[Note: This version of the list is not the current version. The most up-to-date version of the list can always be found at this link.]
No time for blogging today – gotta draw, gotta go to work, blah blah blah. So instead, here’s a piece I compiled five or six years ago, originally as an exercise for a women’s studies class. It’s probably my most widely-read piece; as well as floating around on the internet, it’s been used in dozens of high school and college courses.
An Unabashed Imitation of an article by Peggy McIntosh
In 1990, Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. McIntosh observes that whites in the U.S. are “taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.” To illustrate these invisible systems, McIntosh wrote a list of 26 invisible privileges whites benefit from.
As McIntosh points out, men also tend to be unaware of their own privileges as men. In the spirit of McIntosh’s essay, I thought I’d compile a list similar to McIntosh’s, focusing on the invisible privileges benefiting men.
Since I first compiled it, the list has been posted several times on internet discussion groups. Very helpfully, many people have suggested additions to the checklist. More commonly, of course, critics (usually, but not exclusively, male) have pointed out men have disadvantages too – being drafted into the army, being expected to suppress emotions, and so on. These are indeed bad things – but I never claimed that life for men is all ice cream sundaes. Pointing out that men are privileged in no way denies that sometimes bad things happen to men.
In the end, however, it is men and not women who make the most money; men and not women who dominate the government and the corporate boards; men and not women who dominate virtually all of the most powerful positions of society. And it is women and not men who suffer the most from intimate violence and rape; who are the most likely to be poor; who are, on the whole, given the short end of patriarchy’s stick. As Marilyn Frye has argued, while men are harmed by patriarchy, women are oppressed by it.
Several critics have also argued that the list somehow victimizes women. I disagree; pointing out problems is not the same as perpetuating them. It is not a “victimizing” position to acknowledge that injustice exists; on the contrary, without that acknowledgement it isn’t possible to fight injustice.
An internet acquaintance of mine once wrote, “The first big privilege which whites, males, people in upper economic classes, the able bodied, the straight (I think one or two of those will cover most of us) can work to alleviate is the privilege to be oblivious to privilege.” This checklist is, I hope, a step towards helping men to give up the “first big privilege.”
The Male Privilege Checklist
1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed.
2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true.
3. If I am never promoted, it’s not because of my sex.
4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won’t be seen as a black mark against my entire sex’s capabilities.
5. The odds of my encountering sexual harassment on the job are so low as to be negligible.
6. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job.
7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible.
8. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces.
9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question.
10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be called into question.
11. If I have children and provide primary care for them, I’ll be praised for extraordinary parenting if I’m even marginally competent.
12. If I have children and pursue a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home.
13. If I seek political office, my relationship with my children, or who I hire to take care of them, will probably not be scrutinized by the press.
14. Chances are my elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more likely this is to be true.
15. I can be somewhat sure that if I ask to see “the person in charge,” I will face a person of my own sex. The higher-up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be.
16. As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters.
17. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for it; male heroes were the default.
18. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often.
19. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether or not it has sexist overtones.
20. I can turn on the television or glance at the front page of the newspaper and see people of my own sex widely represented, every day, without exception.
21. If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex.
22. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex.
23. I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial.
24. If I have sex with a lot of people, it won’t make me an object of contempt or derision.
25. There are value-neutral clothing choices available to me; it is possible for me to choose clothing that doesn’t send any particular message to the world.
26. My wardrobe and grooming are relatively cheap and consume little time.
27. If I buy a new car, chances are I’ll be offered a better price than a woman buying the same car.
28. If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore.
29. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.
30. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)
31. I can be confident that the ordinary language of day-to-day existence will always include my sex. “All men are created equal,” mailman, chairman, freshman, he.
32. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.
33. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if I don’t change my name.
34. The decision to hire me will never be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.
35. Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex. Even God, in most major religions, is usually pictured as being male.
36. Most major religions argue that I should be the head of my household, while my wife and children should be subservient to me.
37. If I have a wife or live-in girlfriend, chances are we’ll divide up household chores so that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks.
38. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, chances are she’ll do most of the childrearing, and in particular the most dirty, repetitive and unrewarding parts of childrearing.
39. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, and it turns out that one of us needs to make career sacrifices to raise the kids, chances are we’ll both assume the career sacrificed should be hers.
40. Magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are much rarer.
41. I am not expected to spend my entire life 20-40 pounds underweight.
42. If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover.
43. Complete strangers generally do not walk up to me on the street and tell me to “smile.”
44. On average, I am not interrupted by women as often as women are interrupted by men.
45. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.
(Compiled by Barry Deutsch, aka “Ampersand.” Permission is granted to reproduce this list in any way, for any purpose, so long as the acknowledgment of Peggy McIntosh’s work is not removed. If possible, however, I’d appreciate it if folks who use it could tell me about how they used it; my email is barry-at-amptoons-dot-com.)
(Updated since the original posting to add some new items to the list.)
[Note: This version of the list is not the current version. The most up-to-date version of the list can always be found at this link.]
