Wounded Leaders
Way back in 2013 I wrote this piece about the feminist concept of male privilege and how it plays out for economically underprivileged men. Now I'm wondering what happens at the other side of the class divide. How does male privilege work out there? This is something I can only observe from the outside. Sometimes through the pain of others. The particular difficulties posher friends seem to have with their fathers. Their strangely rigid and studied performance of femininity that seems somehow linked. There's a distinct "flavour" to upper and upper-middle class gender relations. One that is difficult for me to put my finger on. When the subject came up on a gender discussion forum I speculated on historic differences in gender roles. Going back a century- working class women were expected to do hard physical work at home, while their men did hard physical work outside. Meanwhile upper class men were running industry and empire while their women were expected to...