I keep meaning to write a post on the pattern I keep seeing, but for the time being, I’m just going to collect and list examples of it. The pattern isn’t perfect and anyone who thinks I’m suggesting it is misunderstands me, but the pattern I see is:

When society conflicts with men, we say men have to change or take responsibility.

When society conflicts with women, we say society has to change and we all have to take responsibility.

I welcome counterexamples. I like to learn when I’m wrong. For now, I don’t plan to go out of my way to find examples, just to post them as I find them.

Here’s the one that prompted me today to start the list:

• An event: “Join Single Saturdays co-hosts Natalie Cramer and Nick Rosen for a special screening of “Boys to Men: Why America’s Sons are Struggling” — a powerful CBS News documentary that explores masculinity, identity, and the challenges men face in today’s world.” It’s framed as men being the active player in struggling, not America being the active one in oppressing them. Why not pose it as “How America is oppressing men” or “How America is preventing men from being themselves”?

For all I know, I won’t find any more. As of now, I have only one example, and not a particularly strong one, but if I don’t start with one, I might never start the post.

EDIT: New examples:

• November 10, 2025: The New Yorker “What Did Men Do to Deserve This?”
  • Besides attributing to men the cause of the problems society dumps on them, it’s dismissive, for example, “Theo Von’s audience, the Barstool crowd—they can’t get enough of this stuff.” Would the New Yorker write “the cat lady crowd—they can’t get enough of this stuff”?
  • Also dismissive: “What some Democrats would prefer, it seems, is a centrist manosphere of their own. (One imagines a podcast studio attached to a well-appointed gym where a bunch of white guys are discussing “Abundance” over beta-alanine smoothies and doing pistol squats to the theme song from “Pod Save America.”)”
  • “Women, it should be noted, have dominated the teaching profession since the nineteenth century not because it’s a misandrist job-protection racket but because early public-education advocates found that they could expand the school system more quickly by hiring women teachers, whom they could pay less than men.” Maybe it’s just me, and I’m no expert, but I get the impression that people think male teachers will sexually abuse children more than female teachers. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d think the concept would at least merit mention. I don’t think the author tried empathizing with males beyond attributing to them cliches and stereotypes of thinking they have to dominate and don’t feel real emotion.

On another note, I found this relevant post of mine from seven years ago: Why are we so blind to sexism that hurts men and boys?

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