Here’s an interesting read.
http://www.deltabravo.net/files/ifmenhav.pdf
I challenge you to read it, and after reading it, I wonder if you can find one point in here that you would agree with? If not, why should men continually be badgered into agreeing with the feminist lobby?
God, I just love the MRA trolls. If they don’t get everything they want, they whine and blame women.
Uh, Rob, sweetie, nobody dragged you onto a feminist site and made you stupid except yourself. Love it how he links to some Warren Farrel-esque screed about poor, poor men.
You want to hand over all the power, Rob, we’d be more than happy to let you make the rules, especially if we get to obey them about as well as men do—which is, not at all when it gets in their way.
It’s frustrating, isn’t it, when someone doesn’t want to hear about your grievances, but rather only acknowledge their own. It’s frustrating when someone accuses your gender, isn’t it? Welcome to a man’s world.
I do pity you since these eeeeeeeevvviiiillll feminists have apparently kidnapped you, tied you to a chair, and forced you to read this thread and post on it.
these eeeeeeeevvviiiillll feminists
Damn you evil feminists!
>>I’ve read the White Privilege Checklist numerous times (far too many to count). Sure, there are things on there that may not directly be about me, as a white woman.>>
It’s not exactly that you must have these things, is it? Gay men are passed over for promotions; black men are discriminated against in sales. It’s that, if you don’t have these things, you’re not being deprived of them because you’re a woman. Moreover, any women in your circumstances would also suffer because under whatever additional prejudices you’re faced with.
I think Rob forgot to read the disclaimer part of Ampersand’s post:
“More commonly, of course, critics (usually, but not exclusively, male) have pointed out men have disadvantages too – being drafted into the army, being expected to suppress emotions, and so on. These are indeed bad things – but I never claimed that life for men is all ice cream sundaes. Pointing out that men are privileged in no way denies that sometimes bad things happen to men.”
I suppose I am personally lucky in that I have the privilege of having an ex-husband that pays no child support (I make more money than he does) and still gets to see the kids. I won’t allow my personal issues with the ex affect my children’s lives to that extent.
I am also personally privilged to be told the my husband should be at the plant working (even though this isn’t his desire nor mine) and I should be “at home like a good little woman”. Oh, and I have the privilege of hearing my own gender tell demeaning jokes about other members of my same gender, and males get to laugh at it.
I wish certain men and women would understand that I am not the sum of my reproductive organs, but a fully integrated, fully functioning human being with needs, wants, and desires that are all my own and have nothing to do with men.
JAILER:
Eh, heh heh. [cough cough cough cough cough]
BEN:
You lucky bastard.
BRIAN:
Who’s that?
BEN:
You lucky, lucky bastard.
BRIAN:
What?
BEN:
Proper little jailer’s pet, aren’t we?
BRIAN:
What do you mean?
BEN:
You must have slipped him a few shekels, eh?
BRIAN:
Slipped him a few shekels? You saw him spit in my face!
BEN:
Ohh! What wouldn’t I give to be spat at in the face! I sometimes
hang awake at night dreaming of being spat at in the face.
BRIAN:
Well, it’s not exactly friendly, is it? They had me in manacles!
BEN:
Manacles! Ooh oooh oh oh. My idea of heaven is to be allowed to
be put in manacles… just for a few hours. They must think the
sun shines out o’ your arse, sonny.
BRIAN:
Oh, lay off me. I’ve had a hard time!
…and so on, and so on. It seems to me that people on both sides of this debate are operating with a really weird concept of ‘privilege’. I f you ask me what it means to be privileged, I’d say it’s getting more, or better than I’m entitled to get according to some explicit or explicit rules governing the situation in question. Furthermore, there must be some link between my getting more than what is due unto me, and someone else getting less.
Thus, by way of illustration;
If Rodney King, as a black small-time thief, gets videotaped being beaten up by officers of the LAPD and, in spite of this, is unable to secure a conviction against his assailants, then that is of course an example of the opression of the black lumpenproletariat. If I, as a white guy in a similar situation, am likely to get a closer approximation to Justice, well, it’s too bad about the opressive nature of a class-society, but it does not make me *privileged*. Me getting justice in no way deprives King of his chance of getting justice.
Or another, more hypothetical one. Say I’m a self-employed freeman potter in ancient Athens, who employs no slaves. Am I ‘privileged’ as because I can move about more or less as I please, while others are in chains? Nah. How about because I buy produce made by slaves? No, not even because of that; the products in question would cost me about the same (or possibly less!) under a no-slavery system, the only difference would be that more of what I pay for them would go to the labourer. In other words, mr Slave, your beef is with your master, not with me.
I don’t know, do you see what I’m getting at? A lot of the items on the list are like this:
> 7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison,
> my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible
I, for one, intend to hang on to, and fight tooth and nail too keep that ‘privilege’, if you don’t fucking mind. This strange complaint that the raping is *unequitably distributed* is completely insane.
Or like this:
> 23. I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial.
Which begs the question of how exactly it comes about that I’m a) entiltled to not ‘have my sex put on trial’ and b) it is automatically assumed that I give a fuck what people think about Men Who Aren’t Me, and c) as per above, that non-bigotry towards me must somehow automatically mean bigotry against other people.
