Your culture is wrong

All Men Are Liars had an interesting post this week. It's based on this feminist essay which lists the way white men are privileged."White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks."

The list includes things like:

4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.

21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.

It goes on. It was an interesting piece, but one I found flawed in a key way. She restricted it to white men. I really think it should have been men of the dominant culture. Because I would feel pretty out of place in Japan. or Brazil. Or Nigeria. Or China. And I would feel like I would be singled out for my race occasionally in those countries too.

The one I found more interesting was the one All Men Are Liars quoted. The checklist of male benefits as opposed to female ones:

I can be pretty sure that when I walk down the street, nobody will yell at me about my body or tell me what they want to do to me sexually.
If I choose not to have children, nobody will question my masculinity.
No one will think I'm selfish if I have children and a career.
At work I can be fairly sure I won't be sexually harassed.

Etc. And YET, then there's this from All Men Are Liars again:

I argue that men do not enjoy a life of privilege. Far from it – a look at the life of the average man is a fairly depressing sight. What kind of privilege it that bestows on men a 10-year-shorter life span than women, and a higher incidence of disease, crime, alcoholism and drug addiction? What kind of privilege is it that blesses men with a frequently self-destructive need to achieve? What kind of privilege is it that honours a man with the duty to spend a lifetime supporting others, more often than not in an unsatisfying job?" That quote is taken from a 1979 article written by the men's movement pioneer Richard Haddad.

And again:

Haddad continues: "I am angry over the hypocrisy of too many women I know – their assertion of strength and independence except when it is convenient to be weak and dependent; their insistence that I and other men change, but only in ways and to a point that will please them."

All this long build up got me thinking about men's and women's roles. About women who want it both ways, and men who feel like they either have to conform or break out.

Men and women are not the same. So why do we act like they are? Why do we try to make women achieve like men and men feel like women? Where is that push coming from? Some thoughts.

And as for the stuff on being white, I think she's missed the mark. White people aren't the problem. The culture they've built might be.

I am not racist.
I am culturist.

What does that mean? It means some cultures are objectively better than others. It means some cultures need to change or die, because they damage their citizens. A lot of damaging cultures have died (cannibal cultures, incest cultures, death cults etc). Others that promote damaging behaviour (female genital mutilation, forced marriage, systemic corruption) need to change - or die. I don't necessarily think my own culture is the best. It has some great elements, and some issues. But I think we at least have the openness for a conversation about the issues. And that's a start. A lot of other cultures do not.

I know it's a bit haphazard, but I haven't got it all straight in my head yet. This is mainly just me typing, trying to see what sticks.