So, I've been hearing a lot from the social justice movement that men are not systematically oppressed based on their gender. We must fight for women's rights only, because men do not need any further support from society. You have to be a feminist, not a male rights activist. It's just wrong.
Well, I don't know about the rest of the male population, but I certainly have not been gliding through life. I've endured sexual harassment, bullying (online and personal), depression, anxiety, I've even considered suicide (to the point where I wrote two suicide letters when I was 12). Where were all of my supposed male privileges? Hearing SJWs and third-wave feminists talk, my life should've been filled with luxury. If being a man is the ultimate privilege, then the white male oppressive patriarchy is doing a terrible job at giving me those wonderful benefits. Even now, my female co-workers make more than I do for the exact same job, I'm still a middle-class citizen with no health insurance (or a car), I'm drowning in student loans, and a shitty efficiency apartment is the only thing I could afford to live in. It's not like I'm just sitting in a mansion eating chocolates all day while the government hands me free money just because I'm a man.
Despite all these things, apparently I'm still more privileged than any woman in the 1st world. That's right, I'm more privileged than Oprah Winfrey, JK Rowling, Angela Merkel, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, The Kardashians, Paris Hilton, and even The Queen of England, all just because I'm male!
Sarcasm aside, when you put societal attitudes and systematic trends towards men under a microscope, you'll find very quickly that being a man isn't easy at all. Let's run down the list, shall we?
-Boys receive much harsher punishment than girls do for bad behavior
-Men lose more of their money/possessions in divorce proceedings
-Men lose custody of their kids more often
-Men are more likely to be the target of every single violent crime (this includes murder, assault, robbery and yes, even rape: more men are raped annually than women are now)
-Men are falling behind women in education (more women are accepted into colleges than men, they are also generally more educated than men are)
-Men are subjected to circumcision, women are not (true, the parents have a choice to not circumcise their child, but the keyword is their MALE child; no one would even think of circumcising a girl)
-Men automatically have to sign up for the selective service draft, while women do not
-Cancers related specifically to men do not receive nearly as much research funding as cancers that only afflict women
-Women have thousands of domestic abuse shelters, men only have one
-Men get longer prison sentences than women for the same crime
-Men make up the majority of the homeless population
-Men are more likely to be injured (and even killed) at work
-Men are more likely to commit suicide
Do none of these things matter? I mean, if these are my male privileges...yay me?
And then on top of all this, feminists and SJWs still make the argument that women have it worse in society, that male rights do not matter when compared to the "ardent needs" of women. I'm sorry, but no matter how hard you try to push the ideology that feminism benefits men (while simultaneously introducing society to gems like "#killallmen", the 'male tearz' mugs, "mansplaining" etc), the movement does not inherently fight for the very real systematic and social disadvantages that men face. Modern feminism diminishes the needs of men in favor of giving women the advantage, but it doesn't have to be that way. You can support men and women's rights at the same time, there doesn't have to be this hierarchy that's being pushed so hard by the left.
Lastly, I want you to really think about this for a moment: what's one right that men have in the first world that women do not? What severe societal (NOT biological) disadvantages do women have in the first world that men do not? Of course, I'm not saying that sexism doesn't exist (because it very well does), but prioritizing one gender over the other isn't going to dissolve it from society. Competition between men and women's rights only further promotes behavior of separation, it doesn't unite us in the fight for everyone to have equal opportunity for success and happiness. You can take this as me bashing feminism and the social justice movement (to be fair, though, they really do need to be criticized) but so far none of their grandstanding has done anything to improve society. You can say that I'm "mansplaining", "whitesplaining", "cis-splaining" or whatever, but therein lies the biggest problem: because I'm a man, absolutely none of this commentary is valid. Because I'm a man, I'm automatically a misogynist who needs to check my privilege and become a feminist. Because I'm a man, my very existence is toxic to women and I'll always be oppressing them.
I'm so privileged, aren't I?
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