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.

Male Students Forced To March for Feminists

Being forced to do something does on rare occasion have benefits. If someone is forced to drop the gun, forced to quit drugs, or forced behind bars to protect the rest of the population after they've done something highly illegal, we generally consider this a good thing. But being forced against our will for the sake of someone else's amusement or cause is typically considered illegal.

Unless you're male, apparently.

On March 5th of this very year, 2012, nobody screamed "sexism!" when hundreds of male college students were forced (yes, forced) to put on high heels and march around their campus. The Program, "Walk A Mile In Her Shoes" expects you to do just that. Walk for a mile wearing women's shoes while hoards of other students, faculty, and media laugh it up. In case you're wondering, this happened in Mississippi. America. The website for the program states:

There is an old saying: "You can't really understand another person's experience until you've walked a mile in their shoes." Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® asks men to literally walk one mile in women's high-heeled shoes. It's not easy walking in these shoes, but it's fun and it gets the community to talk about something that's really difficult to talk about: gender relations and sexual violence.

How sweet.

These kind young men have decided to suffer the pain of walking for a mile in high heels for the benefit of a program that addresses sexual violence on women. You know, rape and all that terrible business. Never mind that men make up more than half the amount of people who reported forced vaginal sex (penis + vagina penetration) during one year. Never mind that male victims of rape have less protection and virtually no services or social awareness. Never mind that a vast number of society feels men can't even be raped by a woman, including the US Government and the UK. But that's alright. You see, the site goes on to mention that men can be hurt by rape, too.

"Sexualized violence does not just affect women. It affects the men who care about them, their families, their friends, their coworkers, and their communities."

 That's right, folks.
Men can be hurt because women they care for might be hurt. And that is clearly enough reason to force men to wear these painful shoes and be publicly humiliated. Too bad the site doesn't mention the force part. Luckily, someone else did. Avoiceformen.com remarks:

On the strict condition of anonymity, a member of a participating fraternity spoke with AVFM about the event.  He said that the Intra Fraternity Council (IFC), an administrative body who enforces rules and guidelines set both within the Greek community itself and by the school administration evoked a “Standards Requirement,” imposed to ensure a participation rate of at least 80% for all fraternities. Consequences for non-compliance of this requirement include revocation of privileges for individual fraternity members as well as suspension or termination of a fraternity’s charter.

“People seemed to get hostile when topics came up like ‘hey don’t you think that this is weird or wrong’ and the reaction would be like ‘hey, what are you implying? there isn’t anything weird or wrong about rape?’ Said the student who indicated that there was an extreme amount of social coercion as well as administrative pressure to participate in the event.

“Its ridiculous, its humiliating” said the student. “I think that it doesn’t serve the purpose that it’s meant to serve, I think that it is more or less of a shaming tactic aimed at humiliating instead of teaching someone a lesson and if they are trying to teach a lesson what lesson would that be? You are taking gentlemen, basically, who care about women and care about women feeling better about themselves and their safety and you are making them humiliate themselves for the benefit of what? Not all men are rapists but that is basically the message that an event like this conveys. Even the thought of that if you take a step back is preposterous that all men are rapists.”

Did I mention the stats this organization's speakers parroted off? "One in four women will be raped." False. "Women are more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence than men." Actually, it's the other way around. Men make up more than half of all victims. Good job, you unbiased, informative equal rights organization, you. If only I could have been there. I would have loved to take a picture to show the "Daddy, Why Did You Steal My Innocence" banner to all those men out there struggling to adopt children and being forced to answer questions about their sex lives that women don't have to answer, because it's wrongly assumed men who want to adopt children are just perverts.

I guess I'll just sit back and read the letter these poor men had to vow out loud as hundred of people watched, promising never to rape a woman.

Domestic Violence Against Men

Domestic abuse, or 'intimate partner violence' has existed for as far back as we can trace our roots as human beings. Through perseverance and activism, women over the decades have fought long and hard for rights and, in turn, strict laws against domestic violence. The 'Violence Against Women Act' is surely an example of how far they've gotten. We hear about it in the news. We see pamplets for potentially abused women at doctor clinics. Domestic violence awareness commercials are prominently found all across the western world, advocating for awareness of abused women (and children).


What we don't hear about is violence against men. We don't hear about the fact that more than half of all domestic violence cases involve a man being the victim, or that the Domestic Violence Hotline routinely treats male victims who call as batterers, referring them to batterer programs rather than giving them help.

The statistics above are from the 2010 national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Department of Justice.

Government laws and billions of dollars worth of funding paid by taxes exist that support only female victims. The Domestic Violence Hotline has little to no information for male victims and the US department of Health feels it would be sexist to create funding for male victims even though it's okay to fund female victims. 

Most anti-MRA individuals and groups will reason that this is okay, because women suffer domestic violence 'worse'. That men are more likely to repeatedly abuse and less likely to be caused trauma by abuse as women are.

American social scientists Murray Straus and Richard Gelles reported from two large national surveys that husbands and wives had assaulted each other at approximately equal rates, with women engaging in minor acts of violence more frequently. Elsewhere, they found more wives than husbands were severely violent towards their spouses.


Moreover, there is now considerable evidence that women initiate severe violence more frequently than men. A survey of 1,037 young adults born between 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand, found that 18.6% of young women said they had perpetrated severe physical violence against their partners, compared with 5.7% of young men. Three times more women than men said they had kicked or bitten their partners, or hit them with their fists or with an object.


Men assaulted by their partners are often ignored by police, see their attacker go free and have far fewer refuges to flee to than women, says a study by the men's rights campaign group Parity.


The charity's analysis of statistics on domestic violence shows the number of men attacked by wives or girlfriends is much higher than thought. Its report, Domestic Violence: The Male Perspective, states: "Domestic violence is often seen as a female victim/male perpetrator problem, but the evidence demonstrates that this is a false picture." 

Given the above, I'd like someone to explain to me why it is that there are few services for male victims. I'd like someone to explain or try to rationalize how it's alright that we turn a blind eye to male victims on account of them simply being male. Why the government passes laws and provides funding for female victims, yet accuses male victims of being perpetrators. 

info and sources:

http://www.batteredmen.com/
Men are victims of domestic violence
Women are more violent, says study
Wiki on violence against men

Who Kills