I found myself in the all too familiar position of being a graduate struggling for meaningful work in my field. But a job opportunity arose which allowed me to move to London. On moving there I left an existing job to try and raise my own small business, while working low paid jobs to keep ends meeting. However, despite a strong start, it coincided with the recession and work became scarce. A spiral developed and living arrangements became very difficult: rising rent and cost of living, added to deteriorating health. And it was at this point I started to take notice of the MRA movement. The idea that men were unworthy deadbeats if they had little money, success or a stable career played on my mind. MRAs claimed that women wanted equality, while still demanding the perks of what I now realise are patriarchal gender roles. Women still expected men to pick up the bill, to be the breadwinner, to provide and pay for their lifestyle: to still be chivalrous. I equated that to my situation, and wrongly blamed feminism for feeling like a failure. I became annoyed that my situation was preventing me from succeeding. I became blinded and bitter and blamed things that were never to blame for my situation. I would eventually come to realise that if there was any blaming to be done, it was of patriarchal gender roles. Nothing else.

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But Then I Discovered Feminism – Real Feminism

So what was it that changed my beliefs so dramatically? What was the catalyst for the sudden change and realisation? Well, not an awful lot has changed in my life if honest; aside from moving back up North. I’m not a millionaire (actually, I’m still pretty much skint!), I don’t have a great career or business and my life isn’t suddenly wonderfully full of happiness!

But something did change in me. I started to reassess my life and why things weren’t great. I didn’t understand the hatred of anti-feminists or MRAs any more than I actually understood feminism itself. So I decided to start asking questions, start reading and begin to understand. I read blogs, websites, books. I asked questions on social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter. I must have come across as such a privileged fool at first, thinking he knows more about feminism then feminists! Although I wanted to learn, it was difficult for me to acknowledge privilege and recognise patriarchy. Luckily, they were patient!
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My Understanding of White Privilege Helped Me to Understand Male Privilege

The biggest catalyst of all however came when I read about male privilege. It struck a deep chord with me. As I said earlier, I am of mixed race: white and Asian. I grew up in a very white-dominated area of the country and I’ve always experienced casual racism, right from my very first days at school to recent occurrences. It was pretty bad at the beginning, but I had always considered myself fairly lucky. I had great friends around me, and I’d always considered abuse as galvanising. However, my friends were all white English, so in some circumstances, it was difficult for them to understand what racism meant to me. I’d always been aware of a white privilege (even if I didn’t refer to it as that), buts it’s difficult to explain it to some, as many are in denial. The idea that having a slur against a white person is equal to a racial slur against a non-white person is absurd (we’ve recently witnessed white privilege being denied in court, as a footballer claiming being called “an English c***” is just as abusive as his calling a fellow black player a “black c***”. Laughable, at best.), but deniers of white privilege use that argument. Maybe it is because they are uncomfortable with acknowledging that privilege.