The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys

By the “inversion argument,” I mean the argument that instances of discrimination against men are instead forms of discrimination against women. On this view, what I have called the second sexism is instead just another form of discrimination against women. Sometimes the inversion argument or technique applies to a phenomenon that discriminates both against men and against women, but it presents the situation as discriminating only against women. We might call this a hemi-inversion argument. It inverts only that aspect that discriminates against men, thus presenting the phenomenon as disadvantaging only women. Another variant of the inversion argument is what we might call semi-inversion. In this version, discrimination against males is partially recognized, but it is either partly eclipsed or it is minimized by focusing on discrimination against females.

Rarely are inversion arguments explicitly presented.2 That is to say, those employing this sort of argument do not usually argue (although they sometimes do) that defenders of the second sexism have things backwards. Rather they usually simply invert, by presenting the issues as instances of anti-female bias. To this extent, my characterization of inversion as an argument is a construction of an argument out of a practice. The infrequency of an explicit argument for inversion is understandable. Were an argument for inversion explicitly presented, its weakness would be much more apparent.

The inversion argument is perhaps the most common objection to the claim that there is a second sexism, and it will thus receive the bulk of my attention in this chapter. Before I present a number of examples of inversion and show why these attempts are unable to disprove that there is a substantial second sexism, it is worth noting that there is a kernel of truth in the inversion argument. It is this: wrongful discrimination against females is closely (albeit contingently) related to wrongful discrimination against males. It should be clear why this is the case. Gender roles, for example, designate some traits, activities and occupations as masculine and others as feminine. Males without designated masculine traits and seeking to avoid activities and occupations designated by gender-role conventions as male will be a disadvantaged. Similarly, females with designated masculine traits or seeking to pursue activities and occupations designated as male will also be disadvantaged. Insofar as males are forced into some activities and females are barred from them the disadvantage will cut two ways. The same, of course, is true of females who are forced into purportedly feminine activities and occupations and males barred from them.

I said that wrongful discrimination against females is contingently related to wrongful discrimination against males. There is no necessary connection between the two. Gender roles might constrain one sex but not the other. We can imagine a society in which females were permitted to have any traits and engage in any occupations and activities, but men were restricted. In such a society, members of one sex but not the other would be the victims of discrimination.

This might partially explain why the relation between discrimination against males and discrimination against females is obviously not a linear one. That is to say, it is not the case that increasing discrimination against one sex increases discrimination against the other sex at the same rate. The same is true for decreasing discrimination. Indeed, part of my claim is that while great inroads have been made against anti-female sexism in many parts of the world, sexism against males has been far more enduring. Nevertheless, in the actual world (rather than in merely possible worlds) it may be the case that anti-female sexism cannot be completely eliminated without also attending to the second sexism. If that is the case, then those feminists who are concerned only with the interests of females (rather than with gender equality) may nonetheless have an interest in attending to the second sexism. The relationship between the first and second sexisms can be made clearer if we look at some examples of inversion.

Conscription and combat

Consider, first, those authors who present attempts at excluding and exempting women from combat as forms of discrimination against women only. They say, for instance, that the military, faced with an increase in the number of women soldiers, “seems to have an exaggerated need to pursue more and more refined measures of sexual difference in order to keep women in their place,”3 noting that western armed forces

As I have argued, refusing to send women into combat does indeed discriminate against some women. That it is a minority of women who are disadvantaged — those who seek combat opportunities and the military career benefits that follow from combat experience — does not alter the fact that these women are indeed the victims of sex discrimination. But to present the matter exclusively in terms of the negative effects it has on women is to ignore the much greater disadvantage suffered by vast numbers of men who are forced into combat against their wills. When it comes to forcing people into combat, women but not men are exempt. Thus, while the exclusion of women from combat discriminates against some women, the exemption of women from combat discriminates against more men and in favor of more women. It is well and good to note, as I have done, how an instance of sex discrimination can cut both ways. It is quite another to present everything as discrimination against only women.

A number of those who advance the inversion argument in the context of conscription and combat ignore the distinction between exemption and exclusion, even when that distinction is made explicit.5 However, it should be clear that I have not denied that the exclusion of women from combat discriminates against (some) women. My claim concerns the exemption of women from combat.

James Sterba facilitates his inversion by taking as his paradigmatic case, those countries (such as the United States and United Kingdom today) in which there is no conscription. He notes that in such societies men are free to choose whether or not they wish to enter the military or combat. Obviously the discrimination of male-only conscription is not evident in these societies. To focus on such societies in an attempt to rebut my claim is like responding to the claim that female genital excision is discriminatory by saying that in Austria, Japan, Scotland and Zimbabwe, for example, women are not subject to excision.6 It is plainly obvious that those men who are conscripted merely on account of their sex do suffer a disadvantage relative to women who are exempt.

Some people will not concede even this. In justifying a focus on the United States and the United Kingdom (rather than those countries where conscription does exist), it has been said that if women

But this argument imputes to those who recognize that there is a second sexism a view that they need not hold. More specifically, those who recognize the existence of a second sexism need not claim that women “fashion” society to their benefit, a claim that suggests that the social order is designed. Instead, it need only be claimed that there are ways in which society favors women, often unconsciously and indirectly.

