceptable for a man to show weakness?

5 Deadbeat Dads

One of the media’s favorite punching bags is the deadbeat dad who tries to evade child support, doesn’t spend time with his kids, or generally tries to avoid any form of parental responsibility. This is unfair because it doesn’t apply to all of the single fathers out there. In fact, there are many deadbeat mothers who have abandoned their children in every way possible, including financially and emotionally, leaving the father to play both parenting roles for their children.

Fathers aren’t incapable of caring for their offspring. They aren’t all deadbeat parents that would rather hang out at the local bar than give their children the time, love, and affection that they deserve. When it comes to single parenting, why do we often praise the mothers for their hard work, but demean the fathers?

4 Lack Of Trust

Men aren’t just kept out of the childcare and nursing industry because of the jokes—there’s also the lack of trust. People will often assume that a man who wants to spend time caring for children has dark ulterior motives.

For example, teenage girls are commonly hired to babysit and nobody gives it a second thought because it’s in their nature to be a parent, but we never assume the same for teenage boys. They’re forced to go get adult jobs.

3 Sexual Assault

Sexual assault is a difficult and painful topic, and nothing here is meant to suggest that there is any excuse for rape. No matter what a woman says, wears, or does, she never deserves that kind of assault. No one does.

But it is also important to remember that men are victims of rape as well, and though such incidents are no less heinous, we as a society are taught to ignore it or even find it funny. One of the most offensive examples comes at the end of 40 Days and 40 Nights when Josh Hartnett’s character is raped by his ex-girlfriend. Not only does his new love interest believe him to be responsible, but the audience is expected to find her position understandable or even sympathetic.

Ignoring even one victim of rape is unacceptable because it weakens our resolve against this horrible, and tragically common, crime.

2 Violence

Males are considered more violent than females. We expect them to physically express anger because an inability to control emotions is considered part of their inherent nature.

But what about females? We almost never hear reports of men being attacked, injured, or abused by females, even though it does happen. Do we consider those males weak if they do report such incidents? Do we not trust their stories of abuse?

1 All Boys Have Cooties

Parents have a tendency to tell their daughters to stay away from boys because they’re icky, mean, and have cooties. The intentions aren’t bad, because we all want to protect our children and keep them young and innocent for as long as we possibly can. But when we start drilling into their heads as early as possible that boys are bad news, what kind of lessons are we teaching them?

Instead of encouraging our daughters to keep their distances from boys, shouldn’t we tell them to play together? That would likely help to teach both genders to respect one another. Telling our daughters how disgusting boys are encourages resent and disrespect. Shouldn’t we, as a society, teach our children that discriminating against either gender is a bad thing?


Source: http://listverse.com/2013/08/02/10-ways-we-discriminate-against-the-male-gender/