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Summary
This article exposes the myth of male war sacrifice against the daily sacrificial expectation from women. Men going to war isn’t a daily reality, nor a phenomenon that affects only men. Women are affected by conflict crises. Meanwhile, domestic chores are a daily expectation for women. Childbirth can only be experienced by women. While most men will never have to go to war, all women are expected to bear children and do domestic chores.
There are over 200 countries today, and fewer than ten countries are engaged in formal war (a war between sovereign states and which is usually the type invoked in online discourses). By contrast, 250 babies are born every minute, amounting to over 130 million a year. Annually, maternal deaths from childbirth complications number between 200,000 and 400,000, and women perform nearly 70% of all global housework, spending hours daily nursing, cleaning, and caring, consistently, year-round. This is without consideration for their roles in paid employment, yet.
The last world war ended in 1945. Nigeria’s most recent civil war ended in 1970, over thirty years ago. Today, with over 200 million people, the country has fewer than 300,000 active soldiers. Even if we were to include all paramilitary and uniformed forces, they still wouldn’t be up to ten million, less than 10% of the number of babies being born worldwide by women.
Interacting with men, mostly online, is quick to reveal a common anti-feminist argument they peddle: warring as the greatest sacrifice a man can make, much greater than women ‘pushing out’ babies or carrying out daily domestic chores, for them (women) to deserve childbirth-focused rights or pro-women policy consideration.
But as the figures have shown, most men are not, and have never been, on any battlefield. According to various sources, one being the UCDP data released in 2023, 154,000 deaths were recorded as being battle-related (not active military combat deaths alone), and so, categorically, one would be right to conclude that more women die from giving birth than men die from fighting wars.
Furthermore, most people alive today, especially in relatively stable countries, will die without ever experiencing war. Meanwhile, for over 80 per cent of women, childbirth (and its related domestic duties) will be part of their reality. That risk is not an option; it is an expectation.
While pregnancy and childbirth are uniquely female burdens, war—the go-to example of male sacrifice—affects everyone. Men are not the only victims of war. They may dominate the battlefield, but they do not own the suffering.
Women die in bombings, get caught in crossfire, are displaced, starved, and left to care for children in the middle of collapsed states. There is also the part that rarely gets acknowledged when men start glorifying war: women are often raped, trafficked, and sexually brutalised during conflict. Their bodies become battlegrounds, spoils of war, and collateral damage. “If the men are captured, the women are fair game” is not just a toxic fantasy peddled by anti-feminists; it is also an inadvertent admission that women are just as, if not more, vulnerable in wartime.
Let us also consider another truth: wars are man-made. Men in power often make Socio-political and economic decisions, so they are subject to a period of rule. Pregnancy, on the other hand, is a fact of life. It is a biological necessity, and a function women have been carrying out since the dawn of time, long before the discovery of fire, the ‘creation’ of war, or the growth of civilisation. In wartime and peaceful times, in pandemics and progress, women have continued to give birth.
The world may pause, collapse, or evolve, yet the expectation that women will carry, birth, and raise children never disappears, and neither does the risk. Borne silently and anonymously by millions of women across centuries and revolutions.
Yet when women speak about labour, inequality, or the toll of caregiving, the response is often some dusty, distant and obscure war analogy. Suddenly, men who have never been conscripted are laying down their lives “for women” on podcasts, in comment sections, and WhatsApp group chats. This is rarely about actual war but about reasserting importance, about centring themselves in conversations that make them uncomfortable.
This romanticisation of male suffering is also always selective. Such arguments only show up every time women highlight real, measurable inequality, not because men are actively sacrificing, but because they have grown used to invoking that claim to avoid accountability. Prompting one to ask: Who exactly are you sacrificing your life for in 2025? Since you were born, which woman have you died for?
Most of the men who make these claims are Gen Z or millennials who have never seen war, never known conscription, and never had to fight for a nation. Still, they are quick to invoke it as proof of sacrifice, as if they would be courageous enough to engage in close-contact combat or guerrilla warfare with terrorists.
No, you are not at war; you are in Lagos traffic. You are on Twitter, being a keyboard warrior.
While male struggles exist, the inflated myth of noble sacrifice, used to silence women or invalidate their lived experiences, does not hold up under scrutiny. No, you are not sacrificing anything. You are not noble because of a struggle you have never faced, and you’re not a gun-wielding soldier.
If you must insert yourself into every conversation about inequality, at least be honest about what you are protecting and what you are avoiding.