Some inverters believe it relevant that there are (purportedly) very few men today who are conscripted into combat (although apparently they do not think it relevant that relatively few women are disadvantaged by a combat exclusion — namely those women who want access to combat). It has been asked, rhetorically: “where today are the vast numbers of men who are forced into combat against their wills, especially in contemporary liberal democracies?”8 This ignores a number of important considerations. First, even if there were currently no men conscripted into combat, there have been millions of such men in living history, and many of those who were not killed during service are still alive. Surely such veterans are as worthy of consideration as are survivors of other severe discrimination and ill-treatment.

It is true that, at the very moment I write this, a small proportion of conscripts are engaged in combat. However, if human history is any indication of what is to come, we know that there will be both a steady stream and occasional torrent of hostilities into which soldiers will be conscripted. Men will overwhelmingly bear this burden unless the second sexism is addressed.

Some people have assumed that the only conscription worthy of consideration is conscription into combat.9 But this ignores the numerous other disadvantages of conscription even in the absence of combat. These include the infringement on freedom, the invasions of privacy, lost time, interrupted careers, separation from family, and the demeaning treatment associated particularly (but not only) with basic training. Millions of men in dozens of countries where conscription exists are subjected to such disadvantages, while their sisters are exempt.10 It is entirely too glib to overlook all this.

My concerns are with those men who are forced (by conscription or the threat of ostracism) into the military or combat. However, the disproportionate number of male volunteers, even in the absence of explicit coercion, should raise some questions for those feminists who have concerns about females volunteering to be porn stars, prostitutes and strippers. Some feminists, to be sure, are prepared to accept the choices of at least some such women as fully voluntary, but others deny that such decisions are truly free. Those who adopt this latter view should be equally concerned about the subtle pressures and gender roles that very likely (at least partially) explain why disproportionate numbers of males volunteer for the military. If female prostitutes are not taken to choose freely despite their apparent consent and the (sometimes) lucrative benefits of their profession, then we have equal reason for thinking that males who volunteer for combat may not be choosing freely, notwithstanding any benefits they may have. And if all these males do choose freely, then so do the prostitutes.

Some people are willing to accept the choices that men and women make under the influence of gender roles.11 They then deny that large numbers of men are forced into the military and combat, because, they say, even in the absence of conscription “many men would continue to enlist in the military and fight voluntarily.”12 I grant the obvious fact that in the absence of conscription and coercion many more men than women (currently) volunteer for the military. However, from the claim that (a) many men voluntarily join the military, some falsely infer that (b) not many men are forced into the military by conscription.13 That is like inferring from the fact that there are many female prostitutes that there are not large numbers of women who do not want to be prostitutes.

Even those with a more balanced approach tend to make much more of the negative impact on women than of those discriminatory practices whose primary victims are men. Thus, one author who notes that war is “often awful and meaningless,”14 observes that there are advantages which combatants enjoy. She cites a prisoner of war graffito “freedom — a feeling the protected will never know”15 and “the feelings of unity, sacrifice and even ecstasy experienced by the combatant.”16 Moreover, she notes that women “who remain civilians will not receive the post-war benefits of veterans, and those [women] who don uniforms will be a protected, exempt-from-combat subset of the military. Their accomplishments will likely be forgotten.”17

Although true, the significance of these advantages is overdone — even to the point of depravity. Certainly, many of those who never experience its loss may not have the same acute appreciation of freedom, but that acute appreciation is, at most, a positive side effect of an immensely traumatic and damaging experience. Imagine how we would greet the observation that although paraplegia is “often awful and meaningless” it is only those who have lost the use of some limbs who can truly appreciate the value of having those limbs functional.

Next, although veterans do have benefits denied to others, this is a form of compensation for sacrifice made. It is hardly unfair that compensation is not given to those to whom no compensation is due. People should be free, of course, to decide whether they want to accept the sacrifices of joining the military and the compensation that goes with it, but the absence of that choice is the disadvantage rather than the mere absence of the compensation.

Finally, while the tasks of non-combatants are indeed less likely to be remembered, this observation grossly underplays the extent to which the tasks and sacrifices of most combatants are unremembered. Many of these who die in battle lie in unmarked graves or are memorialized in monuments to the “Unknown Soldier.” In exceptional cases, as with the Vietnam War memorial, a deceased combatant’s memorial consists of an engraving of his name, along with thousands of others — hardly a remembrance proportionate to the sacrifice.

Violence

The use of the term “gender violence” to refer exclusively to violence against women is another example of inversion. Although men are the sex most targeted by violence, “gender violence” is used synonymously with “violence against females.” Of course, men are not the sole victims. Women are sometimes also targeted, but with the exception of sexual violence, females are a minority of those targeted on account of their sex. This is not to deny that violence against women is worthy of attention. Instead, it is to deny only that it is more worthy of attention than is violence against males.

