I recently got another comment about a discussion that happened a while ago with Susan Walsh. Since I have gotten that comment and gotten a couple of emails wondering what the deal was I thought it might be good to explain why and the larger issue involved.
The original post I wrote asked the question of “Why Don’t the [Supposed] Good Women Differentiate Themselves?” What Susan Walsh did was something she does a lot which is saying “But women have it bad too”. That had nothing to do with the subject matter and is a tactic that she a lot uses when the problems of men come up. I had enough of it. Look at a good example.
Of course we’re reluctant to “share the misery”. It doesn’t describe the reality that many men are going through. There are no women going through an equivalent to what a lot of men such as myself are going through. To “share the misery” would require men like myself to not speak out about what is happening to a lot of men. Even trying to compare “deprived of relationships” (what women are supposedly going through) with “deprived of sex” (what men are supposedly going through is an attempt to hide what many men are going through. The obvious problem is that a man deprived of sex is also most likely deprived of relationships too (and this was pointed out on Susan Walsh’s blog) so the men are getting a double whammy that no woman is getting.
Or answer this question. Where is the female equivalent to me? Good luck at finding a 32 year old involuntary virgin woman who has been forcibly purged from anything socially that involves the opposite sex with only same sex friends in the exact same situation as her and has had multiple sexual harassment complaints against her (or whatever the equivalent would be) in an attempt to purge her from the workplace. Just try finding a 32 year old involuntary virgin female. You will not be able to. I can find plenty of men in both categories. Another thing Susan Walsh has done is bring up female virgins in college when the issue of older male virgins comes up. It is very absurd to compare an 18 year old virgin with a 32 year old virgin like myself. These are two very different things. It is telling that Susan Walsh has to go back to college to find a female virgin to make that comparison. On a personal level it’s insulting because effectively Susan Walsh is saying my problems are meaningless and trivializing my experiences. One of the reasons why I am unable to get together with women now is this difference because all the available women my age have sex partner counts in the high double digits or triple digits.
Beyond Susan Walsh this has been a big problem. When I tried going to psychologists to solve the problem of being an older virgin, I got accused of lying a lot (when I wasn’t being accused of having Aspergers syndrome) because speaking out about these uniquely male problems didn’t go over well with feminized psychologists. It’s the same problem of being told to shut up about what is happening in your life as a man.
Men have also been told to effectively shut up when speaking out about issues not involing virginity/dating/sex too. Try pointing out that upwards of 80% of the jobs lost in the current recession have been lost by men (an objective verifiable fact) and you will be accused of being worse than Hitler. Try speaking out about how men are having their jobs destroyed, being thrown out of their families by the courts, etc. and you will be accused of misogyny and get lectured about “male privledge” (effectively telling him to shut up).
Speaking out about any of these issues affecting men will get you the shut up response. It may be the harsher “you’re a misogynist” or the softer “women have it bad too” but it is all the same. The current recession is a good metaphor for what is happening between men and women in a more global sense. Men are more and more losing their jobs and having to go live in a van by the river getting lectures about being misogynists or being insulted by being told “women have problems too” while women are in cushy government jobs making more money than men getting several new government agencies dedicated to women because of Obamacare (while men get nothing) being told their most minor problems are a state of emergency that everyone must deal with immediately.
None of this is a reason for men to stop speaking out. Yes women will think you’re a misogynist or you will offend her delusion that men and women have equivalent problems. This is the reason why men must continue to speak out and why I will continue to do so.
