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.
Regarding the Elam drivel, I kept thinking of this routine. I know Paul didn’t say “white” but this whole thing is about being a white male (which last time I checked, so is Paul Elam, the one complaining) , and how it’s grrrreat.
I know this is just comedy, not 100 percent, but it’s got chuckles in a couple of places.
And am so sick of these guys saying that males have to put out fires, so where’s the privilege? They do not have to do those jobs because they are male, and for that discussion I would ACTUALLY LIKE TO TALK TO A MALE THAT DOES ONE OF THE JOBS HE MENTIONS to get his opinion on oppressed-as-a-gender-class perspective.
Paul Elam is not oppressed or privilege stripped because some other dude does something hard. On the other hand, women in the highest most privileged places can still feel the gender second class, the limitations, the being a WOMAN and not a person squeeze. That’s what this is about. Privilege is actually defined by the people Paul is screaming about, as bring able to have their kind as the default setting in society. Not that life is never hard.
Privilege means the defaults are yours.
I grew up with a morbidly obese friend. She explains to me that when she walks into a room, she has to see, not if a chair is available, but if one will fit her, will she break it, etc. I have had the PRIVILEGE of never ever having those thoughts cross my mind unless I walked into a preschool. That is the example I give for privilege. It’s when the default is you and you don’t have to think about stuff. The concept might have a limited scope, but the interpretations of it and complaints about these skewed interpretations are limitless it seems.
Oh and I talked of privilege regarding women at the top, and how they can still be second class, well conversely I hate to break it to Paul, but coal miners have experienced male privilege.
Now regarding this cancer stuff. The reason breast cancer gets more attention is because one of the groups if effects is young moms. When mothers are dying prematurely, society seems to care. The demographic that prostate cancer effects mostly are much older men that might already have a laundry list of health problems. Not always, of course, but the visibility of a problem and if it effects young children is going to matter. I have no idea why that does not get talked about more in these discussions. But no help for men is being held back, and no feminist conspiracy is advancing or sabotaging either one of these issues.
Older men need to get check ups when there is NOT a problem and you will see the death rates of prostate cancer go way down. No matriarchy, no feminist conspiracy.
“To protect me from (2), I agreed to a sexual relationship with a hot woman who agreed to move in with me on the same day. She then fell obsessively in love with me.”
This is what I find the hardest to believe.
I just read Antz’s story. I’m probably just repeating what others said (I read the comments diagonally) but:
– If your story is true, why would you tell it to a bunch of people you seem to believe to be evil and to whom you’ve already admitted – several times – to be here to troll. Go tell it to your psy.
– that must have been an epic phone call : “hi, xxxxxx, remember when you told me you wanted to sleep with me? Well I would like you to move in with me, if you don’t mind. Great. Oh, and completely unrelated, but I’ve got a new roommate now, it’s a homeless underage girl I met a few hours ago. Don’t worry, the CPS said it’s cool.”
Interacting with our trolls gets less and less satisfying the more it looks like they’re doing it for ridiculously sick reasons rooted in abuse. If Antsy is not lying, the reason he’s telling us is he can re-enact antagonism between himself and women, just as he did with the 17 year old by inviting her to live with him and then suddenly deciding jesus christ she’s going to false rape accuse me so I better invite another woman in here and start up a fresh sexual relationship with a strange teenager around the place.
I’ll assume everything you say is true, Antsy: therefore, quit trolling the internet and see a therapist. Also think critically about things like your obamacare conspiracy theories, they are not healthy.
Zarat, dude, you’ve alluded to the evil feminist mother before, but one would think you’d have brought up the rest of this MRA fairytale previously.
Like Elam, you have a host of apocryphal stories that prove “MRA theory”. This entire story reads like a Reddit hoax.
Personally, I think you’ve constructed an entire persona and justify the lying by saying that you’re at war. I think your lies go far deeper than these latest stories.
Antz:
If half of what you say is true you need help from a psychiatrist. We can’t help you and I’m not at all sure why you ‘re telling us.
