Do Men Face Prejudice?

A dissertation that reveals what the APA quietly overlook

The American Psychological Association likes to remind us that psychology should be guided by empathy, cultural awareness, and respect for lived experience. Few would argue with that. These values are written directly into the APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men, published in 2018.

On paper, the Guidelines sound humane and thoughtful. They urge psychologists to be gender-sensitive, to avoid stereotyping, to understand the social contexts shaping boys’ and men’s lives, and to guard against bias that might harm the therapeutic alliance.

All good things.

But there is an important question we almost never ask:

What happens when those principles are applied fully and consistently to men — including the possibility that men themselves may be targets of prejudice?

A largely unknown doctoral dissertation from 2020 offers a surprisingly clear answer.

A brief introduction most people never received

In 2020, psychologist Aman Siddiqi completed a doctoral dissertation titled A Clinical Guide to Discussing Prejudice Against Men. It was submitted quietly, without media attention or controversy, and has remained largely invisible outside academic circles.

That is unfortunate — because it does something rare.

Rather than arguing politics or ideology, Siddiqi does something very simple and very professional:
He takes the existing psychological science on prejudice and asks whether it applies to men.

Not rhetorically. Clinically.

He does not invent new standards. He does not dismiss women’s issues. Instead, he asks whether psychologists may be overlooking an entire category of harm because it doesn’t fit the dominant narrative.

And in doing so, his work quietly exposes a tension at the heart of the APA Guidelines themselves.

What the APA Guidelines say — and what they assume

The APA Guidelines for Boys and Men emphasize several themes that many clinicians will recognize:

• Boys and men are shaped by restrictive gender norms

• Emotional suppression harms mental health

• Masculinity can be socially reinforced in unhealthy ways

• Psychologists should challenge stereotypes and build empathy

All of that ​may be true — as far as it goes.

But notice something subtle.

The Guidelines overwhelmingly frame men as:

• Shaped by norms

• Socialized into restriction

• Influenced by expectations

What they almost never frame men as is this:

Targets of prejudice.

This matters more than it might seem.

Why “prejudice” is not the same as “socialization”

Siddiqi’s dissertation makes a distinction that is obvious once you see it — and strangely absent from much of clinical training.

Socialization asks:

“What messages did you absorb growing up?”

Prejudice asks:

“How are you perceived, judged, dismissed, or morally framed by others right now?”

These are not the same thing.

A man may be distressed not only because he learned to suppress emotion — but because when he does express vulnerability, he is:

• Not believed

• Seen as dangerous

• Treated as less worthy of care

• Assumed to be at fault

The APA Guidelines speak at length about helping men change themselves.
Siddiqi asks whether psychology has done enough to question how men are viewed.

That shift alone is quietly radical.

The empathy gap we don’t name

One of the strongest parts of Siddiqi’s work is his discussion of what he calls the male gender empathy gap — the tendency to respond less sympathetically to male suffering, especially when it conflicts with familiar narratives.

This is not framed as cruelty. It is framed as normalization.

Some prejudices persist not because people hate a group — but because dismissing that group’s suffering has become socially acceptable.

Siddiqi outlines several mechanisms that maintain this acceptability:

• Trivialization (“It’s not that serious.”)

• Denial (“That doesn’t really happen.”)

• Justification (“There must be a reason.”)

• Intimidation (“You can’t say that.”)

If you’ve worked with men long enough, you’ve heard these dynamics described — often haltingly — in the therapy room.

The APA Guidelines warn clinicians not to invalidate clients.
Siddiqi shows how invalidation happens when male distress falls outside approved frames.

When good intentions become blind spots

Perhaps the most uncomfortable implication of Siddiqi’s dissertation is this:

Clinicians themselves may unintentionally participate in prejudice against men — precisely because their training never gave them a framework to recognize it.

When a man describes feeling:

• Disbelieved in a conflict

• Treated as disposable

• Assumed to be dangerous

• Morally pre-judged

A well-meaning therapist may instinctively:

• Reframe the experience

• Redirect responsibility

• Minimize the injury

• Interpret it as defensiveness or entitlement

Not out of malice — but out of habit.

