Regrell
Regrell's JournalDo you have a good reason for locking my thread?
I was polite, I deleted a certain word per request of group member, I was on topic.
I somehow don't have enough posts to ask you in PM, boston bean, so asking you here.
thoughts about finding common ground with blue collar men and feminism
So I was thinking a bit about the MRA movement gaining momentum, then reading about the Eliot Rogers massacre, and then randomly about suicides, as I had recently heard the Golden Gate is finally getting suicide nets after decades of resistance.
One common theme that connected these threads is the devastating effects of "unmet expectations" on an individuals's sense of self-worth and yes, expectations...which we might also call "privilege".
While not downplaying the catastrophic and disproportionate price women pay at the hands of emotionally ill, broken people, I want to draw some parallels and investigate why many men (and some women, yes) can snap and do grievous harm to themselves, others, or often both.
Elliot Rogers grew up on the edges of the privilege wealth gives, but he was not in the elite leagues around him. This is not a sympathetic narrative, but within Roger's narrow lens of existence, it was an outrage that blonde models were not dripping off of his arm. Rampagers like Elliot Rogers are often described as "lone", because their other privilege (wealth) excludes them sympathy from support networks, as we saw with Roger's failed forays into PUA/"game", ets... unlike the next group.
This group is one I believe feminists can find true ground with....the utter failure of our late capitalist experiment to sustain a solid middle class expectation of job/food/community security. To me, the sheer physical and psychological stress of many traditionally male blue collar jobs can be just as devastating as rape. I am a survivor myself...and I also know my neighbor's son whose leg was chewed off in an industrial accident.
Honestly, if I had to choose between my rape and having my leg chewed off...I'd keep my leg. Whatever my abuser took from me, I grew it again in my heart. I think I actually gained something -- I'm stronger than I ever imagined. But if my leg was taken from me, it would take not only the mental and emotional healing, but physical pain and having to learn how to move through the world again. To learn to accept help you once took great pride in your self-preservation. Yes, I know this is controversial...
These are jobs which are also increasingly outsourced to immigrant labor, further inflaming white blue collar male anger, not to mention stripping oversite and killing and maiming even MORE workers, because men with no papers tell no stories. The entire economy is help hostage by a rapidly ride of the ever-more stratospheric wealthy.
If you get rich enough, even atheists feel divine, as if their fortune was either ordained by the universe or manifested through their sheer brilliance and hard work. Which is, of course, complete horseshit but the point remains that this uberclass doesn't give a shit about how many oil riggers, or fishery workers, or army grunts, or loggers lose their ability to walk...or worse.
Tell me how that person isn't at his core, a prostitute. His body is his asset, it's what he trades for money, and his physical strength will wane and he begins to lose value, much like an aging hooker.
So what's my point? Sorry for the ramble. Unmet expectations normally affect people with something to lose, something that is threatened, most grievously. White working class men are losing union-driven solidarity, up against a juggernaut of trasnational neoliberalism which is making him an endangered species.
Sure, there's a lot of misdirected hatred towards feminists, immigrants, and others in this demographic, but maybe we can all see how we rent our bodies, and our minds, to a system that wants nothing more than to replace us with...or make us into (whatever ends up being cheaper)...robots.
Unmet expectations somehow sounds too clinical when you think about it this way....
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Member since: Fri Aug 8, 2014, 03:08 AMNumber of posts: 30