How Meninists Sound When Talking "Male Oppression"

It doesn't take a lot of penetrating insight to recognize that the Meninist Movement — a movement to fight against the "oppression" of men in our society — isn't actually something the world needs. But to further underscore that point, we have a new satirical meninist video "Men Can Do Better" from PR firm Take It From Us. In it, men gravely inform us about the horrible state that American men find themselves in today, such as the fact that only 93 percent of Hollywood directors are men. Only 93 percent, guys!

The idea that men are somehow oppressed as a gender is pretty laughable. It is true that under patriarchy, men do face certain problems, but they are all traceable back to a system whose main purpose is to oppress women. For instance, men's rights activists frequently point out that fathers are disadvantaged when seeking to get custody of their children, which is true — because our patriarchal system believes that caring for children is a woman's job. In some instances that belief can harm individual men, but as a whole, it is meant to oppress women — and still does in any number of ways.

But while things like custody battles or stigmas against "girly" things or men being conditioned not to deal with their emotions are all very much important and very much deserve to be dismantled along with all other aspects of patriarchy, the full scale of women's political, social, and economic inequality goes way beyond such things.

Which is why it's great to have someone pointing out exactly how great men still have in our society — and why it makes no sense for them to be claiming oppression. So if there are any meninists out there reading this now, just know that this is exactly how ridiculous you sound like when you talk about men being oppressed.

Here are just a few points the video brings up:

476 Fortune 500 CEOs Are Men

It used to be all of them, and now it's only 95 percent! The horror!

77 Percent of Full Professors Are Men

Men make up 50 percent of the population, so they should really make up more than 77 percent of professors. That's how equality works, right?

96 Percent of Army Generals Are Women

Women? In the Army?

81 Percent of Congress Is Men

Still not satisfied that men quite literally still run the world? Well:

44 of the Last 44 Presidents Have Been Men

Oh, but a woman running for president is surely a sign that the end of gender equality is near and women will soon have taken over. After all, if women go from 0 percent of all US presidents to just over 2 percent, where will that lead us?

It's understandable that some men would see the major advances women have made towards the still distant goal of gender equality over the past few decades as a threat, and react accordingly. But just because someone perceives less oppression of women to actually be oppression by women, that doesn't mean their points have any merit.