Men are easy?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this post on male privilege written by a well-known and extremely-talented science fiction writer named John Scalzi.
At first, best cialis hospital I wasn’t going to respond to his claim that “being male is easy.”
I had two reasons for this:
- I think males in the U.S. do have a number of advantages over women especially when it comes to pay and status in the workplace. (And let’s not even talk about countries like Saudi Arabia.)
- I believe in never picking a fight with someone who has a much larger megaphone than I do.
But, after a week of ruminating on Mr. Scalzi’s claim, I just can’t let it go.
I understand why Mr. Scalzi believes men are the more fortunate sex. He and I are approximately the same age and we’ve both been raised in a culture where white men are often portrayed as the reason for all the evil in the world. Phil Donohue and Oprah spent many hours pointing out the injustices committed by men and the corresponding plight of women. But just because you believe it’s so, doesn’t make it so.
Statistically, it is much more difficult and dangerous to be a man.
While men are more likely to commit crimes such as rape, they are vastly more likely to be the victims of crime. They are more likely to be homeless, more likely to be incarcerated, more likely to be alcoholics, more likely to be autistic, more likely to be killed in combat, and more likely to commit suicide.
On the flip side, being a woman isn’t all bad.
Women control most of the country’s wealth.
They live longer.
They graduate from college at a higher rate.
They can’t be drafted.
And, contrary to popular belief, they are the sex most in control of their reproduction.
If a man impregnates a woman she can choose to keep it or abort it, but he has no voice in either decision. If she decides to keep it, she can then sue the man for 18-years of chid support whether he wanted the child to be born or not.
(It certainly seems to me like men got the short end of the pregnancy test stick on that one.)
I’m glad Mr. Scalzi likes being a man. As it happens, so do I.
But that doesn’t mean I agree that a life of enormous privilege is handed out free with every penis.
5 comments March 26th, 2012