When we think about the relative success of men and women in our society, our minds tend to jump to examples in which men excel. We have only to look at the greater proportion of male CEOs, professors, scientists, and world leaders to come to the conclusion that being a man in our society gives a person an advantage. At the same time, patterns that run in the opposite direction – where men experience negative outcomes – don’t seem to attract much attention. We focus on the success stories while essentially brushing aside statistics showing that a greater proportion of men are homeless, incarcerated, high school dropouts, or affected by substance use disorders. Why is it that when we consider examples of gender disparities, we seem to only consider areas where men achieve success? And why, when we look at distribution among the lowest social strata, those who experience the most hardship, do we struggle to acknowledge the fact that men are vastly over-represented there too.

I first was made aware of this double standard in a masculinity seminar offered by my advisor, Dr. Roy Baumeister, during my graduate training. I walked into his class with an assumption that women have generally faced more challenging societal obstacles, both throughout history and today. After all, for centuries women were denied educational and occupational opportunities that men could take for granted. It was not until we discussed men’s forced conscription and experiences in warfare that I began to question my assumptions. When we reached the topic of early working conditions (before the advent of legal workplace protections), I began to consider how societal stereotypes of men as breadwinners placed pressure on men to sacrifice their bodies in order to provide for their families. As the examples kept coming, I started to wonder why it had taken me so long to really contemplate this perspective.