The way terms like “gender violence” are used does not amount to an explicit denial of discrimination against males. However, it is an implicit denial. It hides the fact that such discrimination takes place. Nor are such implicit denials limited to the usage of such phrases. They are pervasive. Adam Jones has noted and documented many such cases where people ignore, often willfully, violent discrimination against males. He observes, for example, that although men are regularly targeted for killing, it is women who have received special attention for refugee status by the Canadian Immigration and Review Board.18

Professor Jones also relates that he conveyed his concerns about gender bias to the president of the International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development (ICHRDD). He “received a three-sentence response” from an assistant, thanking him for his letter but saying that these issues were not part of their mandate. The Srebrenica massacre occurred eight months later. The following year “the ICHRDD founded an international Coalition on Women’s Human Rights in Conflict Situations.”19

Professor Jones also draws attention to “The Edmonton Resolution: A Blueprint for Peace, Justice, and Freedom,” which called “upon all states to promote and protect the human rights of all citizens, and especially those of women [and] girl children.”20

He shows how Amnesty International failed, during the Kosovo conflict, to “devote meaningful attention to the pattern of gender-selective mass executions” and other serious human rights violations.21 By contrast Amnesty International did highlight human rights violations against women, claiming that they are “particularly vulnerable to human rights violations.”22 Among other instances of such hyperbole to which he refers is the case of the “UN special rapporteur on Rwanda, René Degni-Ségui, who stated in January 1996 that women ‘may even be regarded as the main victims of the massacres’” in Rwanda.23

Consider, too, the following exaggeration and the odd reasoning offered in support of it. Ronit Lentin has claimed that since “the female-to-male ratio is 1, or just over 1, this means that half of the casualties of what is termed ‘catastrophe’ by organizations such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, are women.”24 This argument makes the assumption that catastrophe is equally distributed between the sexes. Yet this assumption is no more true of mass killing than it is of rape. Males are not half the victims of rape even though, worldwide, they are about half of the human population. Similarly, women are not half of victims of mass killings merely because they constitute about half of the world’s human population.

Sometimes officials of human rights organizations are aware of the bias, but this has not resulted in correction. For example, Charli Carpenter quotes an official from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as follows:

Nor is this an isolated case. Professor Carpenter quotes many other officials to whom she has spoken who have also recognized “the use of gender stereotypes, and particularly the neglect of civilian men as a problem.”26

Consider, next, an example of hemi-inversion of the facts about domestic violence. Deborah Rhode, taking issue with the widespread finding that rates of domestic violence by husbands and wives are comparable, says that they rely on a “widely discredited survey technique.”27 She objects that the surveys “conspicuously omit certain abuses that wives almost never commit, such as sexual abuse or stalking” and “inquiries about context and consequences.”28 She says that

This kind of response to male disadvantage is typical of many. It involves both selectivity30 and rationalization. For example, stalking is not itself violent (even if it causes a fear of violence), and thus although it is worthy of investigation, it is not clear that that its omission affects the findings about domestic violence. In any event, we really do not know that wives “almost never” stalk until research is done that yields this finding. Perhaps it is true, but perhaps it is not. Given how unreliable ordinary views about spousal abuse are, we can hardly be confident that our untested views on this matter are reliable. Indeed, one study that did inquire about stalking found that some husbands had been stalked.31

The reference to sexual abuse also diverts our attention from (other) domestic violence. It may well be the case that more wives than husbands are sexually assaulted by their spouses. However, it is unclear how this is relevant. Sexual assault is often distinguished from (other) physical assault. It is thus not unreasonable to say that while more wives are sexually assaulted by their husbands than vice versa, the rate of (other) physical assault is comparable for each sex. The attempt to bundle sexual assault into the physical violence category in order to deny that husbands are assaulted as often as wives is disingenuous. It is like trying to bundle sexual assault into assault more generally in order to minimize the salience of women as the major victims of sexual assault.

The claim that when women assault their husbands or partners they are far more likely to be acting in self-defence, as we saw in Chapter 2, is not supported by the facts. Women initiate violence against their male partners at least as often as men initiate violence against their female partners.

The claim that women are more likely to suffer serious injuries is also not supported by the available evidence. The evidence on this question, we saw, is mixed. Some studies have found that men are more likely to inflict serious injuries on women, but other studies have found the reverse, and the remaining studies have found no difference. The claim that women are more likely to suffer injuries is thus highly selective.

However, even if it is established that females are more likely than males to suffer serious injury at the hands of intimate partners, it certainly does not follow that violence against males should not be taken seriously. To suggest otherwise would entail that the less injurious violence against women also need not be taken seriously. This is because it would be inconsistent to take moderate and minor injuries of females seriously without also taking moderate and minor injuries of males seriously. Since only a minute proportion of all domestic violence causes severe injury, the implication would be that most domestic violence against women need not be taken seriously. That is surely a conclusion we should reject.

Referring to the proportion of cases reaching the criminal justice system is also disingenuous. The assumption underlying this move is that it is the more serious cases that reach the criminal justice. This, however, would imply that those rapes that do not reach the criminal justice system are uniformly less serious than those that do. It is hard to imagine feminists accepting that conclusion. Indeed feminists commonly note that rape is under-reported.32 Yet we have very good reason to think that assaults on husbands are under-reported. It is very likely that men are less likely than women to press charges for domestic abuse even when they suffer comparable injuries. They may be more ashamed of not being able to defend themselves. They may also be less likely to be believed and they may know it. Indeed, the denial by Professor Rhode and others that husbands are abused at least as often as wives is evidence that husbands are less likely to be believed.

Females are the victims of domestic violence but the evidence does not support the claim that they constitute the majority of victims of such violence. When we look at violence more generally, we find, as I demonstrated in Chapter 2, that most victims are males. This fact is inverted so often that popular wisdom has it that women are most vulnerable to violence. The inversion is pervasive. The foregoing cases are but a few examples of the thousands of instances that could be cited.

