If the future is clearly female, what about men?

A sex-based double standard is at work these days, writes David Millard Haskell.

Ontario Grade 12 student Erica Brown made the CBC News a few days ago when she wore a T-shirt to her high school with the slogan, “The Future is Female.”

A female teacher suggested Brown’s message might make some boys at the school feel uncomfortable and asked if she thought it would be appropriate for a male student to wear a T-shirt with the slogan, “The Future is Male.” She wasn’t told to remove the shirt, but to simply “think about it.”

Brown thought about it and decided the teacher’s comments were out of line. The CBC reported that at first Brown was “too upset to reply. Later, she talked to her parents about it, then wrote an open letter to the teacher, gave it to her and posted it on Facebook.”

The Facebook posting went viral and soon the news media arrived on the scene. In the end, Brown received official support from her school’s principal who, according to reports, “encouraged Brown to continue wearing the T-shirt, and told Brown she was proud of the letter the teen wrote.”

While the media coverage doesn’t provide Brown’s answer to whether she thought a male student should wear a T-shirt saying, “The Future is Male,” events in other educational settings suggest that kind of pro-male action wouldn’t have been warmly received.

In 2012, when some students at Simon Fraser University asked their institution to consider a “Men’s Centre” similar to the “Women’s Centre” already on campus, leaders at the Women’s Centre objected to the creation of a space “to celebrate hegemonic masculinity.”

That same year the Ryerson Student Union denied certification to a men’s club on campus. In 2015, when a new group of Ryerson students tried to start a men’s-issues group it was shut down by the student union over concerns about “systemic privilege.”

In 2014, a Men’s Issues Awareness Society (MIAS) at Queen’s University was targeted for decertification before it had run an event. Among other complaints, opponents said the club would “publicly undermine feminism.”

Whether it’s university campuses or high school halls, the truth is that there is a terrible double standard at play. Simply put, men who advocate for their rights are unlikely to find support and are very likely to be accused of promoting misogyny or the “patriarchy.” As such, many men think it’s better to stay quiet.

Sadly, we’re beginning to see the dire effects of this coerced silence.

Males are three times more likely to commit suicide than females. However, a review of existing suicide-prevention programs conducted by American psychologists Emma Hamilton and Bonnie Klimes-Dougan found current methods are more suited to women. They conclude that “in almost all cases, females seem to be more likely than males to benefit from existing prevention programming.”

Males now comprise only 40 per cent of university students. Statistics Canada says males are about 40 per cent more likely to drop out of high school than females. However, in Canada few school boards have initiatives focused on assisting males while most have specific programs dedicated to helping girls succeed academically, especially in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

For young men considering a career in the STEM fields, there’s more bad news. A 2015 study by Cornell researchers Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci published by the National Academy of Sciences showed there is now a significant hiring bias against men applying for university jobs in sciences.

In experiments with professors from 371 colleges and universities across the U.S., they found “science and engineering faculty preferred women 2-1 over identically qualified male candidates.”

A study published last year in the journal Science found similar trends. Citing overt “hiring bias,” French researchers determined “women applying for high-level teaching positions in male-dominated fields” are favoured over men applying for positions in those fields.

While Brown’s T-shirt may, as her teacher suggested, make some of the boys in her high school uncomfortable, the fact of the matter is the shirt is telling the truth. If you have sons you should let them know that the future really is female and, if current trends persist, it won’t be fair.