"Food" for thought -

[kyburg]

Two sides of a many-sided coin - thanks to yuki_onna:

It's GOOD to be male!

It IS? No...it's not.

For every stupid thing we do to women, we do two stupid things to men.

Still plowing through the friends list...be back later....

Comments

[dwinghy.livejournal.com]

The second link seems redundant, since the first link admits at the outset that patriarchy and male privilege isn't good for men either. Also, I found some of the points in the second link a bit dubious.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

That was kind of my reaction.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Well, if you could point out which ones you found dubious, I could discuss that -

Shoot, it's someone else's opinion to begin with -

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I know, I'm not really kvetching at you about it.

I just find the whole 'men being forced to act butch' thing a bit -- outdated, I guess. Maybe that's a product of where I live.

The whole listing of greivances thing makes me uncomfortable anyway. It always seems to immediately veer away from problem-solving and turn into a "my life sucks more than yours" competition.

[dwinghy.livejournal.com]

A few of the points, particularly #10 and #11, strike me as being terribly generalized-- I realize that was the point, but the problem is that I... just don't see it. I'm not aware that men aren't supposed to be interested in the arts because in my experience most well-known cartoonists (in North America anyway) are men, most well-known painters are men, most well-known chefs are men, etc. So #10 just doesn't jibe with my view of reality at all. #11 is kinda like that but it's a more generalized point. I realize the stereotype of the straight male is to be "macho", or at least a cheap-beer-drinking, "Man Show" watching dork, but I really don't think this is how society thinks a man SHOULD act. In other words, I think a lot of this list describes the STEREOTYPES society has of men, not the actual ROLE society has made for men. I don't think the two are one and the same.

The whole thing reminds me of a cartoon Terry Laban did called "It's Great to be a Guy!" It was done tongue in cheek, of course, but at the same time it was refreshing to see a guy unabashedly describe the advantages he feels he has because he's a guy.