The APA Guidelines urge psychologists to be self-reflective about bias.
Siddiqi asks whether psychology has reflected deeply enough on its gender asymmetries.

A question the Guidelines never quite ask

The APA is comfortable naming androcentrism — male-centered bias — in culture.

Siddiqi raises a quieter question:

What happens when cultural sympathy flows primarily in one direction?

He uses the term gynocentrism not as an accusation, but as a descriptive lens — a way of understanding how concern, protection, and moral framing may cluster unevenly.

Whether one accepts the term or not, the phenomenon it points to is familiar to many men:

• Female suffering is presumed legitimate

• Male suffering is often contextualized, explained, or doubted

The APA Guidelines never directly address this imbalance.
Siddiqi does — calmly, clinically, and without rhetoric.

Why this matters now

In recent years, we’ve seen growing concern about:

• Male loneliness

• Male suicide

• Boys disengaging from school

• Men dropping out of institutions

Many responses still default to:

“Men need to open up.”
“Men need to change.”
“Men need better coping skills.”

Those may help.

But Siddiqi’s dissertation suggests something deeper:

If we never examine how men are seen, we will keep asking men to adapt to environments that quietly misperceive them.

The APA Guidelines aim to help boys and men.
Siddiqi’s work asks what those guidelines truly require — if we apply them without exemptions.

A final thought

This dissertation does not reject psychology’s values.

It takes them seriously.

And in doing so, it reveals a simple, uncomfortable possibility:

We may believe we are being fair to men — while still failing to see them clearly.

That is not an accusation.
It is an invitation.

And it is one psychology would do well to accept.

Institutional Sexism: The Bias We’re Not Allowed to See - Part 3 - Conclusion

If institutional sexism against men is so pervasive, why can’t we see it?
Why can a society capable of diagnosing “microaggressions” and “implicit bias” remain blind to its own structural prejudice against half its citizens?

The answer lies in a deeper psychological bias — one older than feminism and broader than politics. It’s the instinct to center women’s needs first: gynocentrism.

Gynocentrism isn’t hatred of men; it’s compassion with blinders on. It’s the moral reflex that sees women as fragile, men as durable, and suffering as legitimate only when it’s female. It shapes our empathy map from childhood — the little girl who cries is comforted; the boy who cries is told to toughen up. By adulthood, that reflex is baked into the culture.

When feminists in the 1960s began describing institutions as oppressive to women, they were building on this foundation. The public accepted the narrative easily because it fit the moral intuition that women need protection and men need correction. The idea of institutional sexism against women felt right; the idea of institutional sexism against men felt absurd.

But intuition isn’t truth.

Gynocentrism acts like an ideological shield: it protects women from scrutiny while leaving men exposed. When a woman fails, the system failed her; when a man fails, he failed himself.
The result is a self-reinforcing loop — a feedback mechanism that rewards female victimhood and punishes male vulnerability.

Even academia, which claims neutrality, is steeped in this moral reflex.
Gender-studies programs that once promised to challenge inequality now function more as temples of ideological maintenance. Their role is not to question whether men face systemic bias, but to explain away any data suggesting they do. The assumption is always that men hold the power, even when they demonstrably don’t.

That’s not scholarship; it’s theology.

And like all theology, it protects itself by defining heresy. The heretic, in this case, is anyone who points out that compassion has been rationed by sex.

7. The Human Cost

When systems consistently favor one sex’s pain over the other’s, people learn. Boys learn it first.

They learn it in classrooms that scold their energy and reward compliance.
They learn it in media that depicts them as bumbling, violent, or disposable.
They learn it in families where fathers are peripheral, or where mothers wield the quiet authority of assumed virtue.

By adulthood, many men have absorbed the lesson: your feelings are a burden, your needs are negotiable, your failures are proof.

This is how institutional sexism becomes internalized.
Men stop expecting fairness, and worse, they stop expecting empathy. When injustice occurs — in courts, workplaces, or relationships — they don’t see it as systemic. They see it as personal ​failure or weakness.

