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.
MRAL’s behavior continues to be very disturbing. ò_ó
“I’ve seen DKM quite “civilly” explain that all women should be sex slaves. The tone doesn’t make much of a difference if you are spouting out misogynist things.”
I was speaking civilly because I don’t like arguing, and I wanted to avoid things turning into a hostile back and forth kind of thing. Nothing I said was misogynistic though.
“Your suffering doesn’t need to be ignored but its not the worst thing in the world and magically is more oppressive than misogyny.”
I’m against any form of bigotry. I support equality for anyone, women, men, white, black, hispanic, asian, christian, muslim, atheist, buddhist.
Thanks to the other folks who explained privilege a bit better. I do genuinely feel interested in the subject even though I might see things from a different perspective than others.
@ hellkell
I wish the mods at Jez would give you a star already so you could share in the lulz/pain offered by the pink comments. MRAL has tried multiple names there. I suspect that he’s trying to get me annoyed enough to respond and thus approve him to comment. Sending you a summary over there.
@ Jumbo
I still can’t figure out if he’s trolling because he thinks it’s funny to (he imagines) upset people, or if he’s so deranged that he actually thinks that, say, comments about Gingrich being corrupt and untrustworthy are actually comments about him being ugly. I mean…
“I don’t like Newt Gingrich but I empathize with him re. his looks A LOT. In youth, I’m sure he was sneered about by entitled women, like shit on their shoe. Entitled women who tink their the bee’s motherfucking knees because they have boobs. Now who’s laughing, says Gingrich.”
Huh? Poor Newt, he’s so notorious for his involuntary celibacy that he’s been married what, 3 times? 4?
“I’m against any form of bigotry. I support equality for anyone, women, men, white, black, hispanic, asian, christian, muslim, atheist, buddhist.”
I should also add, Gay, Straight, Lesbian, Transgendered etc. I guess it’s my straight privilege that I overlooked that one.
Dave “They’re not interested in the problems of the socially anxious. Come on, haven’t seen you on Love-Shy in a while!”
I really haven’t posted on love-shy in a while but i’m wondering do you know who I am on love-shy? Because I never said it on here. Just curious. I don’t know which user you are. The reason why I don’t go on much anymore is because I can never think of interesting threads to start or anything.
Oh where is that “civil discussion” you were talking about? I think its appropriated for me to say Fuck Off. (not even going to address your use of lbgt erasure for the sake of your passive aggressive joke.)
That’s astonishing. I’m sorry, Cassandra.
Re. Chris and Chris’ problems: Of COURSE privilege is a thing, and of COURSE abled people have abled privilege and disabled people do not, but something’s striking me weird about Chris’ stories and his obsession with “proving” that he’s the saddest little baby in the room. There’s no way for me to know if this is what’s going on or not, but I’ll just put this out there: Whether an individual is lacking a particular privilege may or may not have anything at all to do with all the problems in that person’s life.
Frex, one of my ex-boyfriends had social anxiety disorder. He was also a total fucking dirtbag who didn’t care that he made me feel like shit. Two separate things. Not sure if that speaks to Chris’ situation at all, but it does occur to me that privilege doesn’t really explain the complaints he’s sharing here.
Oh funny “dave” showed up again on the same thread you appeared on. there is no way he is a sock.
“not even going to address your use of lbgt erasure for the sake of your passive aggressive joke”
I actually forgot it and then made the joke after the fact, but you can think whatever you want it doesn’t bother me.
“I think its appropriated for me to say Fuck Off.”
Have a nice day.
Odds on Chris and Dave being one and the same? Very good. How lame.
For the sake of lulz and remembering dave posted here in the same thread as chris before very suspiciously:
http://manboobz.com/2012/04/01/lets-shame-some-virgins/comment-page-2/#comment-141380
So he doesn’t like it here yet he stayed and reads it for months afterwards. He also mysteriously shows up in the threads chris posts in only and is a member of loveshy as well. He also likes chris and agrees with everything he says.
Seriously what is with all the socks lately??
“Odds on Chris and Dave being one and the same? Very good. How lame.”
Good thing you aren’t putting money on it because you would lose. If he is a sock he isn’t mine.
To be clear, MRAL is commenting on my pics while trolling me on Jez, not actually trying to contact me via the dating site (I assume – I haven’t even looked at my messages there in at least a year). I just don’t get this obsession with the idea that women who are “spitting” on men by not dating them, or by having physical preferences that don’t include them. A gentler, more passive-aggressive version of that idea comes through with the guys from the love shy forum too, which is why Chris’s comments reminded me of MRALs.
So… you’re saying that you did use lgbt erasure to make a passive aggressive joke. And it doesn’t bother you that people think you did something that you’ve just agreed that you did. Whaa?
It could be someone trying to make it look like i’m using a sock account. I thought it was suspicious that he acted like he knew me on LS but never knew what my screen name was. I also never said on LS.com that I was posted here or anything. But if he is a LS member i’m curious who he is now.
David the omniscient/omnipotent can at least tell us if there is anything suspicious about Chris/Dave’s IP addresses.
“So… you’re saying that you did use lgbt erasure to make a passive aggressive joke.”
I thought i was being accused of intentionally leaving it out. I was adding the part I missed and made a joke to laugh it off it wasn’t meant to be passive aggressive but again think what you like.
Sure, Chris, someone’s going to the trouble of making it look like a sock. OF COURSE they are.
“David the omniscient/omnipotent can at least tell us if there is anything suspicious about Chris/Dave’s IP addresses.”
Go right ahead. It isn’t me so you can do whatever you want.
“Sure, Chris, someone’s going to the trouble of making it look like a sock. OF COURSE they are.”
Either that or it actually is a LS user.
So you say yet you keep coming back here “looking for conversation.” Also as a fellow person with social anxiety a big part of it is being anxious of what other people think of you. You can pretend to not care but I know you do.
I actually don’t think you are a bad person compared to like mras so there is that but I really don’t think this is the best place for you. I don’t think loveshy is that great either since it seems to focus on blaming women for them not getting dates/laid. You hit my anger button with the lbgt erasure joke because its something I am struggling with as a queer person but I guess your issues are the only ones that really matter right?
MRAL, I know you’re prbably reading this. Do you have any idea how unhinged your stalking of Cassandra across multiple sites makes you look? Do you care? Creep.
Isn’t commenting in a forum where you already know that most people will be hostile to a lot of your core beliefs inherently not a very good idea for someone with social anxiety? Most people I’ve ever met with social anxiety don’t tend to seek out situations where they’re guaranteed an unfriendly response.
Chris, since you seem to have trouble reading/comprehending I’ll spell this out for you. You “forgetting” lgbt people, intentionally or not = erasure. You “joking” about how it must be the privilege that you very obviously think is no big deal as you’ve already demonstrated by minimizing your own male privilege = passive aggressive.
Also, just seconding what everyone else is saying, MRAL you are damn creepy.