If youve spent any amount of time discussingpolitics with just about anyone, youve likely come across the argument known as aWhataboutism. Even if youve never heard of the term, you know what it is. Usuallyit has very little to do with the original topic and just aims to derail the conversation.Oh, you want to fill that pothole? Well what about fixing the sidewalks on my street? Oh,so you care about [terrible tragedy]? Well I didnt see you complaining during [otherunrelated terrible tragedy]. Youve heard these arguments before and theyre somewhateasy to spot.But what do you do when the counterargument seems to directly contradictwhatever it is youre advocating for Oh, so you made a video about Feminism? Well,what about Mens Rights? This video was brought to you by CuriosityStream.Men and women are biologically and psychologically different. I dont know any serious personwho disputes that. And while you cant say that men or women are better overall, youcan say that when it comes to specific categories, on average. Like upper body strength, paintolerance, or color perception. Because of those inherent differences, men and womenhave taken on different roles in our society. These societal gender roles have made menand women culturally different as well. Much like the biological and psychological differences,you cant say that men or women are culturally better overall. But again, you can say itwhen it comes to specific categories.Over the last century, women have been tryingto break out of those traditional gender roles with a good deal of success. They arentquite there yet, but I already made a video about that. Instead, this video is about men,whove been watching women successfully getting out of their roles and saying hey,we want out of our traditional gender roles too.These men are typically known as Mens Rights Activists, or MRAs, theyre part of thebroader Manosphere and theyve become pretty popular in recent decades for reasons wellget to later.A few years ago, they released a documentary called The Red Pill. Named afterthe red pill in the Matrix, which makes you wake up and see the horrible reality of theworld, as opposed to the blue pill, which is feminism in this case. If you go to thedoctor and ask for the blue pill, youre going to get something very different. Inthe movie, they say that one of the defining characteristics of mens role in societyis the concept of Male Disposability. Every society that survived, survived basedon its ability to trade its sons to be disposable. Disposable in war as warriors, disposablein work as firefighters, as workers on oil rigs and so on, coal miners.Male Disposability is the idea that men are seen as less valuable and therefore disposablefor the betterment or preservation of society.Which is why men account for most deaths inthe workplace. The film makes it a point to mention how manypeople died on the job and what percentage of those deaths were men. In 2017, it actuallyincreased to 5147 workplace fatalities, 92.5% of which were men. Just to put that into perspective,thats more casualties than the entire Iraq War, all seven years, put together everyyear. So, this is a genuine problem worth talking about.The most dangerous profession when it comes to how many deaths there are per worker isfishermen. If you ever watched Deadliest Catch, youd know that. But the most dangerousjob, when it comes to absolute numbers, is truck driver with almost a thousand deathsin 2017 more than the next ten professions combined. Why arent these the jobs we talkabout when discussing Male Disposability? The Red Pill mentioned coal miners, oil drillers,and firefighters even the watch commercial responding to Gillette uses firefighters whenquoting the same statistic.Only 35 firefighters died on the job in 2017, dont get me wrong,I wish it was zero, but these arent the guys dying by the hundreds these are.Why arent truck drivers the face of Male Disposability? Because they arent heroic,even when discussing the plight of men dying in the workforce, we want to be seen as hypermasculineand heroic. Theres nothing heroic about this. Truck drivers are seen as some of thelowest people in society because you know those Gatorade bottles you see thrown outon the side of the highway? Yeah, those arent filled with Gatorade. Disgusting!So instead, they go with firefighter, which I find interesting, because that professionin particular is one that women have been trying to get into for decades. But have beenkept out of for reasons. Probably because we all imagine women as these little 90-poundfrail objects but If Zarya wants to be a firefighter, I say let her.But were the ones dying and we die for you guys.You dont get to say that were the ones dying and were doing it for you in jobsyou want but you cant have because theyre ours.Women want those dangerous jobs. Andas long as they are kept out of them, we as men dont get to