Monday 20 October 2014

Evidence Re. Gender Equality and Feminism

Men's rights advocates undertake to resolve issues such as premature death, childlessness, imprisonment, or the enjoyment of fundamental rights, such as voting. In contrast modern feminists are concerned with self-esteem issues. E.g. Campaigns for "banning bossy", increasing the number of women in society's most prestigious positions, etc.





In other words, the issues that concern feminists are less fundamental than the issues that concern men's rights advocates. The following facts evince that.

Women have it better in all but 4 developed countries

  • According to a  rigorous meta-analysis by the Brookings Institute.
  • According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (see image below)




Women enjoy the unconditional right to vote. Men do not. 

Men, but not women, must serve as military combatants in most countries (including developed countries) in order to enjoy the right to vote.

  • List of countries that have instituted mandatory military service. Note that the list does not include countries, such as the United States, that require men to register for the draft. 
  • The United States requires men, but not women, to register in the draft in order to enjoy the right to vote. 


Women have the right to genital integrity. Men do not. 
  • FGM, but not MGM, is banned throughout the west. 
  • Spare me the "but its worse for girls" argument. Anti-FGM laws include even a pin-prick to a female infant's genitalia: a procedure that mutilates the genitals less than male circumcision does. 
Women have reproductive rights. Men do not.
  • Feminists argue that a fetus is a part of a woman's body, and that women enjoy the right to bodily autonomy and so should enjoy the right to chose whether to abort a pregnancy. 
  • Men are not allowed to choose not to be a father to the child.
  • Effectively, the law requires men to finance a woman's unilateral decision to turn an extension of her uterus into a human being. 
Women can give away a child for adoption without the father's consent.
  • This article in the National Post describes the state of law well.
Judges punish women less harshly than they punish men who commit the same crimes.
  • Judges sentence women to serve 60% briefer prison sentences than they sentence men who commit the same crimes to serve.
  • Judges sentence female murderers to death less often than they sentence male murderers to death. 
Women are 350% less likely to be homeless.
  • This statistic is almost universally accepted. The Wikipedia article on homelessness cites it well.
Men are 300% more likely to be the victim of unilateral domestic violence.
Spare me the 'men are bigger so it's more damaging when men do it' argument. 
  • Is battery less blame worthy if a small man beats a large women?
  • Physical damage isn't what makes domestic violence especially terrible. What makes it especially terrible is that the person you love did it to you.
    • Suppose a woman spit in her husbands face every morning to wake him, would you not consider that blameworthy domestic violence?
    • If someone falls down the stairs, do they often need to see a counselor for years after the event? Usually they do not need to do so. If the physical damage were what made domestic violence especially terrible, then many more people would need counselling after a purely physically damaging event (such as falling down the stairs).
Men are awarded alimony in only 3% of cases, even though 37% of female spouses earn more.
  • The US Census Bureau provides the data evincing this statistic.
Before the foregoing statistic leads you to conclude that wage discrimination exists consider that the laws of economics do not permit two things of comparable value to remain unequally priced. If it were the case that women provide the same value to firms as men do and that firms pay women less than men, then entrepreneurial firms would hire women and cut costs, thereby increasing the demand for female employees, thereby increasing their wage. What is that extra value that men provide firms? Men work more hours, and they do more dangerous work.

Men work more hours than women work.
Men work more dangerous jobs
  • A man's chance of dying at work exceeds a woman's chance of dying at work by 1000%.
Women control 70% of consumer spending
Women benefit from extra money men earn by risking their lives at work, and spending more of their life at work.
Men die more frequently, at every age, in every country in the world.
  • The WHO life tables evince this statistic
  • The following graph, published in the Economist, illustrates the rate of death by gender over time.

No matter how you slice it, we spend more on women's health.
Be it per death, per incidence, or per person, we spend more on women's health. Despite the fact that men die more often at every age.
  • This Thyroid Cancer Canada website contains the evincing data.
Women control a 10% greater share of the vote.
  • Men's longer hours prevent them from voting. Note that the voting rates of each gender equalize at 65, the most common age of retirement.
  • Moreover, after 65, men vote more often than women. It stands to reason that they would vote more often if their longer working hours didn't prevent them from doing so. 
  • People vote more often as they mature; however, the male population decreases faster than the female population does, so women control a disproportionate number of votes. That would be true even if we were to assume that each gender votes equally often. 

There are more childless men than there are childless women.
  • According to the US Census Bureau, the courts award mothers custody of their children in 86% of cases.
Boys are required to pay their rape victims child support
  • An often cited precedent requires any male victim of rape to pay child support to his rapist if she impregnates herself while raping him.
This is a partial list. I'll complete it soon.

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