Image illustrates the gynocentrism empathy gap.

NCFM NOTE: This article was inspired by discussion in the NCFM Chicago Sunday ZOOM meeting:

Introduction: A Familiar Pattern in Global Humanitarian Policy

In the wake of the deadly earthquakes in Venezuela, UN Women issued a public statement declaring that “women and girls must be placed at the center of rescue efforts and the immediate humanitarian response,” reaffirming that the organization “stands with the country’s women and girls as they face the aftermath of the deadly earthquakes.”

For many, this may seem routine—UN Women is doing what UN Women was created to do. But for those who follow gender‑policy dynamics closely, the statement reflects a much larger and longstanding global pattern: institutionalized gynocentrism.

Across international agencies, NGOs, and humanitarian frameworks, female‑specific advocacy is formalized, funded, and politically reinforced. Yet there is no UN Men, no global institution tasked with ensuring that men and boys are not invisible in crises, policy, or humanitarian triage. This asymmetry is not theoretical; it shows up repeatedly in disaster relief, education, health, development funding, and international law.

The Venezuela statement is simply the latest example of a worldwide reflex: women and girls are explicitly centered, while men and boys are implicitly assumed to be fine, resilient, or expendable.

A Male‑Perspective Response: The Empathy Gap Made Visible

From a male perspective, the UN Women announcement is a textbook illustration of what the men’s movement has been highlighting for decades: global institutions consistently prioritize female suffering while ignoring male suffering, even when men and boys face equal or greater risks.

Men’s advocates are not opposed to helping women and girls. They are opposed to excluding men and boys from humanitarian concern.

The Empathy Gap in Disasters

In crisis zones—earthquakes, wars, pandemics, famines—the same pattern repeats:

• Men overwhelmingly perform the dangerous rescue and recovery labor.
• Men suffer higher mortality in many disasters due to risk‑exposure roles.
• Men are more likely to be conscripted or coerced into hazardous tasks.
• Male victims—injured, displaced, homeless—receive little targeted support.

Yet humanitarian language routinely frames women and girls as “the most vulnerable,” even when vulnerability is shared or greater among men.

This is the empathy gap: Women’s pain is foregrounded; men’s pain is backgrounded.

The Institutional Asymmetry

The deeper problem is structural:

• No global agency monitors male suicide rates.
• No agency addresses boys’ educational decline.
• No agency focuses on male homelessness.
• No agency protects male victims of war, forced labor, or conscription.
• No agency defends paternal rights or male reproductive rights.
• No agency ensures men and boys are included in humanitarian triage.

Yet every one of these issues is real, measurable, and worsening.

Why Men’s Advocates Respond with Exasperation

When UN Women says “women and girls must be placed at the center,” men hear:

• “Men and boys are peripheral.”
• “Male suffering is not a priority.”
• “Male victims are invisible.”

And when feminism claims to be about “equality,” but consistently behaves as female‑first, men understandably question the sincerity of that claim.

The Venezuela statement is not offensive because it helps women. It is offensive because it excludes men, and because the global system has no mechanism to correct that exclusion.

Conclusion: Equality Requires Visibility

The men’s movement is not asking for women to be deprioritized. It is asking for men to be seen.

Until global institutions acknowledge that men and boys also suffer, also die, and also deserve humanitarian concern, statements like the one from UN Women will continue to highlight the very empathy gap and gynocentrism the men’s movement has been calling out for decades.