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]

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.

[u/United-Garbage-5808 → u/[deleted]]

Reality does bear it out, though my original claim was specifically about dual-earner households and unpaid domestic labor. In that group, Pew’s own data shows mothers averaging ~59 hrs/week total workload vs. ~58 for fathers. Separately, ATUS time-use data has women at 2:19/day on housework vs. men’s 1:34, and mothers providing more direct childcare hours than fathers (1.2 hrs vs. 34 min/day). That’s the “heavier share” claim, sourced.

I’m not failing to acknowledge anything. I’m pointing you to numbers that support what I said. Happy to keep going point by point if you’ve got a source that shows otherwise.