Another odd thing is how everyone, for example wookie above, assumes that my reaction, as a (“normative”?) man, to this list is going to be “male guilt”, as opposed to, say, fist-pumping and hoots of “HELL, YEAH!! WOOOO !! PRIVILEGE!!!”
Further, even if men, all of them, simply by walking around and not getting raped and all that, *are* thereby oppressing the womenfolk, and the opressors really are made to feel guilty by lists like this one, so what? When have the opressed ever emancipated themselves by guilt-trippping their opressors? How is that supposed to happen?
Ah, hell. I don’t know. The whole thing just seems politically regressive to me. Bitching and infightning aming the proles.
>>Ah, hell. I don’t know. The whole thing just seems politically regressive to me. Bitching and infightning aming the proles.>>
You misunderstand the entire argument. Of course feminists aren’t eager to obtain the exact same benefits that men have living in an unequal society. Of course feminists have figured out that an oppressive arrangement damages everyone involved and that inequality is as wasteful as it is immoral. Of course feminists don’t want men to lose those current privileges that all people deserve by right.
In an unequal system, the people on top do have privilege relative to the people on the bottom. When freedom from sexual harassment, employment discrimination, safety, and sexual autonomy are not rights for all, they become privileges available to a few. As a man, you are less likely to be raped, sexually harassed, or subject to sexist discrimination. That makes you better off by reason of your gender than any woman in a similar situation. Like it or not, you have privilege. And while it’s terrible to live in a slave-owning culture, it’s still much better to be free than to be owned.
The point of the male-privilege checklist is to get half of the population–like you–to understand that inequality exists. Unless and until that happens, the unequal system will never be dismantled. All civil-rights movements have appealed to the moral sensibilities of the people whose privilege insulated them from the suffering of the disadvantaged. There’s no other way to gain support.
No one assumes that you’ll feel guilt. It’s entirely common for people to respond defensively, dismissively, or ignorantly. That’s your fault, not ours.
The point of the male-privilege checklist is to get half of the population”“like you”“to understand that inequality exists. Unless and until that happens, the unequal system will never be dismantled.
Since the unequal system will never be dismantled, whether or not y’all convince the world of the “privilege” narrative, you’d have an easier time of it just trying to improve your position (and/or the position of oppressed minories everywhere). Fighting against privilege is like fighting against gravity. Even if in some inconceivable scenario you won, everything’s going to fly apart.
Robert: Fighting against privilege is like fighting against gravity. Even if in some inconceivable scenario you won, everything’s going to fly apart.
Funny how the people who say this kind of thing are always the people on the privileged side.
Yeah, isn’t it?
Is it all males that are privileged, or is just white males that are privileged?
I would also go a bit further and add wealth to the list of privileged people. Because I wonder if Kobe would have gotten away with it if he was just some poor garbageman from south central?
I’m just curious, because it would seem to me that a white man has greater privilege than a black man, due to race. And can we fight male privilege without also fighting white privilege and the privilege of wealth?
Okay I see what you are saying, bean. We’ve gotten most of society to acknowledge and admit white privilege, some wealthy will amit the privilege of wealth, but very few men see or admit to the privilege of being born male.
Short of creating laws that force that acknowledgement, and of waiting until we raise the next generation to see the privilege, how do we (as a society) fight privilege in all its inherent forms?
False dilemma, Robert. But you knew that.
Here’s my problem with the male privilege checklist.
It really doesn’t illustrate “invisible systems conferring dominance on [men]”. It’s mostly just a list of bad things that happen to women, which is having the effect of making women feel victimised and men feel guilty. I don’t actually think Patriarchy works through confering privilege upon men, and I certainly don’t think that helping men give up their privileges is the answer to discrimination against women. Try this:
This is obviously bad for women, but it’s very unlikely that it contributes to it being “men and not women who make the most money; men and not women who dominate the government and the corporate boards; men and not women who dominate virtually all of the most powerful positions of society” and so on.
The last thing I’d like to take issue with is the idea that some forms of disadvantage are more important than others because they can be situated within a grand narrative of oppression. The position on this seems to be that bad things happen to men but as they’re not part of the systems of oppression they don’t count, unlike bad things that happen to women – which do and can go on the list.
It’s also interesting that by male privilege what gets included is good things that happen to men which are linked to their dominance. Why aren’t bad things that happen to men that are linked to their dominance also included (such as conscription). I think this is because the situation is rather more complicated than people want to make out.
Huh?
No one has ever said that all men (or even all white men) are always privileged over everyone else in every situation. Which is why Amp made of list of times that privilege (more often than not) does exist, but also included the caveat that not all men’s lives are not all “ice cream sundaes.”
the caveat is rather disengenuous. “sometimes” is a trivial word, and in context of barry’s statement it means “negligible at best.” it would have been better to list the privileges women have, perhaps on a seperate thread. outside of that, the comment reads as an afterthought or perhaps an attempt to block charges of dismissing men’s “problems,” which he technically still did. such statements are often the result of political correctness, meaning they are said because it is the “right” thing to say, not because one truly believes or agrees with them.
such statements are often the result of political correctness
jake, if you want to go ahead and use the dreaded PC, go ahead and accuse Amp of it, instead of weaseling.
