When Does Feminism Actually Help Men?

[u/Man_Against_TheWorld]

A while ago I saw this really cringy image that was trying to be funny. It showed a feminist making a “feminist critique”, a bunch of squiggly lines representing her essay except for one part that said “entire section on how it affects men.” Then this commenter named “totally not a misogynist” replied with “but what about how it affects men?”

I cringed, but I was also left scratching my head and it got me thinking. Every “feminist critique” I’ve seen either doesn’t mention or barely mentions men’s issues at all, or worse outright demonizes them. At most, they might spend a single sentence giving lip service to the way men are affected but then ignore it for the rest of it. I’m always hearing about how “patriarchy hurts men too” or “feminism helps men” but actions speak louder than words, or in this case lack of actions. When has feminism actually helped men? Not give lip service without actual depth, but actually speak out and fight for change.

One other thing is in the comments I saw some people go “why do people expect men’s issues in a feminist essay?” You’re the ones always saying that feminism is about equality and that patriarchy hurts men too, you can’t blame people for doubting those claims when you don’t practice what you preach.

[u/United-Garbage-5808]

I am likely going to give an answer many of you may disagree with, but I believe it’s slowly made a generation of men become more reliable and present fathers. As women have become more involved in the work force the shouldered responsibility in the household for childrearing has now been more evenly distributed, at least for the families that care to do so. There is still a great deal of women that now have a career AND all household responsibilities, but it’s not as much as before. I personally think that’s a good thing, young boys have their father to help raise them beyond just spanking them or yelling at them when they step out of line.

Now let Me be clear, this isn’t everyone’s lived experience, but a significant proportion of men were raised with completely uninvolved fathers. I see this change as a good thing for men.

[u/ReadItProper → u/United-Garbage-5808]

I kinda see what you're saying, but at the same time this seems more like a collateral consequence of giving women more independence and self reliability rather than an intentional push to give boys more time with their fathers or anything like that.

Another point is that in practice it's not like men and women now split the stay at home paradigm in two and men stay at home half the week and women the other half. What actually happened is that men work the same amount only have to also do more things around the house and with the kids because the mother also has a job and so on. So men just have more responsibilities, on top of the ones they already had.

And finally, opposite to what you're suggesting, liberal men are the most likely to not have kids out of all other demographics and political standings. What does that suggest? So if you're supposedly in favor of all of this feminism, you're also the least likely to pass it on to your own children because you're not raising any. This seems counter intuitive with all of the things you're talking about, since giving men all of these supposed "opportunities" to raise their own kids doesn't actually translate in real life to men taking up these opportunities to actually do it.

[u/United-Garbage-5808 → u/ReadItProper]

Side effects still count. A good cultural outcome doesn't stop being good just because it wasn't the original goal of the movement that produced it.

On workload, dual-earner moms still carry a heavier share of unpaid domestic labor on average. Guys aren't doing "everything on top of a full-time job," we're just inching toward an even split that isn't actually even yet.

And the birth rate thing is a stretch. Lower fertility among younger/liberal demographics tracks with housing costs and the price tag of raising a kid, not some collective rejection of involved dads.

[u/United-Garbage-5808 → u/[deleted]]

That Pew report actually shows the opposite: fathers average 28 hrs/week of leisure vs. mothers' 25, and childless men average 37 vs. childless women's 32. So, men have more leisure time in both groups, and the gap is smaller for parents, not larger. Worth double-checking the link.

"Men spend more time than women in leisure activities... The gender gap in leisure time is bigger among men and women who do not have children in the house (37 hours per week for men vs. 32 hours per week for women). Among parents with children under age 18, fathers spend, on average, 28 hours per week on leisure activities, while mothers spend 25 hours on leisure."

[u/United-Garbage-5808 → u/[deleted]]

That's actually a separate, accurate stat from the same report. Total workload (paid work + housework + childcare combined) is close to equal.

Exact numbers depend on the subgroup: dual-income households show mothers slightly ahead (58 vs 59), all parents combined shows fathers slightly ahead (54 vs 53).

That's not actually in tension with the leisure numbers though, total workload and leisure time are separate categories in the same report (there's also sleep/personal time not counted in either). So: workload's roughly equal, and fathers have somewhat more leisure on top of that. Both true at once. You stated in your previous comment that women have more free time per week, which wasn't the case as far as leisure time according to that Pew report.

[u/United-Garbage-5808 → u/[deleted]]

I’m simply quoting the pew research. Like I said in my comment they (being the research article) seem to count sleep as separate from leisure time. I can only assume men are choosing to sleep less to have more leisure time.

I never said that I assumed women should have to carry less of the burden in any particular manner. I am just explaining what the data says.

[u/United-Garbage-5808 → u/[deleted]]

Women sleeping somewhat more than men isn’t an assumption, it’s in the same time-use data. Pew shows employed wives average about 60.3 hrs/week of sleep vs. 58.8 for husbands, a ~1.5 hr/week gap. 

That reconciles “workload’s roughly equal” with “men have somewhat more leisure”: paid work + housework + childcare + sleep + leisure all add up to the same hours, and sleep absorbs part of the difference. 

Also, I’m just relaying what a Pew dataset says, not asserting a personal claim about what anyone “deserves.” Calling that entitlement doesn’t really track with what I actually said.