Circumcision

Some feminists have found a way to invert the disadvantages to males of circumcision. Removal of a boy’s foreskin without the benefit of anesthesia is a disadvantage. It is also discriminatory if the infliction of comparable pain on a girl in comparable circumstances would not be countenanced. Yet some feminists have inverted matters by ignoring the discrimination against males and portraying circumcision of males as discrimination against females.

Some seem to say that male circumcision itself is discriminatory against girls. Dr. Marjorie Cramer, for example, when asked by her Reform rabbi to enroll in a course to train Jewish ritual circumcisers, initially said “Why would I want do such a sexist thing, a ritual only for boys?”33 Others focus only on the absence of a neonatal ceremony for girls. They claim that girls are deprived of the attention given to newborn boys and have thus introduced neonatal ceremonies for girls. These ceremonies parallel the male ceremony in many ways. The names given to the ceremonies are similar to those given to the ceremony for boys.34 They sometimes suggest that this ceremony take place on the eighth day of the child’s life. The reason given for this timing is the allegedly egalitarian one that this “is the same day on which a ceremony for a boy would be held.”35

In this way some Jewish feminists take the traditional practices as discriminatory against girls. They think that the discrimination is avoided by the introduction of a ceremony for girls. There is no acknowledgement that circumcision of boys, without anesthesia, is discriminatory. This is curious, because, in seeking to rectify the purported discrimination against girls, these Jewish feminists have not suggested that girls, like boys, should be circumcised. If circumcision of males really were discriminatory against girls, it would seem that the best way to rectify that would be to circumcise girls, too.36

A neonatal ceremony means nothing to the neonate. An infant boy is unaware that he is the center of attention. He is unaware that others are making a fuss over him and rejoicing at his birth and his induction into a religious covenant. Similarly, an infant girl for whom there is no such ceremony cannot feel deprived of any of this. And if she is given such a ceremony it does her no more good than such a ceremony does an infant boy. Thus the ceremony is more for the benefit of others. While those who give a girl a batmizvah ceremony comparable to a boy’s may plausibly be thought to be benefiting her, giving an infant girl a neonatal ceremony to parallel a boy’s cannot plausibly be said to be benefiting her. What does make a difference to an infant is whether its genitals are surgically altered without an anesthetic.37 Jewish boys do bear this burden, while Jewish girls do not. In other words, the advantage that it is claimed that Jewish boys have — the ceremony — is not a real advantage, whereas the actual disadvantage, which goes unacknowledged by inverters, is a real disadvantage.

If it were Jewish girls who were circumcised and Jewish boys who were not, I suspect that feminists would offer strident arguments that circumcision discriminated against girls and constituted a patriarchal control of female genitals. They would be appalled at a ceremony in which a baby girl’s nappies were removed, her legs splayed and her genitals cut, while both males and females observed. Even if the surgery were performed by women, these women would be judged, as they are in cultures that do cut female genitals, to be instruments of patriarchy. If men began to join the ranks of circumcisers, it would not be hailed as the egalitarian advance that the certification of female circumcisers (of male children)38 — has been in some Jewish feminist circles. Here it has been said that a female circumciser can give a women’s touch39 and that female circumcisers “may have a special ability to relate to mothers who are having anxiety” about the circumcision of their sons.40 But this sounds like something we would surely not hear from feminists — namely, recommending a male obstetrician because he brings a “man’s touch” and can relate to the husband of the woman in labor. And if that is thought to be a poor analogy, then one can make the same point about males entering into the role of circumcising girls (where the circumcision was comparable to male circumcision). It is very unlikely that feminists would view that as an egalitarian improvement.

Education

My discussion of male educational disadvantage in Chapter 2 has already revealed that there are those who claim that it is girls rather than boys who are educationally disadvantaged. I showed that although girls have been educationally more disadvantaged at many times and in many places, in much of the developed world today it is boys who are more disadvantaged. The key metrics available to us, I suggested, are graduation rates from school and tertiary institutions. Because boys drop out at greater rates than girls and men earn fewer degrees than women, it is males who are most educationally disadvantaged in much of the developed world, even if there are some less severe disadvantages that females experience. Given this, the claim that it is females rather than males who are discriminated against educationally (in the developed world) is an inversion of the way things actually are. Females are worse off in some ways, but these disadvantages are diminishing. The inverters, ignoring the serious ways in which males are disadvantaged, present the educational institutions as disadvantaging only girls and women.

There are many ways in which the inversion is attempted. In making the case that it is males who are disadvantaged, I examined some of these in Chapter 2. Here I consider a few other ways.

One technique is to argue that the disadvantages in question have more to do with race than they have to do with sex. For example, it has been said that the “gender gap between white males and white females in college admission is very small — 51 percent are women and 49 percent are men. Yet only 37 percent of black college students are male and 63 percent female.”41 Thus, it was said, this “may be what sociologists call a deceptive distinction — something that looks on aggregate like a gender difference that’s actually much more a race and ethnicity difference.”42 This is an attempt to obscure male disadvantage by suggesting that the real disadvantage is attributable to race or ethnicity.