Of course feminists aren’t eager to obtain the exact same benefits that men have living in an unequal society. Of course feminists have figured out that an oppressive arrangement damages everyone involved and that inequality is as wasteful as it is immoral. Of course feminists don’t want men to lose those current privileges that all people deserve by right.
No offense, but in this instance, I would have to say that you cannot expect one group to acknowledge inequalities that they “created” without first acknowledging your own. Doing such simply recreates the inequalities in your favor.
As a man, you are less likely to be raped, sexually harassed, or subject to sexist discrimination. That makes you better off by reason of your gender than any woman in a similar situation. Like it or not, you have privilege.
This is circular logic. One, “better off” is rather subjective. You can easily feel that another’s situation is “better” than yours, especially if you have a lack of understanding about it. Two, what you stated is not necessarily true. It is an assumption. The problem is that males are less likely to report such acts, so no one is truly capable of saying what does and does not happen until more studies are done from the male perspective.
The point of the male-privilege checklist is to get half of the population”“like you”“to understand that inequality exists.
You cannot garner understanding by shaming or bully a person. There were many civil rights groups who used this method, and if this is the one that has been chosen by feminists, it is truly unfortunate. You can appeal to a person’s moral sensibilities without attacking him, blaming him, or assuming that random instances hold true in all cases.
No one assumes that you’ll feel guilt. It’s entirely common for people to respond defensively, dismissively, or ignorantly. That’s your fault, not ours.
No offense, but if you have not considered the effects of a list that tells all males, including little boys, that they are oppressing women by virtue of existing, then you are a fool. You are responsible for your words, and you are responsible for the impact they have. Certainly if I called a woman a “slut” it would be my fault if she felt bad, not hers. Likewise, of you call a male an oppressor simply because of his gender, it is your fault if he feels bad. You cannot support a double-standard and want equality at the same time.
jake, if you want to go ahead and use the dreaded PC, go ahead and accuse Amp of it, instead of weaseling.
if you want to address my point, then do so. but the baiting tactic is kind of old.
>> In an unequal system, the people on top do have privilege relative to the people on the bottom. When freedom from sexual harassment, employment discrimination, safety, and sexual autonomy are not rights for all, they become privileges available to a few.>>
This is precisely the language to witch I object. If we disregard the discrimination thing for a moment, what the above amounts to is saying that as long as there is someone who is in any way worse off than someone else, and this disparity is not 100% due to inferiority of virtue and/or ability(*), then all those other better off people are automatically part of a ‘system’ in which they’re ‘on top’ and consequently privileged.
Look. Say you were to say, in mixed company, outside of a context of any specifically feminist discussion that someone ‘has the privilege of not being raped particularily often'(**), well, no one would take that seriously as a statement of fact. Everyone would assume it to be intended as sarcasm.
And, come to think of it, what’s with the passive voice, here and thruout the list? What, people ‘get raped’ or not, but noone *rapes*?
Why is it the only name being named here in connection with all those rapes is mine, for the bizarre reason that I’m unconnected to them both as perpetrator and victim? Why mis it always that I, specifically me myself and I, gain ‘privilege’ from all of those misfortunes of yours that don’t befall me, whether or not it makes sense to think I might gain anything from them, or even have anything to do with them, no matter how indirectly?
Why is it always some vague and nebulous and consequently unaccountable system, man, that victimises you while I, as a fairly nonnebulous white male, a specific one, with a name and an adress, make off with the metaphorical loot?
Look. Again. The opressed and the privilieged are irreconciliably in conflict. Some very few of the items on the list describe things that
are, at least in a short-term perspective, like that. Most, however, just aren’t.
> while its terrible to live in a
> slave-owning culture,
For the slaves, yeah.
> its still much
> better to be free than to be owned.
Well, most of the time, yes. At other times it’s live on your knees, or die on your feet, that is to say a judgement call.
>No one assumes that youll feel guilt. Its
> entirely common for people to
>respond defensively, dismissively, or
>ignorantly.
The hypothetical reaction I examplified was none of the above.
(*) Note the bit about ‘able-bodied’ at the end of the original post, though.
(**) Which is pretty much the gist of point (7) above.
Susan B Anthony is rolling over in her grave right now.
I think its sad that so many people of the feminist persuasion are so filled with hate for their fellow human beings. I pitty children that grow up in such a bitter environment.
And Ginmar, your propensity to swear at people and call them names is all over the internet. Just surfing the internet yesterday on a few subjects and on several different sites I seen posts of yours – which always degrade into you calling people a fucking troll and trying to humiliate them.
Er, isn’t that a sign of abusive behaviour?
Ta Ta, its been fun reading for a few days, but the hatred portrayed by the “forum regulars” to anyone who doesn’t agree 100% with them is astounding and troublesome. No wonder none of this issues never get solved. It gives me a headache. Like other men (likely your poor husbands), I will choose to tune you out.
Good luck with your hatred.
Hello!
