Male Entitlement: How I see it

All the poor men who don’t want to play in the new rules world

 

This little piece below was submitted in a creative writing forum I’m a member of and it perfectly illustrated a point I’ve been thinking about writing on for the past week or so.

 

DON JUAN SHMUCK

There was this really ugly girl.  Physically, I mean physically.

Actually, I mean facially.  Her face was really bad looking.

The rest of her body was okay.  She wasn’t ugly in the sense

she was revolting.  No, not revolting.  Just really bad looking.

The funny thing is, she never acted like a really bad looking girl.

She acted normal, like she wasn’t bad looking.  Actually, she acted

like she was a normal looking girl, maybe even good looking.

She never acknowledged, in any way, that she wasn’t,

at least, average looking .  It’s almost as if she thought she was

good looking.  You know, maybe a 7 or 8, not a 2 or 3,

which she really was.

The funny thing is, everyone treated her like she wasn’t really bad looking.

Even the guys.   I tried to tell her that she could improve her looks by doing

a few things with makeup and her hair.  Every time I started to talk to her she

would smile and walk away, usually towards someone who was waving at her.

That someone was often a guy.

Why would I care about a really bad looking girl?  She made me feel bad about her.

I know she was hurting and that made me feel sad about her.

I had gone out with her once.  I thought we had a pretty good time.  We talked a lot.

Okay, maybe not so much her.  I talked  a lot.  She really seemed to be enjoying what I was saying.  Why wouldn’t she?  As anyone can see, I’m a funny guy.  People love to hear me talk.  I say a lot of funny things.  I know a lot of jokes.  I would have gone out with her again.  I asked her, but she said “no”.  I know now she thought she wasn’t worthy of me, being ugly, I mean really bad looking.

I’m going to ask out that cute girl in the accounting department,

if I can ever catch up to her.

It was written by a man, and I think intended as satire but it could be so true to the way many boys and men think.

 

Because when you open your eyes to patriarchy you see it in everything, everywhere but especially in how men treat the idea of meeting a prospective love interest. Only people who think the world revolves around their needs and desires would think that tricking someone into a relationship or bullying them into a date as per the go-to plays suggested by ‘pick up artists’(PUA) is a more reasonable response than taking a good look at yourself and deciding to focus on making yourself a more interesting, engaging, attractive person.

 

This isn’t man bashing. This is about creating a non patriarchal non gendered world where it’s safe for men to be emotionally vulnerable, a world where women no longer feel constantly physically vulnerable.

 

It’s about men recognising that whilst ‘#notallmen’ eyeroll emoji! harass, all women have been harassed by men. 

 

In the example above, the boy/man is ‘negging’ the object of his desires. Negging is an approved ‘PUA’ tactic where a man goes up to a woman and says something shitty about her. 

 

Because most women suffer from self esteem issues because being female and raised in the patriarchy means you have no value except that prescribed by men, based on what men find valuable about women which isn’t their brilliance and individuality but their compliance and willingness to fit into the assigned gender parameters. Which are mostly based on looks and either sexual innocence or depravity.

 

But why are we finding more and more instances of this now?

 

Maybe because we are finally becoming aware of it because women have choices now that they never had before.

 

Once, marriage was all a woman could hope for. There was no job, no hope of financial independence, no inheritance that could offer freedom from a father’s or brother’s control. Marriage was it, passing from being from one man’s possession to another’s. Women were objects, things who had no will or agency of their own, to be passed from one man to another without any input or influence.

 

But slowly over the past 50 years things have been changing and being a man isn’t enough. Now you have to be – horrors! an attractive proposition, for a woman to give up her independence and want to form an alliance with you.

 

This is where these incels make me laugh (and despair). They think they should be guaranteed sex just by virtue of being a boy/man. I see them in my mind sitting in their parents’ basement saying things like’ here I am, come and get me’ and of course, no-one does.

 

Here’s a thing for all you men who want to be in a relationship to consider and even if you just want sex, think about this – are you an attractive proposition?

 

Women are taught to think about whether or not they are an attractive proposition from they are babies – literally – all those cooed remarks to little girls along the lines of ‘aren’t you a cutie, who’s a pretty princess, smile and you look prettier. We are taught that being messy, demanding, loud, bossy, argumentative and so much more just isn’t attractive and we want to be attractive don’t we?

 

That’s the pinnacle of a woman’s worth in the patriarchy – to be attractive. And who sets the rules of attractiveness? Not the little girls who want to run and jump and shout and scream and get messy and just be their own damn selves.

 

Boys on the other hand are taught that everything they do is just great, boys will be boys, So just go torture the neighbourhood cats, throw stones at the quiet, bookish kids from school, pull the girls’ knickers down in the playground, don’t bother washing for days on end, or brush your teeth or change your underwear, nothing you could do makes you less attractive because you are the male of the species.

 

Funny how that’s getting turned on its head and just being a boy/man isn’t enough anymore.

 

As women become more financially self-sufficient and as society becomes less enmeshed in the old patriarchal rules, women are more likely to judge a man based on who he shows up as in her life and decide whether he’s worth the drama and conflict he will inevitably bring with him.

 

Just want sex? Well, are you clean? Have you brushed your teeth? If not, why would a woman who is probably clean, fresh and sparkling want you anywhere near her?

 

Dealing with men nowadays becomes an option rather than a need or indeed a previously forcibly inflicted course of action.

 

How about men do what women have done for centuries – decide to become their best selves and be the thing they want to be in order to attract the partner they want. Be someone worth being with, not just the default male option that women used to have to make do with,

 

Take a good hard look at yourself man/boy, incel, PUA, whatever – do the introspection – are you someone that the person you find attractive would find attractive? If not, do the goddamn work required to make yourself so.

 

This isn’t about getting ripped although that may be a part of it. It’s about the harder work of not being an entitled jerk and instead becoming an interesting, self aware, empathetic decent human being.

 

Men think back to the good old days when they got married and provided for their family and everyone knew their place. But how many men ask whether or not the women in those ‘good ole days’ were happy in their place? NOT many.

 

You have to do better, you have to be better than your parents and grandparents. 

 

This is probably the first generation of men who have had to get a woman to like them in order to be with that woman.

 

Women used to need a man around, for everything. I don’t mean security or finances but simply to exist in the world. We couldn’t get a bank account without a man’s signature on it, couldn’t buy a home, couldn’t work outside the home, couldn’t get educated. Literally, women had no way to exist in society outside of marriage.

 

Men have to get women to like them now and many men are just not all that likeable.

 

And many still cling on to that old outdated stereotype of ‘here I am, a man, in all my manly glory, who wants me?’ and are astounded when no-one takes up their offer.

 

Like I said earlier, are you clean? when was your last dental checkup? Do you pick up after yourself? Are you emotionally mature? Are you self aware? Are you interesting? Are you engaging? It’s not about being cute, it’s about being worth the trouble of allowing you in to their lives.

 

We are all worthy of attention especially when we treat everyone else as being worthy of attention. But if you believe you are worthy whilst being disrespectful, then you’re not worthy.

 

Be better. Because you are worth it and so are women.

 

You just might find that as you work on being more likeable, you like yourself more. And when you like yourself more, other people like you more and that is when t happens and you become attractive, not just to the opposite sex but to people in general. You make friends, real friends, not other whiny, entitled asses, but interesting, engaged, likeable people. Of whom, you are now one.

 

Love,

Cynthia xx