Lately I have been feeling this way more and more while not everything is strictly MRA I’m including it because it dose at least to me fall under human rights which many argue MRA should be all about above all else.

A little background before this little mini rant

I am a white male in my mid 30's wife 2 kids standard stuff nothing remarkable in the grand scheme of things. I was made redundant a yr or 2 after the world economy collapsed as a direct result of the company trying to save its skin after the event.

From there I picked myself up and got myself accepted for a university course from which I am currently doing a work placement year for with a large international company. It is also worth noting that this is a very enjoyable job and I am having a great time experiencing things I would otherwise never have had the chance.

BUT.

As I lived my life I noticed things like the inequalities of racism nationalism and sectarianism. I’m sure as I have grown I have found myself on both sides of all of these things and now I’m getting older I have already started to experience ageism (which probably kicked the hardest lol).

Going through life I noticed the things I’m sure may people here have also noticed Listening to the very racist non-white person yell obscenities but when you call them on it somehow it’s you that is the racist person who should not interfere and just accept the berating because something my great great great whatever grand relative may or may not have done.

When a staff member brings there new born baby into their place of work every woman in the building is allowed to down tools and make stupid faces while if any member of the staff attempts the same thing they are reprimanded.

I have sat on train platforms listening to women loudly discussing how they are as or more capable as any man and all they want is to be treated the same and then causing a scene because no man would let them on the train first or give up a seat for them.

Hell I even bought into the benevolent sexism feeling uncomfortable when a girl bought me a drink or not paying for the movie tickets etc.

Now I find myself back at university which I will admit is one of the few places I am accepted on equal ground and sometimes have even been told that teaching “mature students” is preferable to many lecturers due to them “having a plan” and actually being there because they see the benefit in it and not just there because their parents told them they have to.

Then it came time to find myself an industrial placement for my course I went to all of the fairs where the different employers would advertise and promote there schemes and pretty much all of them had an “upper age limit” despite the fact that they would gain not only someone who has been educated up to the required level but also had real world experience working in full time employment and who was also willing to work for the wage they were going to pay any of their placement students.

Finally though I found one company would entertain my “advanced age” and even luckier I got in and at for the most part is a pretty decent employer but again I find myself shut out of many of the experiences and opportunities of the other students on site. I have offered to join teams who go out to universities to advertise the placements they offer only to be told no we only want the girls to come to prove we let everyone in and it’s not just boys. I heard about the STEM ambassador program through my manager and thought great sounds like a good chance to encourage the kids to get involved and that they are not necessarily doomed to live a life on unemployment checks. Once I was trained up and cleared to be a fully-fledged STEM ambassador I went to the people who were involved with the program and who arranged many of the company sanctioned events for STEM to only be told We only run STEM events for “women in technology” we didn’t even know you could be a STEM ambassador as a man. Interestingly I have been told that I can volunteer for STEM activities that may be posted through the network and take the time off to do them but interestingly not as a representative of the company.

So while on the surface of everything the politics of inclusion sound great but I find myself more and more locked out and excluded by it all and quite frankly I’m old tired and cranky as hell about it and as such deemed a bigoted anti woman radical who should be hated viva la revolution. Point of clarity I cannot be a bigot because I hate everyone equally.