I have been reading this thread on and off for the past few days, and I have enjoyed it. I would like to get out of the way a bit about myself. I am a male, I am white, I was born a Catholic, into a wealthy family. I am 20 years old, and I don’t live in the United States.
While I don’t agree fully with everything on this list, I wouldn’t dare get specific. My ego is too fragile. I do recognize that the vast majority of items on the list exist, whether or not I have encountered them, and that the list itself was formed with good intention.
I was ready to stop reading the thread when, posted about eight months ago I think, a male stated that he now acknowledged his privilege, but didn’t know what to do about it. I was shocked at the tongue-lashing he received by way of thanks for trying to learn about this cause. Valuable thought and time are being invested here by the inquisitive, and I think it’s clear a more tolerant, patient approach might help.
And now my question; (or ‘:’. Is it ‘:’ or ‘;’?)
When does this privilege come in to effect for a male? (I’m looking for a rough age, with reasoning)
The same goes with the White Privilege.
Is it possible that – being born a Catholic – before my existential existance, before my first ever thought, I was a sinner, a misogynist and a racist? I’m not sure the rest of my life is enough time to deal with all of these problems I didn’t know I had.
Okay, who’s taking bets that Rob really left?
if you want to address my point, then do so
jake, part of your point was a lot of waffling and ad hominem about ‘PC’.
It doesn’t matter what anyone says, really. If you’re firmly of the belief that we can’t say that women are more likely to be victims of sexual assault than men, then you’re not coming from a reality-based perspective; you simply don’t want to hear anything that might suggest your gender gives you an advantage.
I think that part of the point is that as white men we enjoy these privileges whether or not we’re racist & misogynist. Our society is simply constructed in such a way that we tend to reap the benefits of sexism by others even when we don’t engage in it ourselves.
Of course, that’s not to say that we’re not racist and/or misogynist, and that’s something that it’s good to check our own attitudes for, but it’s a seperate discussion from the white/male privilege discussion.
—Myca
Is there any troll cliche that Rob hasn’t hit? “You swear and call trolls…trolls!” “You feminists hate men!” “You people demand that people agree with you.”
Yeah, it’s kind of funny. If somebody thinks they can tell me what I’ve seen and lived through isn’t true, then I don’t waste my time with them.
He’ll be back. They always whine about shit and then hang around.
He’ll be back. They always whine about shit and then hang around.
Yep. There’s nothing more offensive than us bitches not sweating the bruised feelings of a man that keeps bringing said offended man back. Oddly enough, the men who cry over how unjust and awful our behavior is don’t look at their own dismissal of women’s experiences.
Yet again, we talk about what women go through, and you see a lot of attempts to derail it, dismiss it (cause we don’t know what we’re talking about), turn it to what men go through, or get it onto any other subject but women. How very telling.
Is there any troll cliche that Rob hasn’t hit?
I don’t think he called us ugly dykes, did he?
Hmmm….the author of this list is a man. I wonder what that could mean.
re-read the post. the comment was not directed at barry.
We have other ways of determining these things (like confidential surveys).
which would not be that helpful if confidential surveys are not conducted, or when they are, fewer males than females are surveyed, or the questions are phrased in such a way that would imply victimhood, which would make males less inclined to admit it, right?
and “rape” surveys have not been conducted (to my knowledge) with women. curious, is it not? as if those conducting them deliberately did not want to see if women would do such acts if given the opportunity. considering the broadness of the term “rape”, without actually seeing the questions and knowing precisely how the 1 in 12 stat was garnered, it would be unwise to assume that it is fact accurate. it smells like the “80% of crime is committed by blacks” studies.
and I don’t think that “embarrassment” is an excuse you can use.
why? males are less likely to report instances of assault, abuse, and rape than females are. i do not know of anyone who works with males who has not reached that conclusion. couple that with the lack of services reaching out to males and social stigmas, the numbers gathered would in fact be smaller. this is the same logic that feminists use when talking about female rape–the more it is acceptable to talk about it, the more victims will come forth. why is this not applicable to males?
jake, part of your point was a lot of waffling and ad hominem about ‘PC’.
mythago, writing a longer post does not change that you are still trying to bait me.
you simply don’t want to hear anything that might suggest your gender gives you an advantage.
mythago, i spent yesterday with my foster family, and at the table was a 15 year old boy who cannot hold his fork right because his mother never let him eat at the table. the first few days i knew him, he came up to me and said he had done something wrong. i asked him what it was, and he took my hand. i assumed he was going to lead me to what he had done, but instead he tried to place my hand on his privates. apparently, his mother had taught him that an erection was a sign of rape and she would beat this child until he made it go away. he told me this because he thought he deserved to be punished for it.
what a truly amazing privilege, wouldn’t you agree?
What a horrible story. I hope that boy is getting the support and counseling he needs to get over such horrid abuse.
It just boggles the mind the way human beings treat eachother.
jake, were you really trying to say that the fact that men are victims of rape and child abuse means that there is no such thing as male privilege?
mythago, i could ask you the same question in the reverse. however, i must ask if you are really trying to imply that those experiences are not part of his male privilege? btw, your choice of words (“rape” and “child abuse”) are in volation of privilege #7.
