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.
It is not long since conditions in the mines were worse than they are now. There are still living a few very old women who in their youth have worked underground, with the harness round their waists, and a chain that passed between their legs, crawling on all fours and dragging tubs of coal. They used to go on doing this even when they were pregnant.
George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
@Shaenon
That story revives my hope in humanity!
“Everyone knows George Orwell was a feminist and a communist and I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
–MRA
This. SO MUCH. If you mention that the majority of crime is committed by men or that most historical tyrants are male or..dare I say it…the majority of rapists are of the male sex and they throw a shit fit and cry misandry, yet they have no problem constantly reminding us that men built everything, created everything, are the majority of scientists, engineers, etc (while somehow thinking this rubs off on them just because they share the same sex)
So they can take all the credit of the good and smart men, but not from bad ones? What great manly LOGIC eh?
What great inventions have YOU created MRAs? besides being asses on the internet?
“I found that quote on the internet and it happens to jive with what I already believe so it must be true.”
–Another MRA
This, my friends, is what Paul Elam thinks privilage is. Male privilage is where people discount your opinion for being a man, and people treat you lesser because of your gender.
…
*makes a young child cry with loud swearing rant accompanied by the breaking of various pieces of furniture*
Ahem…
No, Elam. No you don’t.
Oh the burden of male privilege! LOL. Sure, like men would gladly give it up. Not buying it.
Dude, this isn’t about ladies having a hissy fit over having to pay for something. This is about so many other things. It’s partly about equal pay for equal work. Under most health insurance plans, most preventative medicines are free, because there is the understanding that preventative medicine is generally hella cheaper than reactive medicine. When medicine that’s usually particular to women and other uteri bearers isn’t covered under that same understanding, it’s discrimination. People have likened access to BC to access to male enhancement medicines like viagra, but that’s not really a good comparison because viagra isn’t preventative medicine. Birth control is. It’s also about privacy, which I think others have covered, but I’ll reiterate. Allowing an employer to impose certain restrictions on it’s healthcare benefits allows those companies to basically control their employees’ health and personal lives. It’s akin to allowing companies control over what their employees do with their paychecks. For example, even if you sell cars for Chevrolet, they can’t tell you that you aren’t allowed to buy a Ford.
And as others have said, the reason we’ve been saying there’s a war on women is because of all the other legislation that’s been proposed all over the country restricting access to birth control or abortions. The fact that the GOP and catholic church wanted to enable employers to deny coverage to their employees for preventative medicine was really just the icing on the cake. I mean, if you don’t care/haven’t been paying attention I guess it’d be easy to think it all boiled down to some women wanting their BC paid for. But, you know, that’s the nature of privilege. You can afford to be clueless because none of it has any impact on you personally. As for the guilt, I won’t deign to tell you what you felt, maybe it was guilt, but I think I can say with relative certainty that most if not none of the conservative lawmakers who tried to impose the access bills lost a wink of sleep over it. In fact, few of them have really faced much recourse for any of their behavior. And I’m pretty sure none of their supporters have felt any guilt or shame over this either.
It was instead the women who fought against ultrasound bills and circumvented abortion restrictions who were reviled and shamed for daring to believe they should have control over their own bodies.
Moving on…
There’s the truest phrase Elam ever penned. Pro tip, MRAs: privilege ISN’T not getting your power shut off if you don’t pay your bill. I had my power shut off last summer. That doesn’t mean that privilege isn’t a thing, it just means that privilege is not a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to you. And frankly, only a privileged jackass would think that’s what privilege means.
It’s kind of amazing that Elam is still harping on men predominantly being in dangerous occupations. I know I’m the ten millionth person to ask this, but “Does he know who is keeping women out of those jobs? Hint: it’s not feminazis!”
>Viagra was covered the same year it came out. You are privileged!
Could somebody tell me if that’s really true? Because I don’t see any health benefits in taking viagra. In fact some of the men who used it died.
And from what I remember, women used to work in mining during the 19th century in some numbers. At least in Germany, that is. That was until 19th century feminist in parliament pushed an anti-male piece of legslation through that forbid females from sharing that burden with their male partners henceforth. How the feminist got into parliament during the 19th century, nobody knows. It’s really mysterious, like crop circles.
