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.
It would be better than listening to this bullshit one more time.
Ladies, since so many of you insist on addressing men as a monolithic group when it works against us, and likewise address yourselves as a group when it works to your advantage, allow me to honor that from my seat here among the ranks of the so called privileged. Trust me, I would rather just talk to any one of you as an individual human being, but I am not setting the terms here…you are, so I aim to accommodate.
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. Maybe they weren’t big enough, since I am an MRA and all, but it didn’t even buy me one minute past the deadline. I was male powerful, but I had no power. Go figure.
Still, as long as you insist on seeing all this privilege where I don’t, I think I ought to help.
If you want my “privilege,” by all means you are welcome to it. All you have to do is pay the price.
And that price is strange. You might think we pay for that privilege with the bucket of Krugerrands that come with each male birth, or with the spoils of patriarchy awarded each man as he comes of age. But you would be wrong, I’m afraid.
To give you the real picture, let me suggest a little experiential exercise that will help you understand how we pay for all this unbridled power. Go stand in front of a mirror. Make eye contact with yourself and pretend you are talking to a new person; a stranger who has just been bestowed their fair share of said privilege. Give yourself a very serious, meaningful look and speak from the heart when you say the following:
“You now have privilege! That means you are a worthless, expendable piece of shit, to be used and disposed of by more powerful women and all men. Your feelings, thoughts, actions and indeed your life have absolutely no value outside what others can use them for. That is the cost of your privilege. Shut the fuck up and pay it.”
There are other costs, and I think it is about time that you are aware of them. Here is a brief rundown, emphasis on the word “brief.”
When there is a war, women, almost exclusively, will do the killing and dying. If anyone is to be conscripted and forced into combat, it is the privileged women that have that honor.
When, and if, you return from war, prepare to have the powers that sent you there discard you like a kid who has outgrown a toy. Your damaged body and soul will keep you company on the street, where you will live, shattered by all the unthinkable horrors your privilege has led you into.
Men will serve with you in the military, but it will be more like a day care camp for them. Enough effort will be made to protect them from the worst of war that it will mean they will represent less than 2% of the death and disfigurement that the privileged women will face. Enjoy the ride, you powerhouse!
Don’t forget, when you are a part of the privileged class you get to pay for everything. 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. Those things might pay well enough for you to maintain your privilege. But remember, you don’t get to really keep the money. You get to spend it on others; others that know it is your place to take care of them and fully expect you to do it. And if you fail them, or disappoint them, or don’t look as good on Thursday as you did on Tuesday, then they can boot you out and have the state collect the money and hand it to them. How’s that for power?
You can also expect that the men taking your money and spending it on themselves will be resentful because of it. They will take what you give them and endlessly bitch that you were able to earn it in the first place. But remember, as a member of the privileged class you have the right to keep your mouth closed about it. I mean, hey, you actually can speak. It is the right of the privileged to do so any time they want. Just be prepared for the world to tell you to quit whining and woman up. The privileged carry with them the expectation of silence in the face of adversity and injustice. Funny how it works, isn’t it?
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.
I know, privilege is a funny thing. Have fun using it to change the rules, but don’t be in a big hurry. All that power has a way of supporting the status quo.
And here is a really important word of caution; one that you should remember above the simplicity of the “shut up and produce” mandate that will guide your privileged life. You will come to a point, for whatever reason, that you will look at your life, in all its reality, and decide that you really don’t have any privilege at all.
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. Or it may dawn on you that you don’t feel privileged when the state takes your money and gives it to a man you used to live with so he can take care of a child that he doesn’t allow you to see, or just so he can afford really good, high-end liquor, as opposed to the bottles of dreck under your kitchen sink.
Whatever the moment, it hits you that the privilege is not what you had imagined; that it indeed has begun to more resemble an anchor around your neck than the helm of a great ship that everyone tells you that you are captaining. That is the moment you must remember to just shut up and take it.
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. 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.
If you talk, if you say what you see, it will break the spell of your privilege, and the whole world will hate you for it, though hate may not be strong enough a word.
They will call you all manner of names, and say many, many hurtful things to try to wear you down; to humiliate you into hanging on to your privilege. They will put you on a list of haters, dedicate websites and blogs to painting you as human garbage. They will even try to get you watched by the FBI and other government agencies. They will advocate for your extermination.
Of course they will hate you anyway, even if you say nothing. They will resent your privilege and attack you for it, but ironically if you choose to abandon that privilege and even hand it over to them, their vitriol will get even worse. Sorry, I am just a man and I can’t tell you why things work this way. It’s just above my pretty little head. But work this way they do.
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 disposibility 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, for better commerce, and for my approval. Indeed, I have made your attaining more privilege the calling of my life.
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.
