The nation and world have seen a lot of sexism and inequality. I don’t like it. I work to end it. I don’t believe that the counter to sexism hurting one sex is sexism hurting another group, I believe it’s to stop hurting either and to promote equality. Not everyone agrees, it seems, as some like to judge others by their sex.

Naomi Fry wrote in the New Yorker, “This year, like the year before it, was a rough one for the reputation of the American male.”

You might think of fields with mostly men in them:

• metal workers
• welders
• central heating installers
• car mechanics
• construction carpenters
• electricians
• truck drivers
• brick layers
• and so on

Are they doing a bad job? These are difficult, dangerous jobs. Maybe their reputations are contributing to men dying from 73% of suicides, yet getting negligible support compared to #metoo. It would be nice for Ms. Fry to show these suffering men some support. Is she pressing for more women to enter these fields or to help make them safer?

These men don’t seem to exist to Ms. Fry. Does she think buildings build themselves? That trucks drive themselves? My stepbrother drove a truck. Does she think he enjoyed loneliness away from home, sending money home without getting to spend time with the children he loves? Only 17.5% of custodial parents are men. Why didn’t the mother drive the truck while he stayed home? I don’t know the details, but the courts’ apparent bias seem to have had a lot to do with it, despite his being far more responsible. What she calls privilege of a high-paying job is a lonely obligation for him to work.

What puts a man on her radar? Does he have to be rich and powerful? She says “distrust was fomented, first and foremost, by the President—his bluster a cover for moral compromise, his bombast a mask for weakness—and by his henchmen, whose unjust policies often felt inseparable from their bullying maleness.”

Is she saying that because he and I are male that he represents me as a man—that is, is she judging me by my sex? Does she believe she has a mandate to choose which men represent all men? Are all women like that? Her logic would suggest that a rich woman acting some way would represent women. I don’t accept the guilt she would like to assign me for my sex.

I don’t like what the rich, powerful men she named—Trump, Kavanaugh, Weinstein, etc—did, but I don’t like what a lot of rich, powerful women did either. Do I say Ms. Fry is like them because of her sex?

A majority of white women voted for the President. They weren’t born voting for him, as adults they chose for him to represent them. As long as she’s judging people by identities, shouldn’t she say his bluster and bombast damaged white women’s reputation? She is a white woman. Her chauvinism puts herself in with those she criticizes.

I think she tried for humor by citing cartoons and animals as the best males she could find—a sports mascot and a duck, for example. I’d grant her the benefit of the doubt except that the men she ignores suffer 93% of workplace deaths, not something to make light of. 1 in 6 have been sexually assaulted or abused yet only 2 of the nation’s thousands of shelters accept men.

I wonder if she’s written a piece thanking them for constructing the roads she drives on, the buildings she lives and works in, the computer networks she communicates through. Is anyone pushing for women to take these thankless, dangerous jobs?

According to her, their reputations are having a rough time, but I think that if they don’t have money, they don’t exist to her. I haven’t seen many buildings that American men built fall down lately. She disagrees, but I see a lot of awesomeness in American men.

What about the freedom she enjoys and the 99.9% of military deaths that fell on men? Even if she disagrees with current wars, any sympathy for the 99.9% of men who died fighting Hitler or to protect the union and end slavery? Are they rich enough for her to care about?

Want to know what she liked seeing in male actors? One she liked for being tortured, another for meth addiction. Do we want women to appear more tortured and addicted? Would misery represent women?

I could go on about her judging men and ducks because of our sex, but, happily, no American man I know of asked for Ms. Fry’s opinion and none care about it anyway. I’m not sure where she decided it her place to judge a group of people by our sex—is that not the definition of sexism, especially considering that she has more power than the men she acts doesn’t exist except to be guilty—but American men need Ms. Fry and her judgment like a fish needs a bicycle.

She praised LeBron James for defending a fellow man against a divisive personal attack. Does she feel that if the words of James’s defense applied to one divisive attack, they apply to hers to?

“U bum”

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(Statistics in bold from sources from Cassie Jaye’s infographic here)

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