The Work-Related Threats to Men; Reject Feminist Illusions, Embrace Gender Differences, By Mrs. Vera West

At an ANZAC School assembly I attended with my grandson, as a grandparent visitation event, a feminist speaker claimed the ANZACS would be rolling in their graves over a society that tolerates a wage gap. It struck me as odd then, and it's even more jarring now when you look at the reality of who's really bearing the brunt in the workplace. The Anzacs—almost all men—fought and died in brutal trenches, facing bullets, disease, and despair. If they'd be spinning in their graves over anything today, it wouldn't be some statistical quibble about pay cheques. It'd be the fact that men are still the ones overwhelmingly dying on the job, while the wage gap hogs the spotlight as the ultimate gender injustice.

The numbers don't lie. Data from OSHA in the U.S. and Safe Work Australia shows 90–95 percent of workplace fatalities are men—5,486 deaths in the U.S. in 2022, with over 90 percent male, and 195 in Australia, with just 5 percent women. Why? Because men dominate the deadliest fields: construction, where falls and machinery crush lives; mining, with its cave-ins and gas leaks; logging, where a falling tree can end it all; commercial fishing, battling storms and drowning risks; oil and gas, ripe for explosions; truck driving, a grind of long hours and deadly crashes. These aren't cushy office gigs—they're gruelling, hazardous roles that demand physical sacrifice. And yes, they often pay more because of that risk, not because of some patriarchal conspiracy. That hazard premium partly explains the wage gap, but you won't hear it framed that way.

Meanwhile, the mainstream narrative fixates on women earning less on average, as if that's the raw end of the deal. But where's the outrage for the invisible cost men pay? The pay cheque might be bigger, but so's the chance of injury, disability, or a coffin. In 2022, thousands of men didn't come home from work—compared to a tiny fraction of women—yet we're told the real inequality is in accounting ledgers, not body bags. Society shrugs, assuming men should just suck it up and take these jobs, a gender norm as old as the ANZACS themselves.

The speaker's take was tone-deaf then, and it's insulting now. The ANZACS didn't storm Gallipoli so we could bicker over office pay disparities. They'd likely care more that men are still disproportionately dying on the job, or that male suicide rates dwarf women's, or that veterans—mostly men—battle PTSD and homelessness with too little support. The real gender gap in the workplace isn't wages—it's risk. Men are the ones clocking in to face death, while the wage gap debate drowns out their silent sacrifice. If that's not a betrayal of what those soldiers endured, I don't know what is.