Paul Elam, head ranter at A Voice for Men, has a new video out called “You want privilege? You got it!” The thesis: if women really did have the so-called privileges that men have, they’d hate it and want men to take them all back. Because all of these so-called privileges are really giant burdens. Or, as Elam puts it, somewhat more melodramatically, these privileges have “begun to more resemble an anchor around your neck than the helm of a great ship that everyone tells you that you are captaining.”
Here’s the video.
Well, all right, that’s not really Paul Elam. But that little clip does capture pretty well the tone of his latest post, which is indeed about how male privilege is really a terrible burden.
I mean, this is his opener:
I swear by everything holy that the next time I hear some fembot caterwaul about “male privilege,” I am going to find something to break, turn it into shards, and drag the broken pieces across my chest just to distract me from the pain of their increasing stupidity. Just picture me like Martin Sheen, collapsed in a heap of bloody, tearful insanity on the floor of a cheap hotel in Saigon.
Heck, compared to that, Mr. McDuck’s reaction to the news about his “ice cream” was, if anything, rather restrained.
The rest of Elam’s post is, as is typical for him, a rather trite recitation of a number of standard Men’s Rights talking points about male “disposability” written in some of the most ridiculously overblown prose ever seen outside of an Ayn Rand novel.
Elam complains that he hasn’t seen much benefit from his privileges:
Mind you I still don’t know what that privilege is. One time when I was young and very poor I was late on my light bill. I showed the electric company my balls, but they cut my power off anyway. …
Yeah, as someone who’s also had his power cut off, I’m pretty sure they do that with everyone. I’m also pretty sure that no feminist has ever or will ever argue that male privilege means you won’t get your power cut off for nonpayment.
Here’s Elam addressing women as if they’ve traded place with men:
With your privilege comes the right to work on crab boats, drive trucks, work on electric lines, walk into burning buildings and sink into the bowels of the earth digging out coal and other things people find useful.
Apparently having greater occupational choices is scary and bad.
When a ship goes down, or any other life threatening disaster strikes, you have two choices. Be a real woman and die, or treat your life like it has value and have the world shit on you as a coward who refused to perish on cue. There is also the possibility of third option, either die from the disaster so that men can live, or have another woman blow a fucking hole in your face with a pistol because you tried to save yourself.
Yeah, I believe we may have addressed this earlier. Oh, but there’s more:
Like noticing the emperor has no clothes, it may hit you one day when you decide not to offer your seat to a man; when the stares at you from all around seem to come down people’s noses. …
You must learn not to say a word. Not to anyone else, not even to yourself. You must learn to see flames, coal dust, icy saltwater, death and sacrifice for the trappings of power that the world around you thinks them to be.
Says a dude typing out his manifestos on an expensive laptop he conned nagged his followers into buying for him.
And you must be willing to hang your head in shame over that power, even as the world chews you up, spits you out, and gets ready to take its turn with your daughter.
Elam’s rousing conclusion:
So, that is it, ladies. You want my privilege, it is yours. I will gladly hand it over to you this very minute. I am just waiting for you to meet the pre-requisites of disposibilty and an utter lack of self-value. I am waiting for you to woman up to the job, take off your fucking make up and be ready to bleed, blah blah blah look at me I’m mad!
I paraphrased a little at the end there. But, yes, the world champion at seeing male “disposability” everywhere did in fact misspell the word “disposability.” That was all him. And so, believe it or not, is the following:
I, like a Jew gone weary of being called a chosen one, am completely ready for anyone else, and in particular, you, to be chosen.
Personally, I have had about all the privilege I can stand.
Yep. He went there.
Also, I don’t know if you all knew this, but when women serve in the military these days it’s “like a day care camp for them.”
Also, not to pat myself on the back or anything, but my headline is much better than his. Maybe he should get me to write all the headlines on A Voice for Angry Duck Plutocrats Men.
Discuss.
Any bets on whether he actually rides the bus? Because I’ve seen able-bodied women CALLED OUT on the bus for not giving up their seat to someone who is elderly or who has a disability. If the bus is full and standing isn’t a burden for you, you give up your seat to someone for whom it is a burden. If the bus is full and everyone who has a tough time standing is sitting, well, you got there first. Seat’s yours.
