Women are afraid of meeting a serial killer. Men are afraid of meeting someone fat.

When Strangers Click, a 2011 documentary about online dating.

It reminds me of that famous Margaret Atwood quote: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” It also reminds me of something written by one of the mods of Sex Worker Problems: “Misandry irritates. Misogyny kills.”

 

(via plasticbags)

(via stfuconservatives)

Source: tealeafprincess

because it seems necessary to say this:

gingerhaze:

Men’s Rights Activists, why do you think people are laughing at you?

It’s not because we think you shouldn’t have rights or that your problems don’t matter. I want men to be able to wear pink and drink fruity drinks and wear makeup and engage in other perhaps unfairly stereotypical “feminine” activities without getting harassed. Custody battles should be decided fairly without defaulting to the mother because she’s stereotyped, because of her gender, as a better caregiver. I hate that men are raped and don’t report it because it makes them feel emasculated. I think that the concept of masculinity that’s being pushed by our society is really messed up and extremely harmful to men.

The thing is, instead of spending five minutes researching what feminism is actually about and realizing that it actually would help ALL of the above issues, that we’d actually be on the same side here considering you give a crap about women (which is, well, in question), you’d rather start your own counter-movement (often IN OPPOSITION to feminism) about how your own problems matter more. “Why are we not talking specifically, exclusively about ME, right now?” 

Feminism IS NOT and NEVER HAS BEEN about hating men. It’s not about women taking over the world and stripping men of all their rights. If you believe that, you’re operating under a faulty understanding of the issue and should do some research. 

When you force your way into this discussion with an intense focus on men’s rights (or rights, as society would call them), you misunderstand the issue at best and belittle the systematic oppression of women around the world. When the issue you bring up is, “But I’M always expected to pay for dates!” then yes, people will laugh at you.

lohlac:

i was on the train, sitting in the pretty crowded bord bistro when some drunk guy came up and talked to me. more than once i made clear that i neither want to go sit with him and his friends nor “go somewhere quiet” with him “to get to know to each other”.
male privilege is being able to nevertheless continue harrassing a woman, without having ANYONE interrupt.
when i told him to go the fuck back to his seat, otherwise i’d call staff, his friend pulled him back.
but it didn’t stop. i kept hearing him as his voice got louder, almost shouting “i want to FUCK her! should i rape her? should i kill her?”.
when i got out of the train, my whole body was shaking and i was covered in sweat. i felt humiliated and helpless and objectified and degraded.
i needed to tell someone about it, so i could vent. so i texted a friend of mine, a boy, and told him about what had just happened.
male privilege is saying “hey it’s over now, isn’t it?”. as a female, it’s never over for me. as a female, i’m fearing situations like this every day, again and again.
male privilege is saying “just get a friend strong enough to protect you”, because it’s just natural for drunk men to harrass women, bringt them to wallow in self-directed shame and guilt, so the logical consequence is to protect the woman, not to educate men properly.

Reblogged by request of OP.