complain that were stuckwith them. Take the military, for example. Women havealways been in the US military in a support role nurses, administration, that sortof stuff. But theyve been begging to be in combat for decades. The Secretary of Defensefinally opened up combat roles to women in 2013, and they started filling them in 2016.Much to the chagrin of male politicians. So whenever youre shown these statistics,keep in mind that women werent allowed in combat during any of these conflicts despitewanting to be. Whenever we talk about the military in the scope of mens rights, weinevitably end up talking about the draft. Officially known as the Selective ServiceSystem. Every male in the United States is required to register for Selective Servicebetween the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, not doing so is a federal crime that willhaunt you forever. Luckily, you may have done so without remembering. I filled out a cardat the post office, I remember it being a big deal, but you might have done it by justchecking a box on your FAFSA the form you fill out when requesting financial aidfor college.Or, if you have a drivers license in any of the yellow states you wereautomatically registered. The draft is somewhat of a non-argument forseveral reasons, the most obvious is that it really hasnt affected you. You had tofill out a form or check a box once. We havent used the draft since 1973, weve been anall-volunteer force since then, meaning that it hasnt affected anyone born after 1956.If youre not collecting Social Security, the draft isnt something youve everhad to worry about. And the draft is so historically unpopular that it would take Red Dawn happeningfor us to ever use it again, and I have a feeling that if that were to happen, wedsuddenly be okay with the draft. But you know, it still might, some day.Men feel that this is unfair, since they have to sign up for the draft and women dont.But actually, thats about to change.One of the main arguments against women beingpart of the draft was that they werent allowed in combat, since that changed in 2016,Congress set up a commission to re-evaluate the Selective Service System. Whether thatmeans including women or abolishing it entirely. There was also a recent court case that ruledthat an all-male draft is unconstitutional on the basis of that 2016 combat role change.But since Congress was already set up a commission, that decision didnt carry much weight.But there are a number of other ways that men are disadvantaged that Mens RightsActivists often cite. Some more legitimate than others.Men are dropping out of higher education at very alarming rates. Were down to 38% now,of college students are men, and its dropping rapidly.It was actually 43.3% in 2017 and isnt dropping rapidly, in fact, its been increasingsince 2005 and is projected to stay the same for the next ten years.Women first becamethe majority of college students in 1979. But he is right that theres a differencein college graduation rates, among women who start a bachelors degree program, 62.1%of them actually finish, while only 56.1% of men do. Its not that big of a difference,but still a difference. Youll also hear that boys drop out of highschool 30 or 40% more than girls. Which is true, but thats relative to girls. In 2016,the nation-wide high school dropout rate was 7.1% for boys and 5.1% for girls, which areactually near-historic lows. In 1979, it was 15% and 14.2%, so, trending down. But a 2%difference doesnt really sound like much of a crisis, so, seven is 140% of five, whichgives us a 40% relative difference.You see this relative risk trick all over the place.There is a small difference, but Im not sure I would say something as dramatic asboys are languishing academically while girls are prospering.Boys are languishing academically while girls are prospering.While men are slightly behind in the education system, theyre well ahead when it comesto prison system. Men are sentenced to 63% more prison timefor the same crime as women. Thats actually true and pretty much indisputable.Of all men in America, one in nine have, are, or will eventually spend time in prison. Amongwomen, its only one in fifty-six. This might lead you to believe that men commitcrimes more often than women which is statistically true.But even when a woman is convicted,her punishment is far more lenient. They are twice as likely to receive no jail time thana man, and if they do, say theyre sentenced to ten years, a man convicted of the samecrime will get sixteen years. And if hes a black man, hell get twenty. Criminaljustice reform, and especially prison reform, is something Ive been pushing for for along time and Ive never really considered it a male issue, its usually a race issue.But I can see why they include it in the list.Other indisputable statistics that MRAs oftencite when discussing the difference between men and women