The dangerous myth of male privilege
How a lack of empathy towards men and biases against them make men’s suffering invisible
Introduction
From an early age, women are consistently told they live in a patriarchy where every generation of men oppressed every generation of women throughout the centuries. They’re told that every straight man is a potential rapist and the only thing that’s stopping most men from actually raping women is their fear of getting caught. They’re told that women are consistently discriminated in the workplace and paid less than men for the exact same job. They’re told that gender roles are perpetuated to hold women back. Etc. etc.
This, however, could not be further from the truth. Most men are decent human beings who struggle with many of the same issues women face. Sure, women have been restricted from taking part in business & politics for quite a part of human history. But since the cultural revolution of the late 1960s and the invention of the oral contraceptive pill, women have gradually taken on every role in the workplace and political arena that used to be considered exclusively male. Among people in their 20s, women now make more money than their male counterparts. There’s multiple countries with female presidents or prime ministers and quite a few companies with female CEOs, including various tech companies. Certain STEM fields, like biology & bio-sciences, have become equally or even predominantly female. Numerous organizations & programs exist to exclusively promote women in the workplace and favor them over men with equal qualifications. Gender roles are rarely institutionally enforced anymore, and, where they still exist, they can both harm men men and favor women. “Female empowerment” is celebrated throughout mainstream culture. Meanwhile, masculinity is consistently either ridiculed or portrayed as inherently toxic, effectively harming men’s lives in a many ways.
Camille Paglia is a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When she went to Yale Graduate School during the late 1960s, she was quite the radical feminist and possibly the only openly lesbian at Yale. Paglia has been fighting for gender equality for decades. But where her focus used to be on women’s rights, she’s increasingly shifted towards men’s rights. Paglia argues:
Our society is neutering boys of their maleness at a young age, while the lack of people with military experience in important positions is a recipe for disaster. […] What you’re seeing is how a civilization commits suicide. […] Primary-school education is a crock, basically. It’s oppressive to anyone with physical energy, especially guys, […]. Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters. […] Men have no more models of manhood. […] Masculinity is just becoming something that is imitated from the movies. There’s nothing left. There’s no room for anything manly right now.
Paglia isn’t alone to hold and express these views. Other leading female intellectuals like Daisy Cousens & Christina Hoff Sommers have expressed similar concerns. As have men like Paul Elam, Harry Crouch & Warren Farrel, who have founded organisations to address the marginalization and disenfranchising of men, but which -ironicly- are largely ignored by mainstream society. Mostly, though, there’s a whole legion of often anonymous disenfranchised men who are fed up with the daily struggles they face being downplayed, ridiculed or otherwise marginalized, all while the peception that they are significantly more privileged than women just because they’re men remains pervasive throughout society.
As a result of men being blamed for women’s struggles while their own struggles are ignored, there’s a growing gap between the sexes that seems ever more difficult to reconcile. Distrust and even outright hostility towards the other sex are becoming ever more rampant, creating a vicious cycle of polarization. This situation is untenable, and in my humble opinion we can only end this by deconstructing the myth of male privilege an recognizing that men’s struggles are just as real and important as women’s.
Areas where men are disadvantaged
Contrary to popular opinion, men are disadvantaged in comparison to women in many ways. Because this article would otherwise become too length, different examples for this have been split up into individual articles :
Note that the aforementioned are just some of the many situations where men not only are not only lacking in privilege, but actually are at a major disadvantage in comparison with women. This enumeration is by no means intended to be exhaustive and merely serves as a demonstration of the various struggles men experience in their daily lives.
Also, note that, with this essay, I by no means intend to imply that there no aspect to the female experience that is alien to men. I by no means intend to suggest that men are the only ones who struggle or that women are inherently privileged. I recognize that there are aspects to women’s lives that men will never fully understand, and that this gives men an advantage in certain areas.
However, what many fail to realize is that this goes both ways. There’s many aspects to men’s lives that women will never fully understand, where women have the advantage over men. And this is almost always overlooked, often making men’s struggles invisible. Not just that, but men are often blamed for women’s struggles, even when they have themselves become disenfranchised and marginalized.
Conclusion
With this article, I hope I’ve been able to demonstrate that men’s issues deserve attention too. I hope I’ve been able to demonstrate that misandry has become prevalent in society and increasingly problematic. I hope I’ve been able to demonstrate that men who are struggling deserve our empathy no less than women who are struggling. As Tina Currado points out :
We must begin to acknowledge that men do not ‘rule the roost’ in every situation and it is unfair to assume that men are favored in every aspect of society. Because of this belief that men have had it too good, the pendulum has swung too far resulting in domination over men while misguided feminists, who continually cite statistics that only strengthen their cause, demonize males and proclaim them to be violent, sex-obsessed, or privileged. Advocacy research for the women’s movement is causing society to view men in a negative light and as a result we lose empathy. While devout feminists insist that men had it coming to them, we must realize that oppressing one group as a means of payback for alleged past injustices is not how a society thrives and continues to progress.
Despite popular opinion it is most certainly not a man’s world. In America, men are deemed the more violent and the less trustworthy of the sexes and for that they are often separated from their children, assumed guilty when they are innocent, and laughed at when they suffer physical harm. Men’s issues have been overlooked but improving awareness can be achieved if we insist on research that does not omit data due to sex.
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Sexism is alive and well in this day and age, and there is no doubt some men still believe women are not their equals. However many women are guilty of the same. We should no longer concentrate solely on how women were oppressed as it does nothing but perpetuate a victim mentality. As with any other group who has suffered from the tyranny of a stronger sect, speaking only of the atrocities does not result in progress, but discussion as to how we may repair and find balance benefits all of society