I’m sorry, when was the last time he worked a coal mine or ran into a burning building? Oh, right, never? Oh, ok. The second we start talking about things that happen to a huge percentage of men in this society and not just a couple of dangerous job choices, I might be inclined to listen.
Regardless of whether DSK’s encounter in New York was rape or not, his fondness for sticking his cock into just about everything that moves (provided it’s human, female and alive) has been notorious for decades. So if you’re trying to come up with a definitive example of a poor innocent victim of evil womanly wiles, he’s not the most obvious candidate.
And right on cue: DSK faces new allegations of rape:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4297094/Dominique-Strauss-Kahn-faces-fresh-gang-rape-claims.html
Yeah, I heard that on the radio this morning, though without the details.
DingDingDing!! Komen was recently exposed to be doing just that. They spend a tiny fraction of their money on research, pay their president half a million dollars, spend millions of dollars suing other groups who dare use the “for the Cure” phrasing or pink ribbons, and the organization is run by anti-abortion activists. I sent $100 to Planned Parenthood after recently learning this.
@blitzgal
Yep. I don’t know how much more aware Americans can be of breast cancer. Seems like the whole raising awareness thing has been achieved many times over, and so now instead of buying pink crap we should be, you know, making sure people with cancer have access to affordable care.
Personally, I would totally donate money to a “SAVE THE COCKS” initiative. Not only would it help, imagine the fundraising calendars! 😀
Without the cocks, my carousel would just have benches, so I have a personal interest in saving the cocks.
I’ll agree that accusing Zarat of blatantly lying doesn’t really sit well with me either. However, his story does have a “feminist witch trial” ring to it. If we believe him, it’s because of course all feminists believe stories of rape and that’s how feminists win their feminist badges of honor. He himself complained in the same thread about women always “crying rape”. If we don’t believe him, it’s because we’re misandrist feminists who think all men are lying liars and we really don’t care about his suffering anyway because we’re all horrible people who only care about certain rape victims. If you swim you die, if you drown you die.
However, I’ll assume his story is true. Dude, I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by telling people you antagonize on a weekly/daily basis about this. You need help. You need to talk to a therapist or your wife. Whatever it is you are looking for by unloading, you are not going to find it in a bunch of strangers on the internet. And quite frankly, if your story was meant to be a “so there!” to our arguments, you failed quite miserably. All you have proven is that sometimes women are bad people. I’ve been abused by women too. Sexually, physically and emotionally I’ve been taken advantage of by both women and men. I’ve had men and women take advantage of me financially. By your standards, I’d have license to hate the world. But I don’t. Some days I want to, but I don’t.
I’m not going to play the “I’m a better victim” game, because really, it’s never easy getting over shit like that. Judging someone for their healing process doesn’t sit well with me. However, I am going to tell you that you are not going to find the help you need in the MRA movement. They have proven they don’t really care about rape victims or victims of domestic violence, and only give lip service to caring about those things when they effect men. You aren’t going to find healing in the MRM. Only more hate.
Last, I’ll add that taking a total stranger into your house only to be taken advantage of by said stranger, again, proves nothing. As I and several others have mentioned several times before, having privilege is not a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to you. And only a privileged jackass would think that’s what having privilege means.
“SAVE THE BOOBIES” is terrible because breast cancer treatment usually doesn’t save the boobies. It saves the woman.
RE: Zarat
As a male survivor of sexual abuse, Zarat’s story makes me D: like mad. Dude, for the love of god, GET HELP.
And away from us! Seriously, it’s creepy as hell to antagonize and be a dick to people and then whiplash around and divulge uber-personal trauma stories like that. I don’t know what you hope to acheive, but it won’t be anything good for your mental health, because you do not like us, and also WE DO NOT LIKE YOU. As a human being, I want you to be happy and healthy, but you’ve been a douche to me and I don’t feel personally responsible for your trauma.