Able-bodied men giving up their seats to able-bodied women is uncommon enough to be irrelevant, and I’ve never seen anyone actually give a shit that it didn’t happen.
That’s funny, because I showed the electric company my tits and they told me I’d never have to pay again.
OH WAIT
I know this post is supposed to be “male privilege isn’t real,” but all I’m getting out of it is “male privilege isn’t all the privileges, poor me,” and how much more privileged do you get.
Lets see ..
In response to the possibility that maybe some women, some of the time, might have to pay for their own birth control .. the feminist proclaimed a “war on women”, the media went into a fit, and the country convulsed with guilt over the travesty of it all.
Nobody noticed that a seris of other female only privileges were not questioned (free tubal ligation, free breast health, free well woman visits, free smoking cessation, free cancer prevention for girls, free STD treatment, etc).
Nobody noticed that there were ZERO male only privileges (no vasectomy, no prostate health, no “well man visits”, no smoking cessation, no cancer prevention for boys, no STD treatment for men). And of course, no birth control for men.
More importantly, nobody noticed that the sexist Obamacare mass-discrimination law has structural feminist bigotry built into it. Nobody noticed that every health related beaurocracy is infiltrated by feminist man-hating “over-lords” under Obamacare. Nobody noticed that, as a result of this, since Obamacare was passed, ZERO provisions related to male health have been proposed or even mentioned by the IOM or the USPSTF. This is in contrast to a string of female-only provisions (including the free birth control for women only, which led to the self-pitying feminist tyrant wailing about a “war on women”).
Yep, it is pretty clear that feminists are soft, weak, entitled, pampered, pathetic, and completely unable to handle any male-type “privilege”.
You little vulnerable and dependent dearies would wilt in an instant under the kind of “privilege” that men must endure.
That is just health care, by the way. I can’t imagine the outcry if women faced the kind of oppression and discrimination that men do in civil court, criminal court, family court, government institutions, laws of every kind, and so forth.
Obviously, you are all just too delicate to even think about this. You had better go back to lying to yourselves. Ask the Boob King for help, he is good at self deception, fawning adulation, and cloying pedestalization. That will make you all feel better, poor little cream puffs. You are just SO upset at seeing, for an instant, what life is like for men.
“Nobody noticed that every health related beaurocracy is infiltrated by feminist man-hating ‘over-lords’ under Obamacare.”
It’s sentences like this that confirm my suspicion that MRAs are irrational and overly emotional and unable to write an entire post without descending into metaphor and hyperbole.
Ha, and he confirms my suspicion in his very next post. Refuses to engage in civil discourse. ALWAYS resorts to namecalling, sarcasm, and condescension. No room for any good ol’ fashioned Western Male Rationalism.
You mean in response to the possibility that an employer might be given control over their employees’ personal lives and have the right to force women to pay twice for birth control (once for their health insurance which ought to cover all health care, including B.C., and once for the B.C itself)…
I suppose you would support the right of, say, a Scientologist CEO refusing that their health care plan cover their employees’ drugs for depression or schizophrenia or other mental illnesses because as a Scientologist they believe psychiatry is false?
Oh hai Antz, how’s the weather in imaginationland today?
Holy cow! But really, what free std clinic only assists women? I volunteer at one and the majority of our clients are male. You should get up and start doing something if you feel this way. Start a letter writing campaign or something. The problem with most MRAs is they complain about a lot of things and few actually do anything. Women weren’t just handed the vote. They didn’t just sit around bemoaning their status as a hood ornament for society. They marched, the were active and they fought for what they believed in.
When I go to MRA sites I see a lot of threats but little action.
@Anthony Zarat,
It is precisely your male privilege that keeps you from seeing the discrimination and sexism women face every day. Do you realize the birth control pill was invented in the 50’s and it took decades for it to not be banned in certain states, let alone covered by insurance – even though it does much more for women’s health than simply control birth. Viagra was covered the same year it came out. You are privileged!
