There was an interesting diary recently, equating the vicissitudes of of being male in “post feminist” America with women’s on-going struggle for equality. The diarist blamed “female liberation” in part for forcing the sexes apart in an unnatural way, and contends that this makes being a man in America just as difficult as being a woman.
It has never escaped me that rigid male roles are uncomfortable, limiting and dangerous for the men that adopt them, and for everyone they affect.
I am not totally unsympathetic, although I reserve the bulk of my respect and empathy for the brave men who dare to defy the stereotypes. Because rejection of inflexible, traditional roles is at the heart of feminism, I was at a loss to understand how we could be blamed. The complaint seemed to be: “The women these days don’t respond well to the way I behave, and I resent it.”
Maybe I’ve been missing something. Perhaps my femicentrist viewpoint has blinded me to the real pain of the privileged when their entitlement runs out.
For instance, I have always felt great outrage at the institution of slavery, but I have identified only with the slaves. I never thought about how hard it was being a master in a changing world.
I Am a Masterist
Nobody appreciates the difficulty of owning people. For one thing, you have all this responsibility and the burden of command. I have to make all the decisions and see to it that everybody acts right. That is a lot of work. The other thing is, I know in my heart that I, personally, would hate being a slave, so even when they act all content, sometimes I have my doubts. I even imagine occasionally that they may hate and resent me even though I take care of them. That’s very stressful. Luckily, they are NOT like me because they’re black. Well, most of them are pretty black, except the ones whose daddies are white. Some of them are even my own children, and I can’t tell you how hard it is to remember that even though they are my blood, that blackness keeps them from being like me. That’s the part I hate worst, because it’s natural to love your children and want what’s best for them. Keeping all slaves in their place is a necessary but painful sacrifice a master has to make to keep the system going. No, it’s a good thing that blackness makes them like the opposites of whites, or I’d be even more uneasy and afraid. Those people cook my food, wash my clothes, care for my children and sleep in my bed. If I believed that they had the same feelings as white people, I’d be afraid all the time, any maybe even ashamed.
Now, what really gets my goat is that some the masters have got religion or something, and went and freed their slaves. This is a very bad precedent which might give my slaves dangerous ideas. Besides, I have to see these “free men of color”, and they don’t act right. What’s worse, I don’t know how to act with them. How do you talk to a slave who’s not a slave any more, that’s what I want to know. Suppose they were all free, and I had to figure out a way to get along with them as equals. That is sick and unnatural. I will not be dragged down to the level of slaves who were intended by God to show me service, deference and respect. We need legislation that will invalidate all manumission, because I am just as entitled as any white man to the respect I’ve always enjoyed, and nobody is going take that away from me.