have to do with healthcare outcomes.On average, women live seven years longer than men. We spend more on female healthcare,mostly because they just happen to go to the doctor more often. Women have more regularhealthcare needs. Breast cancer and prostate cancer kill people at similar rates, but breastcancer gets a lot more funding, which mostly comes down to marketing. If prostate cancerhad something similar to a pink ribbon or a yellow wristband, Im sure that couldchange. Prostate cancer actually has a ribbon but you probably didnt know that. Menarent encouraged to go to the doctor regularly like women, even when theyre sick or injured,theyre told to suck it up or rub some dirt on it.Which leads to worsening physical andmental health problems Four of five suicides are men.That was true when he said it, but its actually closer to 3 out of 4 now, becausefemale suicide has been increasing. Strangely enough, women attempt suicide more often thanmen. For every three men that commit suicide, five women attempt. And only one succeeds.Men successfully commit suicide more than women because men choose more violent methodslike jumping off of things or guns. Firearms account for just over half of all suicides.Women tend to choose less violent methods like drug overdoses or cutting, which havea very low probability of success.This is a valid issue, because as I said, men arefar less likely to seek help. We live in a society that looks down on men who ask forhelp, so maintaining that pride drives men to things like suicide, drug and alcohol addiction,and homelessness. Is a man disposable? Is a man broken?I like this one because theyre putting their thumb on the scale a bit single homeless.So if youre married and homeless or have a child and homeless, you dont count. Intruth, men are 60.2% of all homeless people In homeless shelters, 55.4% are men, whichis actually pretty even but when it comes to actually living out on the street, 70.3%are men.Again, men dont like asking for help. And now that Ive mentioned shelters,Im going to have to talk about domestic violenceAs of 2016, theres only a single domestic violence shelter for men. My initial reactionwas that there needed to be thousands more womens shelters because that many morewomen are being battered. But as it turns out, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men will be victimsof physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.If youre alarm bells and red flags arent going off, they should be.That statisticis true; however, the definition of physical violence in that survey includes literallyany form of physical violence. From pushing, to slapping, to throwing something at you.From the infographic attached to that same source, women are far more likely to be afraid,far more likely to be concerned for their safety, and far more likely to develop PTSD.Why is that, if just as many men are victims? Because when we look at physical violencethat actually results in injury, its one in seven women and one in twenty-five men.This is from her 2010 source, link below. For every man that needed to go to a hospitalas a result of domestic violence, five women did, for every man that needed housing servicesin order to get away from domestic violence, six women did.The Red Pill tries to portraythis as some both sides in equal numbers issue, but it just isnt.Domestic violence shelters were first set up in the 60s and 70s, when many women didnthave access to a job or money. They had no resources and nowhere to go if they were indanger. Men, on the other hand, could go to a hotel, or a friends house, or even abar if they needed to get away. Not the healthiest options, but still options. But now, thereare domestic violence shelters all over the country which provide a place for women andmen to go. Thats right, I said and men. The domestic violence shelter she says isthe only one for men is not the only one for men. Its just the only one that servesonly men. According to her source, nearly half a million male victims used housing servicesas a result of intimate partner violence where did they all go? Some domestic violence sheltersare for women only, but almost every domestic violence shelter will help male victims eitherby housing them directly or by putting them in a hotel, free of charge.There absolutelyshould be more domestic violence shelters for men but framing it as if theresonly one is a lie. The Red Pill is about understanding that menand women, like everything else in life is a mixed bag, youve got victims and perpetratorson both sides of the fence. Thats true, but its not even close tobeing 50-50. While were on the subject of men being the victims of violence, mencan also be the victims of rape. In fact, men can be raped by women. And we should callit rape, not an affair, when it happens. MRAs and The Red Pill again try to portray thisas a both sides are victims in equal