Dont. Mancriminate.

This hashtag gave birth to countless supporters,

raised thousands of eyebrows, and sparked many a gender equity
advocates rage when it hit the internet last June. Yet the question is: is
mancrimination, or the discrimination against men, of valid existence
and if so, should it be taken seriously? Yes, discrimination against men
does exist but not in the way the ever so popular, or rather, not so
popular mancrimination portrays it. The way the hashtag
mancrimination has been publicized is that it covers what could have
been an opportunity to talk about legitimate gender issues concerning
men. But what mancrimination did is that it turned this opportunity
for education into a satire of misinformation.
Male rape. Verbal, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Male
stereotypes. These are platforms of discrimination against men,
platforms which mancrimination should have talked about but were
ignored in favor of idiosyncrasies like men not getting free drinks in
bars, men having to give their seats up for women and stupid men
not being able to be blonde. So in order to be progressive, and not
reactive, were going to talk about what mancrimination should have
talked about.
1 in 33 men, according to RAINN, in their lifetime are victims of sexual
abuse. 1. in. 33. In fact, the age when a boy is most prone to sexual
abuse is at the age of 4 years old. While its true that more girls, more
women are victims of sexual abuse, it needs to be appreciated that
boys too, can be victims of sexual abuse. Young boys are raped but
these acts are stigmatized: hidden and unreported, simply because of
gender stereotypes, which plague our society.
According to data from Home Office bulletin, about 40% of domestic
abuse victims are men. But cases of male victims often go unreported
because of machismo, and other denigrations of their masculinity.
Heterosexual men are looked down upon for allowing themselves to
be beat up by a woman. Now, we can so easily blame men for this, for
their macho complex. But in a society where, upon birth, one is already
conditioned to fit a certain gender stereotype and mold, can an
individual really be blamed? Males have so been conditioned by society
to fit into the MACHO mold of being dominant, unbending, and
unemotional. And it is this stereotype, which not only causes men to be
perpetrators of gender issues, but also hinders men from being
accepted to be victims of said gender issues. Society needs to
transform into one, which shows boys that emotion doesn't equate to
weakness, and exerting dominance leads to fear rather than respect.
The discrimination against men for showing emotion or for showing
stereotypically female attributes, is also an effect of discrimination

against women as being the weaker sex. Gender issues are a battle
to be fought not against each but with each other. It is a problem, not
only of feminists nor advocates of male rights, but of society as a
whole.