Yelling, Tantrums and Male Privilege

Many years ago a comrade who was a Nanny for an affluent family told me how the child in her care had been so abusive to her that she raised it with the parents. The mother explained that her son was simply being assertive. I remember at the time that I did not know what this word meant. The comrade explained it to me: the kid was learning his right, his privilege, to be abusive to those lower on the food chain.

Today a buddy of mine who is a middle manager at a local symphony told me how the music director had gone nuts, screaming, yelling (not kicking), but had displayed all the attributes of a child who doesn’t know better. He explained that this was someone who had never been forced to behave any differently. In another story, his own buddy, who is also lower on the food chain, had been made to go through anger management. We laughed that part of his behavioral un-learning of losing his temper was to always pick the longest check-out line when shopping!

All this stuff came up when I was explaining how my brother is going through a disciplinary hearing at his job at a care home. They are basically trying to get rid of him for standing up for himself and the other workers in a non-union environment. My brother told me one of management’s bones of contention was that about a year ago he witnessed the deputy manager yell at all the kitchen staff, “you’re all a bunch of lazy bastards.” Andy went to the manager, complained about this and was given a blank stare by the boss. He left the office telling the boss, “just because you pay shit wages, doesn’t mean you can treat people like they’re shit.” It’s not coincidental that the deputy manager is a man and all the kitchen staff are women.

So much of this, of the right to abuse others is capitalist male privilege. Much of it is simple class background, status and your placing in the society’s class hierarchy.

Fighting for socialism can’t just be about fighting for public ownership and an end to the private dictatorship of capital and the rich. So much more is about ending the inequality of relations between individuals. Not making everyone equal: humans are too complex to all be the same. But making relations equal. No-one has the right to exploit their power to abuse others.

We can’t rid the world of rudeness, but like in any human grouping, we can establish a world where rudeness, privilege and tantrums are not acceptable. The first step is taking power away from the elite.