I blogged every day for one month. It was enough to convince me to start a new blog for exactly that sort of thing (ask me for the address 
).
Back to blogging about the issues I care about most.
Let’s talk about male privilege for a moment. My fiance and I were downtown holiday shopping today and stopped in at a bank branch to withdraw some cash. A young woman (maybe 20 years old) was at another ATM, talking on her cell phone, almost crying, and having trouble making her transaction. I heard enough of her side of the conversation to know that she was freaked out because a man had been following her.
I interrupted her and asked if C and I could walk her somewhere. She asked us to check outside to see if someone was there, and to wait outside for her. We gladly did so. There was no one there, but it cost us only a few minutes and calmed her down completely.
How dare that man threaten her like that? How dare he think that just because she’s an attractive young woman (and she was beautiful), he can follow her and scare the hell out of her? I’m still angry over it. And very glad I did the right thing by offering my help.
November 30, 2008 at 3:17 pm |
You’ve got every right to still be angry about that – no one has the right to do that to anyone. It’s not just male privilege though – it’s that, coupled with some kind of sociopathy. Whatever innate tendencies someone has that can convince them doing something like that is normal or right-in-the-head, is clearly frakked in the head to begin with. I think a huge part of it is that so many aspects of society still teach men that they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and that the fears or feelings of others are malleable so long as they’re doing what they want to do.
I think it’s definitely a more extreme than so-called white privilege, in that as white we have a much easier time going to so many places on this planet without others passing judgment on us due to racial background. That definitely exists, as does male privilege, but there’s something more menacing about male privilege as it’s more conscious – it’s more as if it is being inflicted upon someone else.
Thank you both for helping that girl (and I’d like to think that if there was a an following her that you would have tag-teamed him and drop kicked him in the sack).
Oh, and congrats on the blog writing month! did much better than me on writing for a month (I blame the thesis for sucking my will to live).
November 30, 2008 at 11:24 pm |
I love (LOVE!) that you guys helped her. There’s nothing I take more pleasure in than being nice to strangers… especially seeing as it requires no extraordinary effort on my part. I mean, why the heck can’t we ALL smile, open doors or help each other out for no particular reason other than that it feels good and makes others feel good?