thisisthinprivilege: I thought you might be interested in an article I wrote about how people treat me differently now that I am a fat man vs. when I was perceived to be a fat woman: Male Privilege and Transitioning From a Fat Woman to a Fat Man I am a fat man. Once, I was perceived to be a fat woman. My transition has taught me a lot of things that I might not have otherwise engaged with if I had lived my life as a cis person. Transitioning really highlights male privilege and how society can treat you completely differently based on what gender it perceives a person to be. As soon as I started ‘passing’, I found I was treated with a respect that wasn’t often given to me as a woman. My personal space and boundaries were no longer violated, I was no longer talked down to, and people suddenly respected my right to privacy and my right to be left alone. I was no longer treated as if I simply existed for men’s pleasure. Similarly, my body was no longer overtly criticised. Fat women are disproportionately targeted in Western society. They are subjected to public humiliation and discrimination every day, simply because of their bodies. They are stared at in the streets, they are under-represented in media (and then, only as the butt of a joke), and they are targeted with verbal and physical violence. Fat men are also at the mercy of some stereotypes – laziness being the most common. However, I can now exist as a fat man largely without comment. I can shop for clothes in most stores rather than being turned away at the door and told that they don’t stock my size. Clothing companies cater to my needs, considering my body type ‘average’ (even if I am on the short side). Most clothing stores that cater to men stock from small to XXL and many beyond that. Meanwhile, despite the fact that the average dress size of a woman in the US is a size 14, many clothing outlets aimed at women will not stock above a size 12. Some stores such as Abercrombie do not stock above a women’s size 10 whilst simultaneously stocking XL and XXL in men’s sizes. This imbalance, and the effect it has had on my life and the way that people perceive me, is one of the clearest and most startling examples of male privilege and sexism that I have encountered. It all comes down to the patriarchal view that women are somehow obligated to make themselves attractive to men. That men are entitled to gaze upon and comment upon women’s bodies. When I was perceived to be a fat woman, there was a real sense of not just disgust, but a poisonous, malignant contempt. People (most commonly men) commented on my appearance like I somehow owed it to them to be, in their view, attractive. Like I was breaking some kind of cardinal rule because I was happy with my body without their approval. Now, in complete contrast, I am barely given a second glance. Occasionally, I still face discrimination as a fat man, but it’s not as vehement, societally sanctioned nor pervasive as it once was. My treatment has changed simply because of the way that society perceives my gender. This is male privilege in action. We live in a society that has built a whole industry on bullying women for not being what is considered ‘attractive enough’ to men. Think about that the next time you want to stare at a fat woman on the bus. Michael Young http://www.therainbowhub.com/home/male-privilege-and-transitioning-from-a-fat-woman-to-a-fat-man/
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thisisthinprivilege:

I thought you might be interested in an article I wrote about how people treat me differently now that I am a fat man vs. when I was perceived to be a fat woman:

Male Privilege and Transitioning From a Fat Woman to a Fat Man

I am a fat man. Once, I was perceived to be a fat woman. My transition has taught me a lot of things that I might not have otherwise engaged with if I had lived my life as a cis person. Transitioning really highlights male privilege and how society can treat you completely differently based on what gender it perceives a person to be. As soon as I started ‘passing’, I found I was treated with a respect that wasn’t often given to me as a woman. My personal space and boundaries were no longer violated, I was no longer talked down to, and people suddenly respected my right to privacy and my right to be left alone. I was no longer treated as if I simply existed for men’s pleasure.

Similarly, my body was no longer overtly criticised. Fat women are disproportionately targeted in Western society. They are subjected to public humiliation and discrimination every day, simply because of their bodies. They are stared at in the streets, they are under-represented in media (and then, only as the butt of a joke), and they are targeted with verbal and physical violence.

Fat men are also at the mercy of some stereotypes – laziness being the most common. However, I can now exist as a fat man largely without comment. I can shop for clothes in most stores rather than being turned away at the door and told that they don’t stock my size. Clothing companies cater to my needs, considering my body type ‘average’ (even if I am on the short side). Most clothing stores that cater to men stock from small to XXL and many beyond that. Meanwhile, despite the fact that the average dress size of a woman in the US is a size 14, many clothing outlets aimed at women will not stock above a size 12. Some stores such as Abercrombie do not stock above a women’s size 10 whilst simultaneously stocking XL and XXL in men’s sizes.

This imbalance, and the effect it has had on my life and the way that people perceive me, is one of the clearest and most startling examples of male privilege and sexism that I have encountered. It all comes down to the patriarchal view that women are somehow obligated to make themselves attractive to men. That men are entitled to gaze upon and comment upon women’s bodies.

When I was perceived to be a fat woman, there was a real sense of not just disgust, but a poisonous, malignant contempt. People (most commonly men) commented on my appearance like I somehow owed it to them to be, in their view, attractive. Like I was breaking some kind of cardinal rule because I was happy with my body without their approval. Now, in complete contrast, I am barely given a second glance.

Occasionally, I still face discrimination as a fat man, but it’s not as vehement, societally sanctioned nor pervasive as it once was. My treatment has changed simply because of the way that society perceives my gender. This is male privilege in action. We live in a society that has built a whole industry on bullying women for not being what is considered ‘attractive enough’ to men. Think about that the next time you want to stare at a fat woman on the bus.

Michael Young

http://www.therainbowhub.com/home/male-privilege-and-transitioning-from-a-fat-woman-to-a-fat-man/