That resignation is perhaps the cruelest outcome of all.
Because institutions don’t have to oppress loudly when their subjects have already consented to being overlooked.

The emotional toll is enormous but unmeasured. It shows up in statistics — suicide rates, addiction, homelessness — but the deeper wound is existential. When a man realizes that the society he contributes to has little instinct to protect him, something vital in his spirit hardens.

As one father told me after losing custody of his children, “I didn’t just lose them. I lost faith in the idea that fairness even applies to me.”

Institutional sexism isn’t only about policies. It’s about the quiet message that some lives merit more compassion than others. And that message, delivered generation after generation, corrodes our collective sense of justice.

8. Reclaiming the Term

It’s time to reclaim the language.

If systemic bias means patterns of disadvantage embedded in structures, then we must be willing to name those patterns wherever they occur — not just where they fit a fashionable narrative.

Institutional sexism should never have been gendered. It describes a process, not a direction: the way institutions absorb moral assumptions and translate them into policy. Sometimes those assumptions favor men. Increasingly, they favor women. The honest mind must be able to see both.

Reclaiming the term doesn’t mean denying women’s​ or men’s historical struggles. It means applying the same analytical lens to everyone. It means intellectual consistency.

We’ve built a society where calling attention to male disadvantage is considered controversial, while calling attention to female disadvantage is considered virtuous. That asymmetry is itself a form of institutional sexism — the kind that hides behind moral approval.

The first step toward balance is honesty. We must be willing to ask the forbidden question:

If equality truly matters, why are we afraid to see when the system tilts against men?

If we can’t even name institutional sexism when it harms half the population, then the word equality has lost its meaning.

The goal isn’t to replace one victim class with another. It’s to restore integrity to the moral compass of our institutions — to remind them that fairness, by definition, cannot be selective.

Closing Note

Perhaps someday, a university course on “institutional sexism” will examine both sides honestly. Students will study how empathy, once a virtue, became gendered; how compassion was politicized; how language turned from a tool of truth to a weapon of ideology.

Until then, it falls to those outside the institutions — writers, thinkers, fathers, teachers, ordinary men and women — to hold up the mirror.

Because the greatest act of equality is not claiming more compassion for one sex.
It’s extending it, finally, to both.

When the Nursery Governs the Nation

The Harper family lived in a modest two-story house at the end of a quiet street. There was a father, a mother, and three children: 14, 11, and 6.

They were not extraordinary people. They forgot appointments. They argued about screen time. They got tired at the end of long days.

But something about their home felt solid.

There was warmth. There was order. There was a sense that everyone knew where they stood.

Why?

Because they followed rules that make families work.

1. Belonging Came Before Performance

When the six-year-old spilled milk for the third time that week, no one convened a tribunal. She wasn’t asked whether she had “earned” dinner. She was fed because she belonged.

When the 14-year-old slammed a door and shouted something regrettable, there were consequences. But there was no threat of expulsion.

Membership in the family was unconditional.

Belonging preceded merit.

2. The Strong Carried the Weak

The parents worked. The children did not. The younger ones consumed far more than they produced.

No one kept a ledger calculating whether the six-year-old had contributed enough to justify her meals.

That would have been absurd.

Family is not based on reciprocity. It is based on duty and love.

The strong carry the weak—temporarily—so that the weak can grow strong.

3. Feelings Had Moral Weight

If one child was hurt, everything paused. If someone cried, the room shifted.

Emotional pain mattered.

The parents were especially attentive to vulnerability.

The most fragile voice in the room often received the most care.

No one found this unfair. It was simply what families do.

4. Mercy Tempered Justice

Rules existed. But context mattered. “Why did you do that?” was asked before consequences were decided.

Intent mattered.

Fatigue mattered.

Developmental stage mattered.

Justice inside a family is personal, not mechanical.

And because of these principles, the Harper family flourished.

The children grew.
Mistakes were survivable.
Love was assumed.
Authority was trusted.

Now imagine something strange.