Excuse me, but something bad once happened to a man, so I don’t see why we should be talking about how bad things happen to women. They must cancel themselves out, right? Bad things happen to men, bad things happen to women. We shouldn’t discuss the bad things that happen to women as a result.
Oh, wait, I’m sorry that actually doesn’t make any sense. Nevermind.
BStu,
I could add that bad things happen to children as well, and dolphins, and… I could carry this list on ad infinitum. It doesn’t change the fact of privilege in all its forms and the results of that privilege.
In fact, there are dialogues open to discuss child abuse and victimization, cultural violence in general, the affect of violence in the media. In this blog, the topic of conversation is women’s issues and their affect on women. I think that this is a reasonable thread of thinking, because this is a feminist blog. Gee, wonder why there’s so much discussion of male privilege as it relates to women and violence as it relates to women?
We shouldn’t discuss the bad things that happen to women as a result.
Oh, wait, I’m sorry that actually doesn’t make any sense. Nevermind.
you’re right, it doesn’t. a result of what?
Jake,
I would hazzard a guess that the thought is that since you have proven that bad things happen to males, in this case your foster brother’s abuse, then that cancels out the bad things that happen to women because of male privilege.
I’ll make this statement, bad things happen to men all the time, but that in no way negates that men are privileged over women in this culture by virtue of their being born male.
mendy, i do not buy into the whole “privilege” theory to begin with, regardless of whose name is tacked in front of it. the list looks like something that started out as wealth privilege and was then modified to white privilege and then further modified to male privilege. and yes, there’s even a female privilege list as well. the problem will all of them, with the exception of the wealthy, is that all those groups cut across class. each one is based on a set of isolated incidents that do not hold true as you bounce from location to location. it is truly dependant on the class and status of the person and who they associate with. each list is full of the exceptions, not the rules. that does not prove the existence of a privilege. all it proves is that bias exists in certain areas in our society, which nobody has denied. creating an ever-growing checklist does not solve the problem. if anything, it only conflates it.
btw, i offered the story of my foster parents’ foster son to illustrate someone exploiting his male privilege, in which case his mother, who has probably visited and posted on this site, corrected him. he is male, and by virtue of being born male, he is privileged and an oppressor. and as the list demonstrates, he earned, by virtue of his privilege, the response he got. clearly i am insane for thinking there was something wrong with punishing a boy for something he neither has nor has done. at least, that is the understanding i have gathered.
Yes it was wrong to abuse the the child for whatever reason the mother gave. Child abuse is my extreme hot button issue.
If you remove the word privilege and instead substitute bias would that make the idea more palatable to you, because people are discriminated against because of these things. That is the rule, and not the exception.
It is fine that you don’t see privilege, but you do see bias and it amounts to the same thing.
And please do not take this to mean that I agree with what that mother did to that child. Because I most emphatically do not.
A child doesn’t have privilege because he cannot act on it, imho. Others might disagree with me, but children are the members of our society with the least amount of power and they are most often victimized.
I’m convinced that we need to rid the world of bias or privilege or whatever label you want to hang on it. The idea that a group of people is less than another by virtue of something they cannot control is repugnant to me. Just as that mother’s abuse of her child is repugnant to me.
jaketk, posting a “female privilege checklist” from SYG just proves you’re a troll with an agenda.
Having an agenda isn’t a bad thing depending upon what that agenda is. I most certainly do have an agenda. I want an equal society. I make no appologies for that. Yes, he may be a troll, and you may not agree with his agenda; however I will posit that we all have an agenda in being here.
His agenda just happens to be offensive.
A review of the list from a white male.
1. Clearly true.
2. Absolutely true.
3. Unmistakably true.
4. Undeniably true.
5. Very true.
6. True again.
7. True.
8. True.
9. True.
10. True.
11. True.
12. True.
13. True
14. Duh.
15. Pretty true.
16. Basically true.
17. Heck yeah.
18. I wouldn’t doubt it.
19. Yep.
20. Well, sure.
21. No doubt.
22. Not that I drive, but clearly true.
23. Have done so.
24. I’d expect so.
25. Thank you Old Navy.
26. Heck yeah. Just paid $5 for a brush and felt ripped off.
27. Evidence and everything!
28. I’d say so.
29. Sure thing.
30. Obviously true.
31. Man, is that ever true.
32. I don’t doubt it.
33. Clearly.
34. Never would be.
35. Last I checked, unmistakably true.
36. Southern Baptists sure as heck do.
37. Probably not, but admitedly that’s just me. Certainly is true for the vast majority and even as an enlightened man, I could probably get away with it if I wanted to.
38. Well, probably so.
39. I wouldn’t, but still a very good chance she would.
40. Well, no, but that’s just because I like fat women. But obviously for “normal” men this is beyond true.
41. Very true.
42. As I understand it.
43. Its happened, but very very rarely.
44. I’d say so.
45. If I didn’t want to be aware, no one would ever bother me with it.
Yeah, I can see why the MRA’s are up in arms. I mean, how dare someone publish 45 true statements. What was he thinking?
at least, that is the understanding i have gathered
No, jake, that’s the notion you started out with. You’re a bright fellow, and I find it really hard to believe anyone with an IQ higher than a grape’s is going to find “a man was abused and belittled by a woman; therefore, feminists do not believe abuse of men exists” to be a logical statement.