However, while it is correct to note that race and ethnicity are crucial contributors to educational disadvantage in the United States, they are not the only factors. Sex is playing an important a role. Thus within each ethnic group, females are advantaged over males, even if the extent of the advantage differs.43 When black males do much worse than black females this is obviously not merely a matter of race, because both black males and females are black. Being male is clearly playing an important role. This is the case even if males in other groups are not as badly disadvantaged relative to the females in their groups. What we have is an interaction of race and sex, but such an interaction does not imply that the disadvantage is more attributable to race than to sex. If that were the case then black males would not be (very) disadvantaged relative to black females.

When race and sex interact to female detriment, feminists do not typically argue that the disadvantage is primarily attributable to the former and thus underplay the contribution that being female plays. They should do the same when it is males who are disadvantaged.

Consider one final example of inversion in the educational context. The 1992 report of the American Association of University Women, to which I referred in Chapter 2, notes that boys constitute a significant majority of students in special education classes. This seems to support the view that there are more boys with mental and learning disabilities — an example of male disadvantage (even if not discrimination). However, the report claims that the greater number of boys in these programs is actually evidence of discrimination against girls who, it says, are less likely to be admitted to such programmes even they are equally in need.44

However, there is evidence that numerous neurodevelopmental disorders are more likely to be diagnosed in boys than in girls.45 These include cerebral palsy, attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder and autism. Some have suggested that rather than indicating that more boys suffer such conditions, it is instead the case that the conditions are being under-diagnosed in girls. In other words, it is claimed that girls are being discriminated against in not being diagnosed with the conditions they have. There is evidence, however, that while girls are under-diagnosed, this does not explain the full differential, because boys are more likely to suffer such conditions. For example it was found that boys are roughly twice as likely to suffer reading disability.46

I do not pretend that this is the final word on the matter. Clearly more research is required. What is disturbing, however, is the apparently reflex assumption that whenever boys appear to be disadvantaged it is in fact girls who are actually being discriminated against. These claims are glib, are not made on the basis of compelling evidence and manifest an unfortunate bias that is itself discriminatory against males.

Sexual assault

Next consider a case of what I earlier called semi-inversion — a partial acknowledgement of discrimination against males, but one that is either partially eclipsed or minimized by focusing on purported discrimination against females. One author, writing about cross-gender supervision in American prisons, notes that several “states report that the majority of their staff sexual misconduct complaints involve male inmates and female staff.”47 If these states had reported the reverse trend, it is likely that this would be left as evidence that female inmates are the victims of undiluted discrimination. However, when it is male inmates who lodge complaints against female guards, this phenomenon is thought to require explanation. The explanations proffered minimize the discrimination against males and shift the focus to discrimination against women. Thus we are told that the following factors explain the phenomenon:

It may well be the case that one reason why more male than female inmates complain of cross-gender sexual misconduct by guards is simply that there are more male inmates guarded by females than there are female inmates guarded by males. However, that does not mean that males are suffering less discrimination. Imagine, quite plausibly, that more female patients complain of sexual misconduct by their male gynecologists than male patients complain of sexual misconduct by their female urologists. It is hardly likely that feminists would dampen their complaints about sexual abuse of female patients by noting that there are so many more female patients of male gynecologists.

The second and third factors cited above are even more outrageous. Even if they are true, they would in no way excuse sexual misconduct by female guards. Now it is true that they are not being cited as excusing factors. Nevertheless, the effect of mentioning such factors when males are the victims of discrimination, but not when women are, is to minimize discrimination against males and to present at least some of it as discrimination against females. Yet whatever relatively low status female staff may have in correctional facilities, their status is much greater than that of male inmates. Thus if we are comparing discriminations here, we must certainly prioritize for consideration the discrimination against the most vulnerable parties. In this case, those are the male prisoners rather than the female guards.

Bodily privacy

The inversion argument is also regularly employed to obscure discrimination against men with regard to bodily privacy. Consider, for example, the pair of authors who presented the exclusion of women in the sports media from male locker rooms after matches as an instance of blatant discrimination against those women. As they correctly observe, such sportswriters who “cannot get immediate access to athletes after a game… may miss deadlines and will likely be ‘scooped’ by the competition.”49 They entirely ignore the other side of the issue, however, and quote with disapproval the coach who stated “I will not allow women to walk in on 50 naked men.” Had it been a male sports writer seeking access to a locker room of 50 naked female athletes, we can be sure that a different tone would have been evident in feminist commentary on the matter. There are alternative solutions to such equity issues — such as denying all journalists, both male and female, access to locker rooms. These authors ignore such options, just as they ignore the invasion of privacy that would be experienced by the male athletes, who would surely be discriminated against if their female counterparts were not also subject to such invasions. Instead, the authors view the matter entirely from the perspective of the female sports writers. I am fully aware that for other reasons male sports draw more attention, and that female writers thus lose more in not having access to male locker rooms than male writers do in not having access to female locker rooms. However, if this is used to justify female access to male locker rooms but not male access to female locker rooms, then the intensity of the writer’s interest rather than the athlete’s privacy is taken to be the determining factor. And if that is so, then male journalists should be allowed to corner female politicians, actors and other public personalities in female-only toilets and locker rooms if that is how they can scoop an important story. If this were not acceptable, then neither is the intrusion by female sports writers on the privacy of male athletes, irrespective of the writers’ interests in getting a story.