The Same Rules Applied to the Whole Town

Suppose the mayor of the town announced:

“We have discovered that the Harper family’s way of operating produces harmony. Therefore, we will run the entire town by the same principles.”

It sounded compassionate.

It sounded humane.

It sounded morally advanced.

And so they tried.

1. Belonging Before Contribution

Citizens were told:

“Your needs come first. Contribution is secondary.” Resources were increasingly distributed according to distress rather than productivity.

Those who expressed greater need received greater priority.

Those who produced more were told not to focus on reward. After all, in a family, the strong carry the weak.

At first, this felt noble.

Over time, effort subtly declined.

Not dramatically. Not all at once.

Just enough.

2. Feelings as Public Authority

Town meetings began centering on emotional harm.

If a policy made someone feel excluded, it was reconsidered.

If a group felt historically wronged, that feeling carried moral authority.

Facts still mattered—but feelings often overruled them.

Gradually, public debate shifted from “What works?” to “Who is hurting?”

And the most distressed voice carried the most influence.

3. Mercy Without Impartiality

In the Harper home, mercy worked because everyone was bound together for life.

In the town, relationships were not intimate. They were institutional.

Yet rules began bending depending on who committed the offense.

Context expanded for some.
Responsibility tightened for others.

The law stopped feeling blind.
Trust began to erode.

4. The Quiet Burnout

At the edge of town lived Daniel.

He owned a small plumbing company.

He worked long hours. Paid his taxes. Trained apprentices. Fixed broken pipes in winter storms.

When policies shifted toward distributing resources based primarily on need, Daniel didn’t complain. He believed in helping people.

But over time he noticed something.

His taxes rose steadily.
Regulations multiplied.
Clients who didn’t pay were increasingly protected.

When he raised concerns, he was told, gently, that others were hurting more.

He kept working.

But something changed.

He stopped hiring apprentices.
He stopped expanding.
He stopped volunteering for civic boards.

He still contributed.

Just less.

Not out of anger.

Out of fatigue.

Multiply Daniel by thousands.

The town did not collapse in flames.

It simply slowed.

5. The Collapse of Incentive

In a family, parents sacrifice because love binds them.

In a town, producers require fairness and predictability.

When contribution no longer reliably led to reward,
and distress reliably led to benefit,
human behavior adjusted.

Not because people were evil—
but because incentives shape action.

Gradually.
Predictably.

Why It Worked at Home But Failed in Public

The Harper family worked because:

• It was small.

• It was intimate.

• It was bound by lifelong loyalty.

• It operated through asymmetrical responsibility.

• It suspended strict reciprocity for the sake of development.

The town required something different:

• Impersonal fairness.

• Predictable incentives.

• Equal accountability under law.

• Reciprocal contribution.

• Boundaries that protect the whole.

The family is designed to nurture dependency.

Society is designed to transition dependency into responsibility.

The family suspends survival logic so children can grow.

Society must enforce survival logic so civilization can survive.

Both Systems Are Necessary

This is not an argument against families.

Nor is it an argument against compassion.

The family is sacred precisely because it is an exception.

It is the one place where love precedes merit.

And society exists so that families can exist.

Without the productive, disciplined structures of the public sphere, there would be no stable homes to shelter children.

Without the nurturing, sacrificial structures of the family, there would be no mature adults capable of sustaining society.

They are not enemies.

They are interdependent.

But they are not interchangeable.

When the rules of the nursery become the rules of the nation, compassion expands—but accountability weakens.

And when accountability weakens for long enough, even compassion becomes unsustainable.

The tension described in this story is not hypothetical. It is the central argument of David Shackleton’s remarkable new book, Matrisensus: Masculine Collapse and Feminine Shadow.

Shackleton argues that Western society is increasingly governed not by the logic of society, but by the logic of the family — and that this shift carries profound consequences for law, culture, and moral authority.

Tomorrow, I’ll be joined by David Shackleton, Janice Fiamengo, Warren Farrell, and Lisa Britton for a conversation exploring these ideas in depth. If this story resonates with you, you won’t want to miss it.

Men Are Good