The other gender divide: where men are losing out | guardian.co.uk

The feminist movement is working to tackle misogyny and its many harmful consequences, but should it address misandry, the male equivalent, too? Photograph: Tim Wimborne/Reuters

It's difficult to deny that women suffer more than men as a result of their gender, and highlighting the myriad ways in which this happens is one of the cornerstones of modern feminism – which is currently enjoying a revival in the UK and elsewhere.

But justice isn't a relative concept. If it were, we could suggest we should care less about racism against black people just because Asian people in this country are more likely to be victims of racially-motivated hate crime.

Obviously that's nonsense. But so might be ignoring issues that affect men more severely than women just because women, overall, have it worse.

Delving into the data reveals a surprising array of areas in which men might have the hardest time. Here's six worth thinking about:

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Judith Grossman: A Mother, a Feminist, Aghast - WSJ.com

By JUDITH E. GROSSMAN

I am a feminist. I have marched at the barricades, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and knocked on many a door in support of progressive candidates committed to women's rights. Until a month ago, I would have expressed unqualified support for Title IX and for the Violence Against Women Act.

But that was before my son, a senior at a small liberal-arts college in New England, was charged—by an ex-girlfriend—with alleged acts of "nonconsensual sex" that supposedly occurred during the course of their relationship a few years earlier.

What followed was a nightmare—a fall through Alice's looking-glass into a world that I could not possibly have believed existed, least of all behind the ivy-covered walls thought to protect an ostensible dedication to enlightenment and intellectual betterment.

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Book review of "Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination " by Edward Kruk

This book is, in a word, courageous, in one sense in particular: it exposes how ideologies, “isms” based on an assumed superiority in which one group feels entitled to power over another, have no place in the quest for social justice, equality among human beings, because a state of inequality is inherently undermining of human well being. The example presented by Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young of McGill University, in their book Legalizing Misandry, is that of ideological feminism. This is the second book in their trilogy, Spreading Misandry being the first and Transcending Misandry the forthcoming concluding volume.

Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men, despite its breadth, may have only skimmed the surface of the topic of institutionalized hatred against men in North American society, a “top-down” phenomenon with ideological third wave feminism as its source. Yet the book brings the full range of the current anti-male discourse in US and Canadian academic and legal circles into the spotlight, examining, among other issues, sexual abuse, violence against women, workplace harassment, child custody, prostitution and pornography, and human rights as entitlements.

From New Male Studies: An International Journal - Vol. 2, Issue 1, 2013, pp. 82-84.

Download full review.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency once again 'finds' wage discrimination without evidence

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) has once again appeared to 'find' wage discrimination without supporting evidence. We have covered this issue previously here.

Thankfully this time around Graduate Careers Australia, the research body that each year compiles statistics on the starting salaries of university graduates, has spoken up about the distortion of its research by the WGEA (see SMH story below).

The myth that women are paid less than men for the same work is so entrenched in our culture that we regularly have to challenge media reports that promote it.

A recent example is Stephanie Peatling's article titled "Equality? The 64-day question" in the Sun Herald on September 2nd 2012. In this article she incorrectly claimed that, "On average, men earn 17.5 per cent more than women in comparable jobs."

After a letter to the editor went unpublished we complained to the Australian Press Council which resulted in a prominent correction (page 2) being published in the October 28th edition of the paper and on the Sun Herald website.

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Men are crying out for equality too, especially in parenting

We were on the tram, me and two little boys. It was a Saturday evening in June and the three of us were returning from a football match.

One child was my son, now seven years old, the other his schoolfriend.

Two matronly women noticed the three of us and clicked their tongues approvingly. "You're a good dad," one said with a friendly smile, "taking two kids to the footy all by yourself."

It felt good to get affirmation from strangers about my ability to take small children into public places and have them come out the other side alive. But pride at the public acknowledgement didn't last long: what if I was a woman? I could have five kids on the tram and no one would bat an eyelid.

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