@Kakanian, I don’t know that viagra is fully covered. To my knowledge most health insurance companies will cover part of it, and I think even medicare does, but not all. Because, again, it’s not preventative. That’s why I feel it’s bad to compare the two. Viagra isn’t preventative, and in some cases can be hurtful. BC is preventative and (most of it) is relatively safe.
Another thing… people apparently remember the legend about hippies spitting into servicemen’s faces more vividly than the fact that the anti-war movement put great emphasis on supporting draft-dodgers. So chances are that men will actually have a support group willing to commit crimes in order to save them from being drafted against their will next time too.
@Kakanian
The draft isn’t coming back. The military is currently downsizing, meaning we have more soldiers than we need. The military doesn’t need it, and the public is so against it these days, it’s not coming back anytime soon.
The fight that ensued over viagra getting insurance coverage within a year when BC was still being denied coverage was one of the reasons that BC became covered by so many insurance plans. It wasn’t just discrimination in favor of mens medical needs.
Here is a link to a news story from 2002.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91538#.T6Lqo8XLLpU
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. …
If by “showing the electric company my balls” you mean “spoke like a condescending wanker to the employee on the other end of the phone” then I’m not surprised they cut your power off.
Posting this from my phone so I don’t know if the block quotes thing works.
John-John is tied for Best Sesame Street Kid with the little girl who says the alphabet with Kermit.
Since we are talking about the draft… Take a look at the US stop loss program. In essence, men are joining the military, where a contract is signed stating the length of time to serve. However, there are many men who find out at the end of their service time that the government will not honor the contract and the men are forced to continue serving. They either can’t get home, or are feced with court martial if they disobey direct orders to continue fighting. Essentially its a draft. The difference is that the government is drafting already enlisted men. This prevents a widespread draft, where the general population would string the government up and it prevents the general population from realizing what’s going on. 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.
” .. fuck you, Zarat .. liar and a disingenuous scumbag .. ridiculous jackass .. ”
So much anti-male hatred! You people need strong medicine, or your hive-neurosese might cause illness.
I would refute some of the nonsence and personal attacks, but I have IMPORTANT work to do today.
“.. how fucking dare you accuse people in my field of not caring about men ..”
Somebody is angwy .. in any case I think you “accused” yourself. I recommend yoga? Truth seems to stress you out a lot. Nobody can live in the femi-fantasy bubble forever. Time to step outside of that women’s studies department! I promise, the prophesied “100 hooded predator-psycho-men” waiting to jump on you are not really there.
@pillowinhell
Then don’t join the Army.
@Anthony
Saying “fuck you” to one particular male (in this case YOU) does not constitute anti-male hatred. Most men are decent, kind individuals capable of rational thought and compassion. You are not one of them.
@Kakanian: Even if health insurance companies were only partially covering Viagra, they were still covering it. Birth control pills were not covered under most insurance plans at all. So it was double obvious how sexist the policy of not covering BC is because Viagra doesn’t prevent anything and actually might cause some other problem or injury or death. So why was it covered at all? Because penis, that’s why.
Oh. For. Fuck’s. Sake. I know it’s useless but I can’t see this keep going uncorrected.
Sandra Fluke testified that THE INSURANCE COVERAGE SHE PAID FOR HERSELF DID NOT COVER MEDICATIONS SHE NEEDED. There was never any suggestion of government or anyone else paying for anything. She was testifying, on behalf of the women at Georgetown, that the insurance THEY WERE PAYING FOR THEMSELVES should cover ALL their medical needs as determined by their doctors. That’s it.
Men’s health care is not treated this way. Men do not have to pay for insurance and then discover that medical care they need that is unique to men is not covered as a matter of policy.
Not joining is not always so simple. One reason so many people enlist is because the military offers training programs and higher education. And so long as you’re enlisted that training is either free or heavily subsidized. Or, if you want to go into policing or fire fighter, it looks damn good on a resume and goes a long way to getting you into a very tough to enter field. I have a tenant here who served in afghanistan for that very reason.
Stop loss is a kind of back-door draft, but the implications are still not sexist so much as classist, since people often, but not always, join the service as a way of paying for college or getting useful job skills and experience.
Did he really write that? Really? Ahahahahahahahaha.