In our societal struggle for equality among the genders, the vast majority of us focus on only one gender’s inequality battle. Women are rightly seen as having fewer opportunities with careers, decision-making and life in general, but they are not the only ones suffering from stereotypes and social stigma holding them back.
Men have their own issues they must face everyday, but because of the very nature of those issues, they have almost no options to voice their grievances without social condemnation.
With the way social justice is carried out today, groups with an overall advantage over others are not allowed to talk about their own problems, because somehow we see them as a form of recompense from their aforementioned advantage.
It works this way with men. I am not suggesting men are equal to women when it comes to cultural roadblocks, but I am indeed demanding they be discussed. To put it frankly, men are not treated more fairly than women in quite a few aspects of life. In some cases, women even have the upper hand.
The gender role brainwashing basically starts at birth. Boys are not allowed to play with dolls, be interested in fine arts or sometimes even express their feelings. We are raised to be stoic and aggressive. We are also taught to respond to many situations with violence, and assert our dominance on others to prove our “manhood.” 
Actually addressing these issues head-on would make almost anyone realize how stupid of a concept this is; but it is, for some reason, part of American culture, so we go with it.
Samantha Olson of Medical Daily outlines the repercussions of such an idea when she said, “Reinforcing rhetoric that feminizes emotional expression and masculinizes violence has the power to stunt empathy, drive dominance, and connect respect with fear.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg of unfair, ridiculous standards which leave many men struggling with their identity and feeling inadequate. Does this sound familiar? These are the same feelings women famously have with their own gender role struggles.
When we journey beyond the tip of this proverbial iceberg, we find interpersonal relations among the genders are lopsided in ways that put all of us in predicaments.
On the male side of things, the outdated concepts of the “breadwinner” and “provider” force a lot of men to pay for dates, overly splurge on gifts and essentially take care of the women they are with. 
I have personally witnessed and even been in relationships where the woman’s duty is to look pretty and analyze her man’s worthiness for her devotion. This man is expected to make every move first, hold himself to a certain standard of chivalry and do most of the work.
Of course, this is not a universal thing, and there are plenty of women who see how idiotic this is, but it is still extremely prevalent.
With a more egregious example, male rape victims have to fight to prove victimhood, whereas women are usually assumed to be telling the truth when bringing it forward, and when these women are lying, it can land innocent men in jail.
Most would assume men have nowhere near the same chances of being raped as women, but Sarah LeTrent for CNN points out a study performed by the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics that begs to differ, “Males and females carried out sexual violence at strikingly similar rates after the age of 18 — 52% of males and 48% of females.”
Men who are raped, especially by women, are just told they “got lucky” and they “must be a stud.” What kind of reality is that, and why do we condone it?
There is list of issues men face simply by virtue of being male, but these few are enough to bring attention the plight people face as a whole. It is not exclusive to either sex, and as such, it deserves to be talked about in a broader sense.
Feminism is important and absolutely should be respected, but it is about time men are included. I will echo my sentiment from earlier: just because we are in an overall place of advantage does not mean we should be forced to deal with destructive gender roles silently.
Holly Brewer of Health Guidance said it better than I ever could, “Men and women are individuals; they are more than just male or female. Our gender is only part of who we are; it does not define us as people.”
Let us employ Brewer’s mentality from this day forward, so everyone gets a fair shake and no one is left feeling inadequate.