6 womens to mens

do men need to check their privilege? genderactivists tell us that men carry around with them an invisible knapsack of advantage. well,is this true and is it the whole story? let’s check the facts. coming up next on the factualfeminist. if you are willing to cherry pick, stretchthe truth a bit, and suppress counterevidence, you can easily make it seem like women arethe have-nots in our society. you point to the wage gap, the glass ceiling. you focuson women’s vulnerability to body shaming, sexual objectification, mansplaining, streetharassment, intimate partner violence. before long you will have constructed a full-scalepatriarchy. and we have hundreds of women’s groups who do just that—they specializein persuading us that venus is victimized

and mars is privileged.but here is the problem. women’s advocacy groups tend to exaggerate the plight of venusand ignore the troubles on mars. as i have tried to show in earlier segments of thisseries, most of the standard feminist injustice statistics are exaggerated or just plain wrong.it not true that women are being cheated out of 23 percent of their salaries or that 1in five will be victims of sexual assault. and it’s also the case that, in many criticaldomains, women are faring far better than men.let’s consider a few: in education, it is women who are the privilegedsex. at every level of education—from preschool to graduate school—and across all ethnicand class lines, women get better grades,

win most of the honors and prizes, and arefar more likely to go to college. today, women earn a majority of bas and advanced degrees.our schools do a much better job educating women than men. now look at the workplace. women’s groupsfocus a lot of attention on people at the pinnacle of achievement—ceos of fortune500 corporations, tenured physics professors at mit, u.s. senators—and they are rightto say that there are too few women. but look what happens when you consider the entireworkforce. there may be a tiny handful of women—but the lethal professions are largelya male preserve. as my favorite dissident feminist, camille paglia, has noted: "it isoverwhelmingly men who do the dirty, dangerous

work of building roads, pouring concrete,laying bricks, tarring roofs, hanging electric wires, excavating natural gas and sewage lines,cutting and clearing trees, and bulldozing ..." so it’s no surprise that the bureau of laborstatistics reports that every year about 5,000 americans die each year in workplace accidents—92percent of them men. we hear about the fortune 500 ceos, but what about the unfortunate 4,600?alongside male salaries, perhaps some mention should be made of male sacrifice. whenever perturbed gender warriors draw uplists of male advantages, they always mention men’s freedom from fear of being attacked.it’s true that women are much more likely

to be victims of rape and sexual assault.but men are much more likely to be victims of violent crime as a whole:consider campus crime--men may need safe spaces more than women--according to the bureau ofjustice statistics: men are twice as likely to be victims of a violent crime on campus.look at the overall murder: of 12,253 murder victims in 2013, 78 percent were men.even on the internet, men face as much or more bullying than women. according to pewresearch, more women than men are sexually harassed (7% women and 4% men), but men arethe primary targets of threats (10% men compared to 6% of women).let's continue: here are more facts that challenge the male privilege mantra:suicide: 77.9% were male, 22.1% female .

incarceration: 93.3% of federal inmates aremale and even when men and women commit the same crime and have similar criminal histories,men receive 63 percent longer prison sentences on average.homelessness: it’s estimated that more than 60% of homeless individuals are male.combat: 85 percent of active duty soldiers are men. though there are many women servingin the armed services, fewer than 8 percent profess a desire to engage in combat. if youvisit a veteran’s hospital or rehabilitation center, male privilege is not the first ideathat comes to mind. and now for the mother of all gender gaps—lifeexpectancy : women’s average life expectancy is nearly 5 years longer than men.in sum: men must be the only oppressor class

in history who are less educated, more victimized,and shorter lived than those they oppress—and who have claimed society’s gritty, dangerousjobs their exclusive preserve. the factual feminists verdict: modern lifeis a complicated mix of burdens and benefits for each sex. men and women enjoy distinctiveadvantages and face distinctive challenges. so if men have to check their privilege, thenso do women. but why play this game? why do so many activistswant to promote gender resentment? men and women are not two opposing teams competingfor some trophy. we are in this together. our fates are intimately connected. as onewit has observed, “nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. there’s too muchfraternizing with the enemy.”

my advice: let’s dispense with the bitterrhetoric about male privilege and get on with the fraternizing ... and sororitizing. do you think one sex is more privileged thanthe other? or do you agree that it’s a complicated mix? let me know in the comments section below.i invite you to subscribe to this series, follow me on twitter, and like me on facebook.and remember—before telling a man to check his privilege, check your facts. thank youfor watching the factual feminist.