numbers issue, when it isnt. Not even close. Fromthe same source she got her one in four men physical violence statistic, one in five womenwill be raped in their lifetime, while one in seventy-one men will. For every male victim,there are fourteen female victims. Thats an order of magnitude difference and accountsfor female on male and male on male sexual violence.But really, when men are concerned about rape, their biggest concern is being falsely accused.Many in the Manosphere believe that 40 or 50% of all rape allegations are false andthat women are lying.And they get that number from one discredited study.When a woman reports a rape, sometimes there isnt enough information or evidence toprosecute, sometimes the woman changes her mind about pressing charges, and sometimesthe guy is found not guilty. All of those added up is where they got that number. Ifyou go to the police to report that your bike was stolen, and they dont find enough evidenceto pursue it that doesnt change the fact that your bike was stolen. That is nota false allegation. Numerous studies have been done on this and all of them have foundthat false rape allegations occur between 2 and 10% of the time, with the largest studyfinding 6.8%. Meaning the woman is only making it up 6.8% of the time. Believe it or not,but thats actually pretty consistent with the false allegation rate for just about everycrime.Including bicycle theft. In fact, parsing out the numbers, as a man, you are more likelyto be the victim of a rape than you are to be falsely accused of a rape. It does happenand its awful, but its also very, very rare.Men often feel like they have no choice when it comes to conceiving a child. Once the womanis pregnant, all decisions are left to her. Which makes sense on multiple levels, biologicallyand evolutionarily she has to invest much more and has much more to lose.But it alsomakes legal sense. Its scary to think that a womans reproductive choices would beat the mercy of a man, whether he wants the child or not. Which is why the Supreme Courtsaid that shouldnt be the case. You know what would solve a lot of these issues andlevel the reproductive playing field? If men had access to a birth control pill. Thatswhat started second wave Feminism, after all. But paternity traps and even false allegationsand domestic violence really only seem to come up during particularly messy divorces.There is no question that the family court system is biased against men.The divorcerate in the United States rose sharply during the 70s and 80s, but has been holding at 40-50%for the last few decades. Half of all marriages end in divorce, whether its your firstor third. Dividing assets during a divorce is a messyprocess, anything you earned or bought while you were together is technically both of yours,so things get divided 50-50. Which is usually a raw deal for the man, who was the primarybreadwinner. But thats historically, in the decades since the womens liberationmovement, women have become the primary breadwinner in 40% of households. So dividing assets isbecoming more equitable but alimony and custody, still favor women.Alimony, or spousal support, was an idea from back in the day when womens only job wasto be a housewife. After a divorce, theyd go onto the job market for the first timeever with no marketable skills. So if you wanted to divorce a woman, you had to financiallyhelp her until she could get a job.But now that women are more independent, youd thinkthat alimony would be phased out or at least, very rare. And compared to forty years ago,it is. Women are only awarded alimony in 10% of divorces today strangely enough, men areawarded alimony 3% of the time. Spousal support is based on who gets paid more, and typically,men still get paid more. But men often get the short end of the stickduring a divorce when it comes to child custody. Unlike dividing monetary assets, dividingchildren is somewhat more difficult. These numbers were accurate for the time,the more recent numbers are 80.4% for women and 19.6% for men. However, they are missingvital context. In 1986, women were given sole custody 80% of the time, by 1994 it had droppedto 74%. In 2008, women only got sole custody 42% of the time. So why does that census numberstill say 80-something percent? Because you have legal custody of a child until theyretwenty in some states depending on if theyre still in school If you got custodyin 1994, you could still have custody for the purposes of those 2015 numbers.So yes,currently, 80% of custodial parents are mothers, but the family court system and social normshave changed and its going to take a decade or two for the census numbers to reflect that.Joint custody is actually the norm now. 27% of the time custody is split 50-50 betweenmother and father and 18% of the time its some uneven balance. Sole custody going tothe father has remained pretty much unchanged since