By Jessica Berget, Editor-in-Chief
As per our feature for this week and in the spirit of International Men’s Day, I think it’s important to recognize some of the inequality’s men face. Our feature this week may be lengthy, but we still didn’t have the time or space to cover a lot of other important issues men face—such as discrimination in female-dominated work-spaces, a high percentage of workplace-related deaths, longer prison sentences for the same crime, false rape accusations, and prostate cancer awareness.
Let’s start with longer prison sentences. Many consider men to hold the most privilege, but there are cases that show it is not true. In a study by an assistant Law professor, Sonja Starr, it was found that men receive sentences that are on average 63 percent higher than women who are convicted for the same crime. The study also found that women are significantly more likely to avoid any charges or convictions, and two times more likely to not be incarcerated compared to men.
Another inequality I think is important to discuss is the gender imbalance in workplace-related deaths. In a 2017 Bureau of Labour Statistics study, it showed that men took up 93 percent of fatal work injuries while women took up the other 7 percent. Furthermore, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research reports that in Canada from 1993 to 2005, 97 percent of workplace fatalities were men. Men tend to take more dangerous jobs, Forbes reports that the most dangerous jobs are overwhelmingly male.
Men also face a large disparity with homelessness, addiction, and mental health. As reported by Homeless Hub, single adult males between 25 to 55 make up almost 48 percent of the homeless population in Canada. According to their study, “The characteristics of this group include greater incidences of mental illness, addictions and disability, including invisible disabilities such as brain injury and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).”
There are so many more issues for which there is no time to go into, but these reasons, and many more are exactly why International Men’s Day is such an important day to recognize.