Like, I know the long-rippling effects of sexual abuse. I was abused by a man. And yet somehow, I have not been tearing apart books in stores, or inviting homeless boys into my house. If you find yourself reenacting these behaviors, you need help, dude. GET IT. I promise you, it does in fact exist and despite my distrust of the mental health system in general, there ARE male-sympathetic therapists for sexual violence. Just… gaahhh!
RE: Cliff (why the new name, by the way?)
I’ve always found “save the boobies” gross, myself. It’s like, wtf, when my pop-pop had lung cancer, it wasn’t about saving his lungs, it was about saving HIM. (We didn’t. RIP, Pop-Pop.) To flatten him to his affected body parts is just… insulting and creepy!
Of course, I happily paid someone to hack off my boobs with a knife, so perhaps I’m biased against the cause of boobery.
Antz: Paradise is coming, sex robots are on the way
pillowinhell: Since we are talking about the draft… Take a look at the US stop loss program
Yeah, stop-loss is a passive draft, sort of. It’s more used as a lever. When one is stop-lossed one has two choices, extend/reenlist, or be stuck.
I say this because when one’s active duty contract is expired, and one is kept in uniform by stop loss, things like promotions, schools, etc. are prohibited. Since stop loss is by job, not individual soldier, this means a lot of people in mission critical jobs are kept in.
Extending is a gamble, because stop-loss orders are time limited, and have to have a 24 hour gap between re-issuance. If you are willing to forgo promotions, you can wait out the order. A stop-loss can’t keep an Active Duty service member in the service for more than one year.
One of my fellows was stop-lossed for nine months, and we were getting ready to deploy. A few weeks before the deployment order there was a gap in the stop-loss for his specialty.
Civvie-street for him.
Where there is a more problematic passive draft is the rules on reserve component soldiers and deployments. A deployed reservist is stop-lossed for the duration of the deployment. As a result I know someone who was stop-lossed, and was nine-months past his contract expiration when we deployed. We were deployed for 14 months, so he was kept in the Army for more than two years after his contract expired.
That doesn’t happen to active duty soldiers.
. Also, once you’ve finished your enlistment, you’re polaced on the reserved list. Which means you can be called back to active duty on a moments notice. That’s what has US MRAs so angry.
That’s not quite true. All enlistments are for eight years. They all have an “Inactive Ready Reserve” time of passive participation at the back end.
So contracts are “X by Y”. I, for example, did a “6 by 2” to get better benefits. I’ve seen recruiters hide a lot of things, and lie about others, but I’ve never known one (nor of one, though it’s possible; and the troops in question didn’t know, and so didn’t complain) to not mention that aspect of the contract.
Once those eight years are up, there is no further obligation.
Oh, and Antzie… I’ll be away for a while, I have IMPORTANT work to do, and it doesn’t allow me to peruse the internet while I do it.
TTFN.
Anthony Zarat, the sexual abuse that you endured sounds awful. The civil servants that were supposed to help you failed at their jobs abysmally. The people that victimized you, both when you were a child and as an adult committed evil acts, and if the world were just they would be called to account for the suffering that they caused you. No one should have to go through what you went through, no one.
Now, I cannot tell you best how to recover, but the path you are on does not seem to be helping you. You seem to want people that are the same gender as the individuals that hurt you to suffer by proxy for the harm that was done to you. Your desire to see harm come to people that superficially resemble the people that abused you has led you to join a movement that pushes the myth of wide spread false accusations of rape, a myth that harmed you personally when the police refused to investigate the crimes committed against you. The MRM also puts forth the idea that men are naturally sexually aggressive and women passive, a myth that most likely influenced the officers refusal to investigate individual that raped you.
You turn the anger at being abused on the very people trying to fight against sexual abuse, based solely on the gender of your attackers, this is counterproductive.
AntZ:
A page from NWO’s book! “Be an independent thinker, don’t look to reality to back up your opinions.” Or by “think for yourself” does he mean “don’t ask me to do the research to support my own arguments”?
