IF MILO YIANNOPOULOS REALLY WANTED TO HELP MEN, HIS ‘PRIVILEGE GRANT’ WOULD SEND THEM TO THERAPY, NOT UNIVERSITY

by anonymous

Try as I might, I can’t seem to ignore Milo. I know his type — I see them a lot in my line of work. The spoilt little boy who thinks he’s so clever, desperate to be noticed for all the dirty words he knows or the time he said “or what?” to a teacher. Milo seems to fancy himself an anti-authoritarian, but this is only true in the sense of a child screaming at his parents for only giving him one pack of sweets.

Once again, the perpetual adolescent has entered my inner sanctum with his ‘Privilege Grant’, a university fund only available to white men which Milo probably thinks is a Swiftian satire of social justice rhetoric. You know when people ask you to do something and you answer with no, shortly before doing what they asked? This joke works on about that level. Ah, you actually thought I was doing something to combat male privilege, but I’m arguing that MEN are the oppressed ones. Yeah, that’s the opposite of what you think, isn’t it? That must rile you up.

it’s because women and ethnic minorities know that they can’t afford to fuck around

(Homepage of the Privilege Grant website © Yiannopoulos Privilege Grant)

So let’s look at the facts. Yes, young white boys are slowly falling behind in our education system after having been dominant for so long. Viewed in isolation, perhaps this does look like an unacceptable inequality that needs to be remedied, but look at any other demographic statistic and you’ll see a different picture. The wage gap between men and women (which does exist Milo, and not because of ‘choices’ —  I don’t remember women ‘choosing’ to be the only sex capable of childbirth), the empirical studies which show candidates of ethnic minority backgrounds less likely to be considered favourably in job interviews or the dearth of women in top jobs across the entire economy.

See, here Milo has failed to distinguish been cause and effect. The attainment gap between boys and girls which is slowly increasing in higher education has nothing to do with extra advantages being given to women, or the prominence of women in teaching or the ‘feminisation’ of the class room — it’s because women and ethnic minorities know that they can’t afford to fuck around. Without a good education, women and ethnic minorities have nothing to offer to a profoundly racist and a misogynistic world. White boys aren’t failing because they’re being discriminated against, they’re failing because they’ve realised they can get through life without really trying very hard.

If education has become ‘feminised’ it’s because children have been encouraged to develop emotional intelligence alongside other skills

(A London school hosts a discussion workshop on girls in science and engineering © Athene Donald)

None of this, however, seems to answer the fundamental point of why Milo wants to satirise social justice rhetoric in this way. He seems so unusually hostile. In fact, so hostile that he actively abuses trans people and women if they disagree with him. He has so much anger about marginalised peoples trying to claim their rights. He has such anger for anybody who suggests he has any kind of privilege. He has so much hate in him, and that is what his ‘Privilege Fund’ should be addressing.

If education has become ‘feminised’ it’s because children have been encouraged to develop emotional intelligence alongside other skills. In my experience young boys seem to lack this understanding, mostly preferring to solve things through jokes and hitting. The rate of suicide among men in our society is staggering, the rates of homicide and sex crimes amongst those men are even more so. Young boys and young men are profoundly angry about a world that was supposed to offer them power and is slowly increasing the competition but, unlike us, young boys and young men aren’t allowed to cry about it.

(© familymwr, Flickr)

Young boys and young men aren’t allowed to talk about their emotions in a healthy way. Young boys and young men aren’t allowed to develop complex understandings of one another. Young boys and young men aren’t allowed to ask for help, appreciate beauty, die of a cuteness overload or shriek with excitement. Young boys and young men are to be ashamed of any emotional display whatsoever and are to be doubly humiliated if they try to talk to one of their bros about it. Women mutilate themselves of their aspirations, men mutilate themselves of their emotions — this is how patriarchy works.

That’s starting to change for women; if Milo really wants things to change for men his money would be better spent sending their poor emotionally tortured souls to therapy.

Featured image: Milo Yiannopoulos © louderwithcrowder