In other words, you’ve made up your mind and God help anyone who tries to confuse you with the facts.
Mendy, bias and privilege are not the same. A bias is something I personally have control over. I can alter my behavior, and perhaps affect the behavior of others in doing so. A privilege, as I have gathered from this thread, is something that as an individual I not only have zero control over, as it can occur completely without my explicit knowledge or my explicit actions, but that I have no means of altering or changing because the fact that I do not do such acts is deemed irrelevant.
If I child cannot have privilege because he cannot act upon, then at what point does he become privileged? For instance, this boy has no privilege now, but in three years he will be 18. Will he have it then? And if it is truly so pervasive, then why can he not have it now? Why is it that only some privileges are “true” while others are “agendas”?
I do not like the idea of a group of people being consider less than another by virtue of something they cannot control either, hence the reason I do not support the theory of “privilege.”
jaketk, posting a “female privilege checklist” from SYG just proves you’re a troll with an agenda.
ginmar, posting this comment proves you need to read more carefully. here, i will re-post it, for your convenience: i do not buy into the whole “privilege” theory to begin with, regardless of whose name is tacked in front of it.
btw, your comment is interestingly hypocritical. and what exactly is my “offensive” agenda? i am curious to know what it is.
Bean, you do realize that just calling something a strawman without providing some sort of evidence is not proof (and no, Barry’s opinions are not proof) that such studies are done. I have been involved with male survivor conferences and issues for quite some time. If any such studies are done for male victims at the rate they are for females, by all means, direct me at them. Show me the studies that have been conducted about women as sexual predators and abusers demonstrating the likelihood that they will act upon those thoughts if given the chance.
Mythago, you don’t really think I am a bright fellow, but it is nice that you said that. Curiously, I cannot find the post where I stated what you said. No offense, but “me thinks the lady dost protest too much.” Of course, it is equally hard to believe that anyone with an IQ higher than a grape’s is going to find “a woman was abused and belittled by a man; therefore, men do not believe abuse of women exists” to be a logical statement, though based on this thread one would not gather such an impression.
I would add that it is somewhat hypocritical to chide me for, presumably, starting out with a negative notion and not do so to your fellow feminists who have, presumably, done the same to males.
I would also add that it is somewhat interesting that a female privilege checklist is considered “offensive”, as is mentioning male abuse, but a male privilege is “the truth”. Lucky for me that I should agree with neither.
jaketk, apparently you don’t grasp the subtleties of discrimination and the inappropriateness of those in the privileged caste questioning the experiences of those who are in the discriminated on class. It is both rude and presumptuous to come to a community of those who are dealing with and trying to overcome discrimination and say, in essence, from your perspective as a member of the privileged class, “well, I haven’t witnessed these things, and my life isn’t perfect, so obviously your perception of these issues you experience is skewed”.
It is certainly not hypocritical for anyone to say “take your privileged ass and get out of here” when you have demonstrated conclusively that you are incapable of grasping the concept of institutional discrimination as opposed to individual discrimination. Clearly nearly all human beings are exposed to individual discrimination at some point in their lives. Discrimination at that level is by definition the choice, or preference, of an individual, being exercise. So I may “discriminate” against a certain human being by offering a job to another because of my preferences, as an individual.
Institutional discrimination, and privilege, on the other hand, are characterized by broad and often unexamined assumptions about a group of people, rather than decisions made about an individual. Privilege is an aspect of this institutional discrimination. The “female privilege checklist” points out two things 1) That gender discrimination creates stereotypes that can be harmful for both genders, and that 2) not all men are equally privileged. It doesn’t in any way negate the points on the male privilege checklist that demonstrate that in broad, institutional terms, men, by virtue of their gender alone, have advantages that women do not have. These advantages are in all walks of life, and are so commonplace as to remain almost completely unexamined by those who benefit from them. That’s why they’re called “privilege”.
The default for someone in a prestigious career is “white, male, able-bodied, straight”. If someone in that career is not one of the above, in most cases a great deal is made of the exception. So-and-so the great black concert pianist, for example, or Dr. Condeleeza Rice, the black, female Secretary of State. Whether I agree with her politics or not, Dr. Rice is eminently qualified for her post. Yet when people talk about her, they don’t talk about her job performance, but about her being “Bush’s lap dog” or “hawt” or “ugly” (I’ve heard both), or make jokes about her and Hilary Clinton having lesbian sex. Can most US citizens even remember what most male Sec’t of States look like, let alone speculate on their love lives, particularly with other powerful Washington personages? Can you imagine speculation about Kissinger having an affair with Nixon?
Even Colin Powell, compared to a white male Secretary of State was exposed to criticisms that had nothing to do with his job performance and everything to do with his status as a “black role model”. I heard far more about how “ugly” Madeline Albright was than whether or not she was effective in her position.