I previously demonstrated the same phenomenon when I demonstrated the different degrees to which the bodily privacy of male and female prisoners is respected in the United States. If male and female prisoners were afforded the same degree of bodily privacy, then male and female guards would each suffer disadvantage. Yet it is only the disadvantage of female guards that interests the courts. Similarly, if male and female guards were equally unconstrained in cross-gender supervision, then male and female prisoners would each suffer disadvantage. Yet only the disadvantage of female prisoners has concerned the courts. Put another way, the courts have focused on the employment interests of female guards even when this negates the privacy interests of male prisoners, and have focused on the privacy interests of female prisoners even when this negates the employment interests of males. Protecting the privacy of male prisoners and the employment interests of male guards is seen as discrimination against females. Because protecting the privacy of female prisoners and the employment interests of female guards is not viewed as discrimination against males, the courts are guilty of inversion.

The inversion argument also arises with reference to depictions of male and female nudity in cinema. Matters are complicated here because of differences between male and female nudity. I do not mean to deny that there is any discrimination against females. Instead my claim is that this is inappropriately the exclusive focus.

In some societies, the exposure of female breasts is as common as the exposure of male breasts, but this is not the case in western societies. Accordingly, the not-infrequent sight of female breasts in cinema constitutes a higher level of exposure than the more common sight of bare male chests in film.50 Yet the exposure of even female breasts is commonly regarded as a lesser exposure than is the uncovering of (either female or male) genitalia. A common complaint is that female genitalia are depicted much more often than are male genitalia.

It has been suggested, for instance, that

Commenting on the pornographic film Emmanuelle, Joel Feinberg notes although female nudity is depicted, albeit without “close-up camera work focusing on [female] sex organs,” male sex organs are not shown at all.52 This latter omission, he says, “is typical of the double standard that generally prevails in works of pornography meant to sell to large general audiences.”53

It is not clear, however, which sex the stated double standard disadvantages. This is because male nudity and female nudity are not analogous. A woman’s sexual organs are generally internal, whereas a man’s are not. A naked man is thus, at least in one important sense,54 more exposed than a naked female, particularly if the latter’s pubic area is covered with hair. Thus, while it is true that cinematic depictions of female nudity are more common, it is also the case that when frontal or side male nudity is depicted — and this may be more common now that it was earlier — the degree of the exposure is greater. Thus we might note that whereas male sex organs are sometimes depicted in (age-restricted) mainstream cinema, analogous female organs (most obviously the clitoris) are not shown at all in such contexts. To suggest, therefore, that the full discrimination is against females is an instance of what I have called hemi-inversion. Only the disadvantage of or discrimination against females is registered. The disadvantage of and discrimination against males passes under the radar.

Custody

Feminist complaints pertaining to divorce are typically not about the benefits of gaining custody, presumably because those benefits are usually enjoyed by mothers. Instead, the focus has been on purported disadvantages of custody. Thus according to popular wisdom divorced men fail, in significant numbers, to pay child support, they drop out of their children’s lives, leaving their ex-wives to do all the child rearing. It is also widely believed that women’s financial position deteriorates significantly following divorce, whereas men’s financial position is said to improve. Thus, the suggestion is that it is women rather than men who are disadvantaged, all things considered. It is said that while they may enjoy the daily contact with their children, fathers are uninterested in such contact. Women are left with all the parental responsibility along with the financial burden. In this way, a disadvantage experienced by fathers is presented instead as a disadvantage of mothers.

Widespread though these beliefs are, they are untrue.55 Divorced fathers, unlike many fathers who were never married to the child’s mother, have significant attachments to their children and are much more likely to pay child support. The precise extent to which they pay child support is uncertain. However, most research conducted on this question has sought data only from custodial mothers, who can hardly be said to be impartial judges. When fathers were also asked, very different answers were provided.56 Although fathers are as likely to overestimate their compliance as mothers are to underestimate it, the mere fact that much research has consulted only the custodial mothers is evidence of bias.57 Moreover, when divorced fathers have failed to pay, the single biggest factor was loss of employment. In other words, once those fathers who had been unemployed were excluded, the compliance levels rise to 80% (according to reports of mothers) or to 100% (according to reports of fathers).58

There are also discrepancies between mothers’ and fathers’ reports of how much contact non-custodial fathers have with their children.59 While some fathers are derelict, other fathers lose contact with their children through no fault of their own. Visiting privileges often restrict their contact. Mothers often block or interfere with visits.60 Whereas a failure to pay child support now incurs punishment or enforced payment, denial of visitation usually has no legal consequences for the custodial parent.

The suggestion that the financial position of women deteriorates significantly following divorce, whereas that of men increases, is also false. This widespread and oft-cited claim is attributable to a finding of Lenore Weitzman, who claimed that women and their children experienced a 73% drop in their standard of living, whereas the standard of living of the average divorced man increased by 42%.61 Some scholars were suspicious of these findings and requested access to the original data.62 When these were eventually made available, it was established that Professor Weitzman had made a mathematical error which, when corrected, suggested that women’s decline was 27% and males increase was 10%.63 Professor Weitzman has evidently conceded this error,64 but this does not seem to have diminished the influence of her original conclusion. Subsequent research has suggested that her methodology was problematic and that when all relevant variables are controlled, there is no significant difference between the standard of living of men and women following divorce.65

Thus, while there are some men who are derelict in making child support payments, the more common disadvantage is that of fathers who have a much smaller chance of gaining custody. This is also more clearly a consequence of unfair discrimination, both direct and indirect.