the 80s. But heres the kicker, thething the Red Pill never mentions: 91% of custody decisions are made without involvingthe family court system at all. And 51% of the time, the father just lets the motherhave custody. The family court system truly is biased againstmen, I mean theres just no question about it.Theres no doubt that there have been some men who get screwed by court decisions andcustody cases. The unfairness in the family courts, the unfairnessin the way child support is so often structured. Remember, only 9% of cases go to family court.But child support is a rather contentious issue and is often cited as one of the mainways men are disadvantaged.And it shouldnt surprise you to hear thats been changingtoo. Child support depends on a number of factors including how custody is split andwho makes more money. It is still possible in joint custody situations. But of womenwho have sole custody, 52.3% also get child support, of men its only 31.4%. Since mentend to earn more, that makes sense. Interesting side note, were all familiar with the termdeadbeat dad for a father who is delinquent on child support. 25.4% of men who are supposedto pay child support dont. But among women who are supposed to pay child support,32% of them dont. So deadbeat moms are actually more common as a percentage.It shouldnt surprise you to hear that divorce is the primary recruitment tool for MensRights Activist groups. Many mens rights activists come into beingmens rights activists as a result of getting a divorce wanting to be equally involved withchildren and realizing that women have the right to children and men have to fight forchildren.Again, I think its important to point outthat the vast majority of divorces and custody disputes dont end up in family court, butit is safe to assume that when they do, men tend to lose. So what is the feminist responseto the current state of divorce? You should all know who this is, shes the go-to thumbnailfor anti-feminist youtube, she goes by the name Big Red and she is very loud and obnoxious.But look past the tone in her voice and listen to what shes actually saying.Feminists do not want you to lose custody of your children, the assumption that womenare naturally better caregivers is part of patriarchy!Feminists do not want you to have to make alimony payments.Alimony is set up to combatthe fact that women have been historically expected to prioritize domestic duties overprofessional goals, thus minimizing their earning potential if their traditional marriagesend. Why didnt the MRAs stop her right thenand say hey, we actually agree with you, lets do something about it? I realizethe tone is an issue, but outside of that. None of the things Ive talked about inthis video are actually against feminism, in fact a lot of the time, theyre parallelissues. Why arent MRAs and Feminists working together? You know what would solve a lotof the issues that mens rights groups and feminists are working to solve? An Equal RightsAmendment that makes men and women equal under the law. It was squashed in the 70s becauseanti-feminists wanted to keep divorce and custody unequal and women out of the militaryand the draft. Why arent MRAs pushing for that legislation?The common trope is that MRAs arent actually trying to change anything, they just hatewomen What youll hear is that we hate women.Youll hear that its a backlash against womens rights.Thats somewhat difficult to argue against, since MRAs didnt exist until the 80s, itsclearly a direct response to Feminism.But MRAs are just part of a larger picture knownas the Manosphere. Just as Feminism is not a single monolith that agrees on everything,there are several groups within the Manosphere that dont always get along.First, you have the mens rights activists that care about equality in divorce and maledisposability legitimate issues discussed in this video.But then you have the incels short for involuntarily celibate men who are unsuccessful in their dating livesand blame women and feminism for it. Sometimes violently. Then there are the voluntarilycelibate or Volcels more often called MGTOW for Men Going Their Own Way. Theseare men who dont like women and dont want women. And on the flip side, there arethe pick-up artists, who dont like or respect women, but still very much want them, evento the point of tricking them. There are other factions, some of which areeven creepier, not all MRAs like them being around, but when one of the leaders of themens right movement says stuff like this If men made the rules to benefit men at theexpense of women, here are some of the ways the world- here are some of the ways the worldwould look like. We would make rules that every woman would be sexual with us wheneverwe would like. And that the women who are very young, maybe 13 or 14 would be very interestedin us. Its kind of hard to deny that they areon this list.And I would be remiss