Thursday, March 29, 2012

What Privilege?

I’m bisexual, male, legally disabled (and thus pretty poor) and in a racial minority, but I’ve been told by feminists none of that matters because so long as I’ve got a penis, I’m ‘privileged’.

I don’t feel privileged when I look at women who get state funded grants to help them through school which I cannot have on the grounds of being male.

I don't feel privileged when laws are designed to protect and serve women, yet pointedly exclude men, such as the VAWA.

I don't feel privileged when I cannot get the same degree of medical treatment as another person because they have a vagina and I do not.

I do not feel privileged when I cannot apply for financial aid and support because I must be a woman to do so, or business financing grants because they are only for women.

I do not feel privileged when my public school program is oriented to the learning process of a girl, while myself and the boys around me struggle as a result.

I don’t feel privileged when I am told I probably won’t be able to adopt kids because men who do so are suspicious.

I don’t feel privileged when society tells me that the opposite sex doesn’t feel safe around me, regardless if I have never done anything to deserve that prejudice.

I do not feel privileged when I am forced to pay for a woman’s sex life or when I am told that I have no right to whether or not my unborn child is killed.

I do not feel privileged knowing that if I am raped (and I nearly have been) by a woman it will not be considered as rape.

I do not feel privileged that if I am abused by a woman and try to seek help, I will be dubbed the abuser and possibly even incarcerated.

I do not feel privileged when I am so discomforted by the sexism against men in society that I must seek refuge in an online community because no such place exists for me elsewhere.

Where is my privilege? Am I so unseen that even gender studies supposedly designed to promote learning about my gender encourage further attack of my gender?

Am I privileged when I am told to ‘man up’ and ‘grow some’ and take care of whatever woman who blesses me with her approval (should I manage in this economy to get a job she finds worthy) and then spend my life providing for her? Of course, if I do provide for her, society will think I’m oppressing her. But if I don’t, society will think I’m a slacker. And if I simply avoid marrying a woman, I’m just a loser.

If this is privilege, someone else can have it. I don’t want it.

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