Life expectancy

Sometimes the inversion is less overt and more sophisticated. Consider, for example, an argument of Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze, who have drawn attention to the number of female lives that have been lost as a result of advantages accorded males. They have spoken about the world’s 100 million “missing women.”66 To reach this figure they first observe that everywhere in the world there are around 105 boys born for every 100 girls. However, more males die at every age. For this reason, in Europe, North America and other places where females enjoy basic nutrition and healthcare, the proportion of males and females inverts — around 105 females for every 100 males. Thus, the overall female–male ratio in these societies is 1.05. Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze observe, however, that in many countries the ratio falls to 0.94 or even lower. On this basis, they calculate the number of “missing women” — the number of women who have died because they have received less food or less care than their male counterparts. This is indeed an alarming and unacceptable inequity.

It is interesting, however, that no mention is made of “missing men.” The implication is that there are only women who are missing. There are, however, millions of missing men, as should be most obvious from the greater number of men than women who die violently. There are also other, less obvious ways in which men become “missing.” To highlight these, consider how the figure of 100 million missing women is reached. Amartya Sen says that if we took an equal number of males and females as the baseline, then “the low ratio of 0.94 women to men in South Asia, West Asia and China would indicate a 6 percent deficit in women.”67 However, he thinks it is inappropriate to set the baseline as an equal number of males and females. He says that “since, in countries where men and women receive similar care the ratio is about 1.05, the real shortfall is about 11 percent.”68 This, he says, amounts to 100 million missing women.

Now, I think it is extremely enlightening that the baseline is set as a female to male ratio of 1.05. Why start from that point rather than from the ratio that obtains at birth? The assumption is that the female–male ratio of 1.05 is the one that obtains in societies in which men and women are treated equally in the ways relevant to mortality — and these are taken to be basic nutrition and healthcare. But clearly males are not faring as well as females in those societies, so why not think that there are relevant inequalities, disadvantageous to males, operative in those societies?

Some might suggest that the only inequalities are biological ones — that males are biologically more prone than females to early death. However, I cannot see why that would warrant setting the baseline at the female–male ratio of 1.05. Some influential philosophers, writing about distributive justice, have suggested that because natural inequalities are undeserved, we ought to distribute social resources in a way that compensates for those inequalities. For example, John Rawls says that the outcome of the natural lottery “is arbitrary from a moral perspective,”69 and Ronald Dworkin says that differences “traceable to genetic luck” are unfair.70

If males are biologically prone to die earlier, perhaps the ideal distribution is the one whereby the mortality imbalance is equalized (by funding research and medical practice that lowers the male mortality level to the female level). This certainly seems to be what many feminists would advocate if biology disadvantaged women in the way it does men.

A fortiori is this the case if the shorter life expectancy of males is at least partly the product of social inequalities. Indeed, it seems to be the case that social inequalities do explain part of the difference. Although life expectancy has increased in developed countries over the last century, men have consistently lagged behind women. This suggests that the earlier death of males is (or, at least, was) not attributable to a biologically determined life-expectancy ceiling. As social conditions improved, men lived to be older, but never (on average) as old as women. Social factors clearly play an important part in life expectancy and in men’s shortfall.

If it were the case that men tended to live longer than women, either because of natural or social inequalities, we would be told that this inequality would need to be addressed by devoting more attention and resources to women’s health. If, for instance, 105 girls were born for every 100 boys, but various factors, including parturition, caused more females to die, there would be strong arguments for diverting resources to preventing those deaths. At the very least, the baseline for determining “missing people” would certainly not be thought to be set after the parturition deaths were excluded.

Thus, if we accept the actual sex ratio at birth — 105 males for every 100 females — as a baseline, then at birth there is a female–male ratio of 0.95. From that baseline there are millions of missing men, at least in those societies in which the female–male ratio inverts to 1.05, who go unseen in the Sen–Drèze analysis. This analysis fails to take account of the connection between its baseline ratio and how our health resources are currently distributed. That the Sen–Drèze analysis highlights the missing women of the world but notes nothing about the missing men is extremely revealing. It is a sophisticated form of the view that lost female lives are more noteworthy than lost male lives.

Moreover, by means of the inversion argument, the call for more attention and resources to women’s health is exactly what some people offer even though it is in fact men who die earlier. Such claims do not result from a belief that more is spent on the healthcare of men than women. A Canadian study on sex differences in the use of healthcare services showed that the “crude annual per capita use of health care resources (in Canadian dollars) was greater for female subjects ($1164) than for male subjects ($918),”71 but that expenditures “for health care are similar for male and female subjects after differences in reproductive biology and higher age-specific mortality rates among men have been accounted for.”72