if I didnt mention that there is a significant overlapbetween the Manosphere and white nationalist groups. Not every MRA is in the alt-right,but some are. The point is, whenever theres a mens rally, these guys show up tooWhile these guys try to say that they dont hate women they just hate feminism.Feminists arent the only problem, the problems didnt start with feminism. So when I startcriticizing feminism, I want you to know that youre just part of the problem.Its so hard to convince people to look at mens right activism and support it withoutfirst allowing them to at least escape the stranglehold that feminism has on their minds.When mens rights groups bring up the issues that are important to them and present theirinformation, they dont bring up any serious solutions. Instead, they just conclude thattherefore, Feminism is wrong. The Red Pill seems to be more about downplaying and dismissingwomens issues than anything else a way to delegitimize feminism as a whole.Itsan evil ideology that brainwashes people. Are you conflating feminism, which is an ideology,with women, which is a demographic of society? Ideologies and -isms arent inherently bad.Capitalism is an ideology. Mens rights groups appear to be more of a coping mechanismfor men who feel defensive against or even victimized by feminism. If men were lookingfor end-goal solutions, they would see feminists as allies. A big hang up for many in the mensrights movement seems to be the language why is the bad thing patriarchy and the forcefor good feminism? If its about equality, why dont you call it Egalitarianism? Youhave to look past the surface-level language that was developed back when it was objectivelytrue fifty years ago. You might even find that its applicable to mens issues.The fact that men are always suspected of being the aggressors in a rape, that femaleteachers never rape their male students, and prison rape is always a punchline. Thatsall part of Rape Culture.When people automatically think that men are capable, theyre morelikely to listen to and believe you, but when you actually need help, theyre less likelyto offer it because youre supposed to be capable. Thats the downside to Male Privilege.The fact that youre supposed to man up and not be a p**sy, never show emotion andnot cry like a b**ch. Thats Toxic Masculinity. That hypermasculine pride is what leads mento never go to the doctor when they need to, or end up homelessness, or with drug and alcoholaddiction, and eventually suicide. Patriarchy doesnt only oppress women. Not only doesit expect women to be in subservient roles, it expects men to be in dominant ones. Whetheryou want to be or not. It expects you to be the breadwinner of the family and to be willingto sacrifice your life for your country or work in some heroic masculine profession.Like being a firefighter, or coal miner, or a knight in medieval times.Which you canlearn more about by going to curiositystream.com/knowingbetter. CuriosityStream is a subscription streamingservice that offers over 2400 documentaries and nonfiction titles from some of the worldsbest filmmakers that you can access across multiple platforms. Take a look at this seriesabout Knights, so you can play out that male power fantasy of chivalry and honor. A timewhen fair maidens swooned over men and nobody complained about the possibility of beingdrafted into their feudal lords army. You can get access to their entire library foras little as 2.99 a month, but if you head over to curiositystream.com/knowingbetterand use the promo code knowingbetter, you can have the privilege of getting your firstmonth completely free. Youll also be supporting the channel when you do.None of the issues that mens rights groups advocate for contradict feminism.None ofthe points that the watch commercial makes are actually a response to Gillette, insteadits just a list of ways men have it bad. We see the good in men. This all seems tobe one giant Whataboutism. Oh, you want to close the gender pay gap? Well, what aboutmale suicide rates? What about workplace fatalities? What about them? We can work on all of that.Men being the victims of domestic violence is an issue and there should be more fundingfor male shelters. But that doesnt mean we need to take away from womens shelters.This isnt a zero-sum game, we can do both.The conclusion shouldnt be therefore youroriginal point was wrong, it should be therefore, we should work together, because now, youknow better. Id like to give a shout out to my newestGolden Fork patron, Qemmuel (Kem-you-el). If youd like your name added to this listof activists, or shouted out during my Q&A video next month, head on over to patreon.com/knowingbetter.Ill be at Vidcon next month, so be sure to stop by and say hello.Dont forget todispose that subscribe button, check out my merch at knowingbetter.tv, follow me on Twitterand Facebook, and join us on the subreddit..