AntZ:
I know, right? It’s almost like people remember you from before.
hellkell:
Eh, something like it might have happened, in the sense that it doesn’t violate any yet-discovered laws of physics. But I’m not sure what point it’s trying to make. Whatever it is, I suspect it doesn’t actually make it.
WWB:
So even you admit DSK probably did it.
AntZ:
That doesn’t prove feminism is evil when you report it either.
I mean, I’m trying not to even address the truth of this. I’m still scarred (not really) by going through this with TS last year. “A feminist did something horrible and claimed feminism as zir justification” =/= “feminism is horrible”. Plain and simple.
chibigodzilla:
Don’t forget the styrofoam, though.
You can buy twelve dozen eggs packed in a cubit foot box, no styrofoam. They use recycled cardboard to layer the eggs in. Light and easy to carry, and nicer to the enviroment.
The only reason I compare the two is because it illustrates our society’s mentality towards male and female sexuality. It’s totally reasonable for a man to not only have sex, but to have coverage for something that helps him have more/better sex. Meanwhile, a woman who simply wants access to preventative care in the event that she might have sex is called a slut on a national radio station.
@Antz I would really hate to see an MRA do a college term paper. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO CITE MY SOURCES?”
I love how you treat this as if it’s a privilege. When we discuss dangerous jobs, this is an incredibly dangerous job which puts women at a huge risk of rape, abuse, assault, STDS, pregnancy, slavery (yes, there are sex slaves who have absolutely no freedom), and murder. And if this was an easy job you wouldn’t hear of all the prostitutes addicted to hard drugs and alcohol just to get through it. Then we can talk about the toll having repeated sexual intercourse, all day, every day, takes on a vagina, especially when you aren’t actually aroused.
And then there’s the issue that not all prostitutes are women. There are male prostitutes. So you do have that “option” if you really want it men. I don’t think you do though. Sex as a job is not fun and care free. It’s not like having sex with your boyfriend or a guy you met at the bar. And no, you’d probably have to have sex with men if you wanted to make some money off it. Not gay? Well, do you honestly believe that the women prostitutes are attracted to the men they’re sleeping with? FFS dude.
What I find galling is that you treat the actions of a few as if they are the actions of all of us. You don’t think that men lie to police officers? What about the rapists who lie and say they didn’t actually rape and put the victim through hell in court, lying, saying there was consent involved and bringing up the victim’s sexual history as a defense? You think I should hold the fact that mostly men do this to women in court all the time against you personally? You think this doesn’t ruin women’s lives?
A woman’s life can be “essentially ruined” by a rapist at any time. A woman’s life can be “essentially ruined” by a man spreading rumors about her sexual history to her friends, family, the internet, other men, who will then openly mock, harass, and degrade her. Then sometimes the other men who hear said rumors think it’s ok to “take” what she “wanted” based on her “sexual history” and treat it like that history gave them consent. You don’t think this happens at least as frequently as false rape accusations?
If you want to lump the actions of bad people in with the actions of everyone else that’s your own problem. But I don’t see you complaining about the lives that are ruined by false accusations of murder, theft, assault, etc. You just hone in on the option that allows you to be as misogyinistic as you possibly can be.
So your buddies were accused of rape but told you that they didn’t do it so you believe them?
Sometimes I wish the men who grab my ass, try to force me to take potentially roofied drinks at the bar, and catcall me would stay away from me. Sometimes I wish I could live my life freely without the fear that I might wind up getting raped and later get blamed for it due to my “lack of responsibility.” You treat it as if women are the only ones capable of hurtful behavior, manipulation, lies, etc.
I’m not gonna even go there with Antz’s story. It’s not fair for me to say that he was never raped just because he regularly trolls here. I just do not think venting this here is doing anyone any favors. Not your cause and not your mental health. Being angry at other feminists for the actions of one sick feminist is not going to change what happened, or make anything any better. Just as you don’t want women to see all men as rapists, all women should not be held responsible for the actions of a few.