Accepting that there is indeed an equal distribution of healthcare dollars between men and women, one practitioner of the inversion argument suggested that such expenditure was not equitable.73 This, we are told, is because the greater longevity (of females) is “associated with a greater lifetime risk of functional disability and chronic illness, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia, and a greater need for long-term care.”74 I shall assume that that is indeed so. Living longer does carry some costs, but on condition that those costs are not so great as to render the increased longevity a harm rather than a benefit, the infirmities that often accompany advanced age cannot be seen in isolation from the benefit of the longer life span. An equitable distribution of healthcare resources is not obviously the one that both favors a longer life span for one sex and increases the quality of the additional years of that extra increment of life. Such a distribution would constitute a double favoring of one sex. According to one other possible principle, a genuinely equitable distribution would be one that, all things being equal, aimed at parity of life expectancy and the best quality of life for both sexes within that span of life. Whether or not this alternative principle is the correct one, it cannot simply be assumed that it is not. However, the proponents of the inversion argument are unsatisfied with any perceived trends that lessen the gap between men and the healthier sex. Thus we are told, disapprovingly, that at “a time when there have been improvements in the health status of men, the health status of women does not appear to be improving.”75

A number of philosophers have taken issue with the claim that there are “missing men.” One philosopher asks how, if we accept that there are missing men, there could be missing women in those countries in which the sex birth ratio matches the sex ratio in the whole population.76 The answer is simple: a ratio is only a ratio, and tells us nothing about absolute numbers. While it is true that we have independent reason for thinking that there are missing women, my argument shows that we can be less sure about how many (million) missing women there are. This is because we cannot treat the 1.05 to 1 female–male ratio as baseline, given that we know this ratio arises through the deaths of males. More men die violently, both in war and elsewhere, and non-violently in greater numbers and at younger ages. But there is another reason why the 1.05 to 1 female–male ratio cannot be treated as baseline. There may be missing women even in societies with such a ratio (just as there may be missing men in societies where the sex ratio in the general population matches that at birth).

It has also been asked how “we know from a female–male ratio of 1.05 to 1 that not enough is being done to maintain the female–male birth ratio.”77 The female–male birth ratio, it will be recalled, is 0.95. A complete answer to this question obviously requires a judgment about “how much is enough” in distributive justice. That is clearly too big a question for me to answer here. However, this is as crucial for those who say that not enough is being done only to prevent the loss of women in those countries where the birth ratio is maintained, as it is for those who also notice the missing men. I do not propose glib answers, and I certainly do not suggest that whatever research biases there may be against women should not be redressed.

On this score, a number of people advancing an inversion argument have exhibited some confusion. One pair of authors has argued that “the reason women live longer has nothing to do with healthcare research dollars being thrown their way.”78 But this ignores that there is a difference between spending on healthcare79 and spending on healthcare research.

If we turn now to the question of healthcare research, I need not deny that women are or were neglected. All I have claimed is that even if women are neglected in some ways, there are other ways in which men have been neglected. One example I gave in Chapter 4 is the disproportionate amount of money spent on breast cancer research over lung cancer research. In response to this example it has been suggested that “a fair number of men are struck by breast cancer.”80 This is an astounding response, because men account for less than 1% of all cases of breast cancer,81 and thus this point makes utterly no difference to my argument if one takes into account all the figures I provided.

Some people believe that it is impossible for both women and men to be neglected in healthcare and healthcare research. My point, however, is that there are different ways in which each sex can be neglected and disadvantaged. Less might be spent on research into and care for women than men with condition X. However, more might be spent on some female-specific condition, Y, than is spent on some other condition, Z, that affects disproportionately large numbers of men. The net neglect is hard to calculate only by looking at overall expenditure. This is, in part, because a disadvantaging of one sex often does not procure an advantage to the other. For example, additional increments of research funding need not increase benefit. Extra healthcare may sometimes produce no benefit or even induce iatrogenic suffering. These are complex matters. What we do know, however, is that male life expectancy lags behind that of women, even when improved social conditions lead to increases in life expectancy for both sexes. This suggests that the current distribution of (healthcare) resources favors women more than men in those societies where the sex ratio at birth reverses.82

Imprisonment

A kind of inversion argument has also been advanced to recast the leniency females experience in the criminal justice system as an advantage to males. According to this argument the “court’s more lenient treatment of women reflects the interests of white males.”83 In explanation of this, it is said that if “women were routinely sentenced to prison, the maintenance of white male hegemony would be threatened because unpaid family labor performed by females would be eliminated.”84

This is entirely implausible. First, even in societies with high imprisonment rates, and a fortiori in those with low imprisonment rates, imprisoning women whenever one would imprison a man for the same crime would not vaguely approach eliminating unpaid family labour performed most often by women. It would be only a marginal reduction. It is hard to see how that could really threaten the purported hegemony. Moreover, the argument would have us believe that the “hegemonic white males” would prefer to avoid this marginal reduction in unpaid family work to a comparable reduction in their own chances of being incarcerated. To this it might be objected that the most powerful males are much less likely than less powerful males to be imprisoned and thus they can have it both ways. A reduction in their own, already low chance of imprisonment is not as valuable to them as the potential loss of unpaid family labor. But the problem with this argument is that the most powerful males are typically married to more powerful females who themselves are less at risk than poorer women of being imprisoned. It really is hard to believe that the most hegemonic classes are so concerned about the unpaid family labor of disempowered women and what this means to disempowered men.85

The inversion argument is a crass form of partiality. It presents all sex inequality as disadvantaging primarily or only women. This is unfair to those males who are the primary victims of some forms of sex discrimination. It also strategically compromises the case against those forms of discrimination that do in fact disadvantage women more than men. Unfairly presenting the relative disadvantages of different practices leads to one’s legitimate claims being taken less seriously.86