In the Words of Our Editor: “What a Sad, Sad Asshole”
We were going to make this the daily dose of douchebaggery, but there’s something just so sad about this guy who commented on Andrew Sullivan’s item (the full comment is crazy long and sort of nonsensical, so go to the Daily Dish to read it all). Here’s the gist:
Call me a misogynist asshole … but while women have a lot of avenues to address potential earnings gaps, men like me have no means to seek recompense for the emotional toll taken out on us by the expected focus on our careers.
I get sick and tired of women who want to treat the workplace as somehow separate from other parts of life. There seems to be an attitude of: “I’m going to party all through my twenties while I’m young and hot, then have a family and be a mom and have a full-time career as well, and I’m owed a dollar for every dollar anyone else makes, regardless of the priorities each of us has set up until this point in our lives.” That ain’t life.
That’s how I, as a man born in the mid-eighties - long after the high-water mark of sexual discrimination - perceive much of what passes for feminism these days. It’s an excuse that women have that men don’t. I’m forced into a box (the “earn lots of money” box) just as much as a woman is (the “have a family” box), but women are given tons of sympathy for the things they miss out on.
I’m not given any sympathy at all. Instead, to the extent that I can even bring myself to talk about my personal problems, I’m thought of as a loser for not having (or wanting to have) casual sex with multiple partners. I’m somehow inadequate. And you know what? I FEEL inadequate. I just don’t have anyone to officially blame for it.
We quibble with a couple of sad guy’s points. (For starters, feminism is not an “excuse.” Maybe he’s confusing it with sexism?) That said, guy makes a good point: we are all boxed in to a certain extent, and we all are forced to make sacrifices. Are those sacrifices different for men and women? Probably. Are they slightly worse for women? Well, as another Sullivan reader notes:
Contrary to his assertion that women treat the workplace as separate from life, I think many women of my generation already see that the two are fully intertwined, and it is nearly impossible to optimize for happiness, or even more “success” by any traditional definition, in both.
But is there a solution? Can anyone really have it all?
