History Main / MenAreBetterThanWomen

A society that thinks this is a NoWomansLand. SpearCounterpart to WomenAreWiser. Contrast TheUnfairSex, MenAreTheExpendableGender. Compare ''and'' contrast MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial, DoubleStandard, and SlidingScaleOfGenderInequality. Compare AcceptableFeminineGoalsAndTraits, NeverASelfMadeWoman and StayInTheKitchen. Someone who believes Men Are Better Than Women may also believe MyGirlIsNotASlut, or NoGuyWantsAnAmazon.

[[noreallife]]

* ''Literature/SharpObjects'': Camille is a bit of a Female Misogynist so some of it might be a case of Unreliable Narrator, but all the villains are female. There's Adora, [[spoiler:a monster with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy who poisoned and tortured all three of her daughters, killing one]]; Amma is [[spoiler:a narcissistic sociopath who killed three girls because she was competing for their love]]; Amma's girl posse was totally willing to go along with [[spoiler:the murder]], except [[TokenGoodTeammate Jodes]], who is portrayed as a pathetic walkover who is on the brink of being murdered herself. And the prepubescent girls [[spoiler:Amma and her friends]] murdered? They were aggressive "bad girls" themselves, with Ann maiming someone with a pair of scissors. The men include John Keene, who- is suspected of being a pedophile [[spoiler:but is actually a Nice Guy]], Alan, who is much more sympathetic here than in the TV series where it's left highly ambiguous if he knew Adora was a poisonous murderer, whereas in the series, he is shown abetting her, if only by omission, and Richard, who may turn out to be weak and is manipulating Camille, but he's also a good cop who knows Adora is bad news.

* In the ''Literature/SectorGeneral'' novels, human women are nurses, not doctors. It is also outright stated that woman can't take Educator tapes (which involves having a recording of an alien mind inside your head). They just can't stand the experience. Since the tapes are standard for surgeons and absolutely required for Diagnosticians, the hospital's highest-level doctors...the implications are obvious and unfortunate. (This is mostly down to SocietyMarchesOn, but was too deeply embedded for the author to {{retcon}} it away.)

* In its critique of The Art of Manliness, rival men's website [[http://www.returnofkings.com/25876/art-of-manliness-is-poisoning-the-concept-of-masculinity-with-disney-lifestyle-advice Return Of Kings]] asserts that Men Are Better Than Women is true, and claims that The Art of Manliness ignoring this "fact" is what makes it inadequate as a men's website. Fair warning-don't click that link unless you can handle some ''real'' nasty sexist hate speech. They're a ''special'' bunch of fruit loops over there.

* In ''Literature/SorcererToTheCrown'' by Zen Cho, being a sorcerer is a men's only club. Upperclass women are not allowed to perform magic as they are believed to be too fragile and that their weak minds could not deal with the effects of magic. (Lower class women are also not be allowed to become sorcerers, of course, and also considered too fragile to use magic ''in theory'' but they're using magic to improve their cooking or cleaning, etc. is tolerated.

This is a trope for works of media in which men are either portrayed as all-around more competent than women, or are stated to be superior. It isn't StrawMisogynist or HeManWomanHater, because those are about a character in-story having the worldview that men are superior to women. This trope is for when the author seems to have this worldview. In one of these works, male characters may not be sexist against the women, but they will certainly be mentally, physically, or morally superior to them.

Although not as frequent as in older works this trope is still sometimes played straight. When it is played straight the show will generally feature a male lead or male characters who are physical and/or mentally (fairly often even emotionally and morally) superior to female characters in the same setting even if said female characters are fairly competent in their own rights. This applies whether the number of male characters outnumber or are outnumbered by the number of female characters, in latter case the few or lone male character (usually the lead) still has the tendency to be superior to the surrounding female characters in most ways that are significant to the plot. A form of DoubleStandard, in that it holds men to an impossible ideal and depicts women as naturally inferior. [[WomenAreWiser Like its counterpart]], the trope is inherently sexist, or at the very least grounded in AuthorAppeal.

[[AC:Live Action TV]]

** In its critique of The Art of Manliness, rival men's website [[http://www.returnofkings.com/25876/art-of-manliness-is-poisoning-the-concept-of-masculinity-with-disney-lifestyle-advice Return Of Kings]] asserts that Men Are Better Than Women is true, and claims that The Art of Manliness ignoring this "fact" is what makes it inadequate as a men's website. Fair warning-don't click that link unless you can handle some ''real'' nasty sexist hate speech. They're a ''special'' bunch of fruit loops over there.

[[AC:Theatre]]
* Creator/OscarWilde's ''Theatre/AnIdealHusband'' states that, essentially, men are meant to go out into the world and do great things, while the most a woman can ask for is to help and support a great man.

[[AC:Real Life]]
* Creator/{{Aristotle}} believes that male and female virtues exist, and that men ought to exemplify the male ones, and women the female ones, and that in the ideal relationship, the man and woman bring out the proper virtues in each other. However, he still believes that female virtues are lower than male ones, and that the male body and mind are more ideal forms.
* Historically, some societies have believed this. There are cases of prehistoric societies where bone and dental remains indicate that women [[NoWomansLand suffered from nutritional deficiencies]] compared to men. In some cases of small hunter-gatherer groups, this led to [[RealityEnsues demographic collapse]]; turns out, if you don't feed women enough, you lost lots of babies, and your culture dies out.

* Historically, [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment some societies have believed this]]. There are cases of prehistoric societies where bone and dental remains indicate that women [[NoWomansLand suffered from nutritional deficiencies]] compared to men. In some cases of small hunter-gatherer groups, this led to [[RealityEnsues demographic collapse]]; turns out, if you don't feed women enough, you lost lots of babies, and your culture dies out.