Why Men don’t feel like they are in a better position than women. (PHMT)

wanna_dance · 2009-02-22T03:54:01+00:00

I think this is very well-put:

Patriarchy, as lived, doesn’t feel like privilege. It feels mostly like getting beat up, and always fighting for status—always trying to live up to some insane, ever-shifting masculine ideal. Men don’t feel like they are in a better position than women. In truth, no one in a hierarchical society, not even at the top, feels like they’ve "won," or like they’re the in-crowd. Pretty much everyone feels like they’re struggling.

And, as this study shows, everyone in a culture of violent masculinity suffers, because violent men and boys are violent toward both women and men. The violence takes different forms for different groups, and women/gender non-conforming people face specific and often more deeply emotionally destructive violence, but no one really escapes it.

It goes without saying, of course, that, at least in 2009, just about everyone is violent, and everyone's getting hurt by it.

And as well as caring for victims of violence, men and women, we need to healing perpetrators - and not in threatening, put you in jail if you don't comply, sort of way as is currently done. We need to actually develop programs for perpetrators to work through issues of anger, isolation, loneliness, old violent attacks that they've been the victims of, etc.

We have nothing of the sort right now.

2009-02-22T03:56:35+00:00

hat tip xauriel

2009-02-22T04:14:08+00:00

Key line in the underlying report (obvious all the same)

In regards to the sexual assaults, Mattern said there could be more than what's indicated in the report.

"I think men are much less likely to admit to being sexually assaulted," Mattern said. "There's a great deal of stigma for both men and women who are sexually assaulted but even more so for men. There shouldn't be a stigma associated with sexual assaults."

Seele · 2009-02-22T05:58:30+00:00

I think the whole notion of "privilege" is misguided and has to be done away with.

As long as it's still around, it will be used to victimize and blame people, and will stand in the way of constructive dialogue.

Not to mention that there's no objective evidence for it, since it's an ideological construct. As the article itself says, even people at the top feel like they do not live privileged lives.

My opinion is that there's no such thing as "privilege", only circumstances, and different people deal with them in different ways, given their own prior circumstances.

Kuonji · 2009-02-22T04:27:40+00:00

Great article.

Title	Why Men don’t feel like they are in a better position than women. (PHMT)
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	18
Comments	21
Date	February 22, 2009 3:36 AM UTC (17 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/7zaik/why_men_dont_feel_like_they_are_in_a_better/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/why-men-dont-feel-like-they-are-in-a-better.1054821 https://theredarchive.com/post/1054821

Comments