> It's ridiculous since women's issues are only being better represented recently while men have long dominated politics
This statement has more than one issue:
1. First and foremost, it is simply a rewrite of the history. There is a difference between descriptive and substantive representation. And it is true that men have been descriptively better represented. But the thoughtless implication that this leads to better substantive representation is simply wrong.
2. It justifies the idea of "reparations" for previous generations misdoing. Not only does this induce a high level if dissent, it is simply immoral. Even if we would accept reparations, it is still only justified by the rewrite of the history.
I appreciate the call for nuance, but I think the historical framing here deserves scrutiny.
You're right that men have dominated politicly, but it's worth distinguishing between who held power (descriptive representation) and whose interests were served (substantive representation). Most men throughout history had no political power - they were subjects of monarchies, excluded by property requirements, or conscripted into wars they didn't choose. The men making decisions were a tiny elite.
On "women's issues only recently being better represented" -this depends heavily on what we're measuring. If we look at something like life expectancy as a rough proxy for overall life quality (capturing war mortality, occupational deaths, access to resources, healthcare), historical data suggests men and women faced roughly equal burdens pre-industrialization, just distributed differently. Women faced maternal mortality and legal subordination; men faced conscription, dangerous labor, and social expendability. The female longevity advantage only emerges clearly in the modern era.
The point isn't to claim men had it worse - it's that "men have long dominated" obscures that most men were themselves dominated, and bore unique, severe costs within the same system.
I agree completely that rigid gender roles harm everyone. But framing current attention to men's issues as acceptable only because "patriarchal roles harm men too" still treats men's suffering as derivative of women's concerns, requiring feminist justification. Can't men's rising suicide rates, educational struggles, and social isolation warrant direct concern on their own terms?
The discourse does need less competition. But that requires actually taking men's issues seriously, not just when they can be reframed as collateral damage from patriarchy.