It occurs to me that Antz and other MRAs think men can only feel one emotion: anger. But there are a whole range of emotions out there for men to feel. Here’s an instructional video:
Shorter Antsy:
*post once*
*declare us to be so angry at the truth we can’t even think before any of us actually post*
Antsy is so upset at what I just wrote.
Please, MRA’s, ‘splain to me what it’s like to survive a disaster. Please tell me what it’s like to recover from something like that. Please tell me how women have it good during disasters. I’m all ears, assholes.
The MRM doesn’t care about preventing all deaths during disasters. They just want more women to die.
Oh good lord, AntZ. You’re nearly as bad with the facts as your friend Mr. Elam.
The war on women was a lot more than one bill. This year nearly 400 state bills around the country have been proposed to limit women’s rights in one way or another. Planned Parenthood funding was under attack. And when Congress made an inquiry into birth control coverage, they asked men, exclusively, to testify. So yeah, it’s a fucking big deal.
Lots of groups across the country offer free PSA tests. Probably in your area even.
Free smoking cessation is offered for men too. Don’t be ridiculous.
There are lots of places, including Planned Parenthood and men’s wellness centers, where men can get free condoms and free STD testing.
Don’t believe me? Google it.
Elam’s ridiculous too, of course. One hardly knows where to start. Of course, he isn’t a fireman, soldier, fisherman, truck driver, electrician, or coal miner. Presumably he chose an occupation that he wanted to do. My boyfriend is a sometimes-electrician, and he chose his job because it was something that he loves doing. And, like I’ve said before, women entering his industry have to put up with a lot of shit that men don’t, just by virtue of being women.
And I’m not really sure what pisses me off more. Elam’s assertion that women don’t work or pay taxes or his disappearing of women casualties of war. Oh, I know: it’s his utterly serious belief that he is the son of god. Serious eye roll. Someone needs a nap.
Apologies if this has been posted anywhere else, but the Daily Mash, Britain’s closest equivalent to The Onion, has just published this, almost certainly inspired by that recent BBC article and Tom Martin’s shenanigans:
Chosenness in Judaism is often framed as a burden, or at least a greater responsibility, rather than an unalloyed privilege. The Jews were Chosen to be bound by the 613 commandments rather than just the 7 Noahide laws.
Indeed, by some interpretations the privilege is the other way. A Gentile who follows the 613 Mitzvot will be rewarded as much as a Jew who does, but a Jew who follows only the Noahide laws will be considered deficient.
Antz, no one notices what you’re whining about because what you’re whingeing about has no basis in reality. Mens reproductive health issues are already covered by private health insurance agencies. Those same insurance companies have steadfastly refused to provide the same coverage for the women paying for the service. And that’s the issue Obama is addressing, that men ALREADY have insurance to cover reproductive health, women are being denied comprable care.
I would have thought you’d support birth control so women can’t sperm jack men. Then I remembered you already have children. Which means its too late for you, so why should you give a shit.
I’m not sure that’s a metaphor. I think he might literally believe that.
(How weird is it to talk about feminists “infiltrating” a profession, anyway? I thought we were just “working in” it.)
I’m still laughing about the fact that he convinced his minions to give him $5,000 with the empty promise of making feminists suffer. It’s the ultimate example of how pathetic the MRM is.
Antz, how about a citation or two? For the uninitiated…here’s your chance to educate! Of course, your ranting is much funnier, but hey, ball’s in your court. Proof, please.
Can everyone please send me cash? I promise to make every abuser of typography suffer for their years of attacks on basic grammar and punctuation. Oh, the horror! Just the misuse of the dear apostrophe alone calls for revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge. And cash. For me.
Yo, Elam. As a white cis woman, I recognize that I also have privilege. I also recognize that my admitting that I have privilege is not an accusation that I am therefore a bad person. It just means that I have certain benefits living in our society that other groups do not. It’s called self-reflection, dude. Learn some.
@Wetherby Thank you for introducing me to The Daily Mash!
Prediction: Antsy’s only citation will be “read Obamacare and search for the word ‘men'” like it usually is when he brings this up. He will also conveniently ignore the ways in which he has already been refuted on this very topic on this very website. His hobby horse is, of course, too fun not to ride.