Men Complaining About Women Complaining About Men

A History of Misery Not Always Shared

The Misery History Show allows every individual and group to explain how THEY are underappreciated, overabused, and deserving of special accommodation.

The producers of the show want everyone to know a critical thing:

You are right. You have been taken advantage of. Go ahead and be unhappy.

Today’s episode begins with stories posted by Katie Jgln.

Each describes a way in which women face a hurtful double standard in modern life. They are quite true (going topless, looking the part, cleaning is woman’s work, permanent birth control). Thankfully, some of these (taking a husband’s name) are less common than in the past. As always with Katie Jgln, they have been exquisitely written.

It was wonderful when others joined in to sympathize with these and volunteer more. Excellent! Some great posts all around that we thoroughly support.

We do, however, want to discourage a type of posting we are seeing more and more of:

My Big Fat Misery Cancels Yours

We moved that show to late night re-runs last year. Even though it drew a solid audience, the episodes weren’t very productive nor desirable for our advertisers.

Examples of less-helpful episodes include

• Women don’t understand how lucky they are!
• Statistics show that Western society is much harder on men than women.
• Men have weaker parental rights than women.
• Men work more dangerous jobs for more hours than women.
• Only men are sent to die in war. (always a crowd favorite)

These statements all express some truth.

• Life is not easy for men.
• Young men are succeeding less often in high school than young women.
• Young men make up a smaller percentage in post-high-school education.
• Young men are confronted and killed by the police far more often than young women.
• Young men are presenting with more psychological issues than young women. (a new phenomena)

It is fine, absolutely fine to bring up these issues. They are real. Please, let’s have an episode on each of them in the coming months, but let’s deliver them in a more helpful manner.

Not as ways to push women back down.

The producers of the Misery History Show ask you to bring them up as problems that need to be addressed. Not as ways to push women back down.

These real issues were not primarily caused by women or the granting of women “equal rights.” Even in the most recent century — when women started gaining more rights — it is men who have continued to lead society and the largest organizations in society.

It is hard to know how to think about some of the women who have won leading roles recently. Margaret Thatcher, Great Britain’s first female Prime Minister, was dubbed a “surrogate man…twice as brutal…twice as savage.” Were her actions really just what she had learned from “brutal” men? Or is that sniping?

Women haven’t led the churches and the judiciaries that tacitly declared child-rearing primarily women’s work. They haven’t served as American president while economic and social forces encouraged monopolies and rewarded wage reductions. Women have largely not been the CEO’s that created and adopted technology that has automated jobs out of existence.

We must work to understand the facts. Facts are as important to each episode as your feelings.

The Men’s Movement often asserts that only men die in war. The truth is that women began flying combat mission in the 1990’s. Women could engage in all combat positions by 2015. 2% of US service members killed as part of America’s Iraq and Afghan occupations were women. Yes, it’s a small percentage, but the number of American women dead in war will grow.

Equality has its downsides, as you know.

Rest assured that the Misery History Show believes that conditions for many men in America are awful. Just awful. And we should address them.

These facts, however, do not hide the reality that women have faced a long history in world culture of being second-class citizens. A history of hardly being considered citizens at all.

Many of us grew up hearing the saying, “A man’s home is his castle.”

There is no similar phrase for women for good reason. Women didn’t own the castle very often. Cleopatra, Catherine the Great, and Queen Elizabeth are celebrated because they are rare…in addition to being amazing in other ways.

In 1974, Congress felt compelled to pass the Equal Credit Opportunity Act — because there was still so much bias in the financial industry.

It removed the common requirement that single women needed a male co-signer to acquire a loan, someone who would take full responsibility in case the woman was not able to repay the loan. Effectively, women could not buy a house without cash.

A male co-signer? In 1974?

My goodness.

We are fortunate that the times are changing.

For all of us.

Signed, The Producers of the Misery History Show

Please note: Small corrections have been made to improve the accuracy of this story. Many thanks to Valery Ivy, Stephen Bond, and Tessa Schlesinger for their contributions to the conversation.

If you got something out of this story, claps are deeply appreciated!

J. Andrew Shelley distills work and life into stories offering small insights. He has spent years in startups that did nice stuff. Some failing. Some selling. But the real richness he has achieved has been in the experience and the people.

Please subscribe to read his stories. Bettering the future TOGETHER is his goal. Please join in for the conversation.

Also check out his book American Butterfly. It tells the story of America’s Culture War through the lens of a Southern family suffering great loss.