Did we give a damn about how James Baker or Warren Christopher dressed? Was their acceptance or rejection of “white culture” an issue? Were they held under a microscope to determine whether they were adequate role models for white males? No? That’s privilege.
Would either Christopher or Baker been viewed as general life failures for not acheiving that particular position in society? Is John Kerry a failure, in general? What about Bob Dole? The guy who ran for local dogcatcher and didn’t get elected? Are they failures, in general? So much for that little point on the “Female Privilege Checklist”. Only if a man is unable to support himself is he generally considered to be a failure. Funny thing is, women who can’t support themselves (or find a man who will, take your pick) are also considered failures. Still not a female privilege.
Feminism is the radical notion that women are people. Not” people, too”. Not “the accepted idea”. Women are people. That idea is so radical, so ridiculous, that it is ridiculed as a “notion” by those who would prefer that women remain objects. When I say that our goal of freeing Iraq has failed because the women of Iraq are worse off now than before Hussein’s fall, and some bozo comes back with “but that’s just the women — everyone else is freer — that exposes that person’s belief that a woman is not a person. When I call that person on the assumption that women are not people and are asked why I hate men, that exposes the person’s belief that the belief that women are human is equivalent to believing that men are not — because obviously only one gender can be truly human.
Why are you here, jaketk? Are women people? If so, what quality of people? Are they entitled to equal treatment or are they a subclass that should accept their status as servants and let men do all the fun stuff? Just wondering.
Odanu, I do grasp those subtleties, hence the reason I have the audacity to challenge the bias that I see on this thread. It is equally rude and presumptuous for you to say, as someone whom I assume wants true equality, “well, I haven’t witness any of these things happening to the “privileged,” and my life isn’t perfect, so obviously your perception of these issues you experience is skewed.”
You say: So I may “discriminate” against a certain human being by offering a job to another because of my preferences, as an individual.
Is that not the root of discrimination? You have essentially admitted that you would discriminate against a person because of his gender. Discrimination begins with individual people and ends at the social level. It begins with the rationale that one can discriminate against a person because it is an “individual preference.” By the way, the word “institutional” implies that such bias exists across the whole of society, not that a specific group is targeted for discrimination.
Both checklists demonstrate that bias and discrimination can exist. Neither of them proves that it is socially pervasive. The basic premise of both lists is that you can be privileged without knowing it, never experience it and never see it, but in fact have it, not because it has happened to you, but because it has happened in instances that have absolutely nothing to do with you. The lists are so broad and so confusing that you cannot even tell me when my privilege kicks in. Seriously, this is the “original sin” approach. I am a sinner by virtue of being born, because of Adam and Eve’s stupidity, and even if I live my life righteously and harm no one, because I have not given my life to Christ, I am still a sinner and will go straight to hell. Now, if that is what you believe, by all means, continue to believe that. You have that right. But do not attempt to pass that off as “the reality” of all situations.
Whether someone is the exception or the rule is beside the point. Yes, the comments made against Rice were wrong, but so are the “stupid, white, in-bred Texan” comments thrown at Bush. Perhaps–and this is just a thought–that is the nature of politics. No, I do not think a person should be attacked for their race, gender, sexuality, or faith. But that has not stopped any of the posters on this site from personally attacking Alito or Roberts, so it seems odd that you would have a problem with this.
Feminism is a political ideology, and therein it is subject to distortion, manipulation and the systemic bias against and the condemnation of certain groups (in this case males) just like any other political ideology. There is no mention or consideration of any issue that does not explicitly have women as the victim. As seen from this thread, any mention of sexism against men, specifically such acts as perpetrated by women or feminists (they are not synonymous), are not taken seriously at all. It is considered negligible at best or unnecessary whining about non-issues at worst, such as with the example I gave above.
The most interesting part is that in wanting to be treated as truly human, you would in turn treat me as lesser by virtue of my gender. Even if I agreed with you that would not make any difference because I would still be seen as one of “them.” Even if my experience has not been full of rampantly oppressing women, I am still one of “them.” Read my posts carefully. I have never once said a woman was whining about rape or suggested that “sexism hurts women too.” I have not diminished the pain experienced by female rape victims by calling its mention an “agenda,” nor have I called their risks and attacks negligible. I have not labeled women oppressors, child abusers, murderers, or rapists. I have not implied that women are inferior, stupid, ignorant or animalistic, specifically because they do not agree with my position.
So my question is who is treating who as less than human?
Jake,
I hang out here because, inter alia, it is a feminist blog: I value the contributions, experiences and arguments of the people who accept this blog for what it is. I also value the fact that it introduces me to aspects of some topics which I might not otherwise have encountered.
I also hang out on knitting blogs. If someone were to post repeatedly and at incredible length on one of those that, for instance, knitting does not exist I would be thoroughly mad with that person. Just as I am thoroughly mad with you.
Before you waste any more of the chuck of cyberspace that Amp is paying for just consider that neither verbosity nor repetition is evidence of the strength of your case.
And don’t bother replying to this. Have you heard the expression “teaching one’s grandmother to suck eggs”? If not, go and look it up – NOW!
maureen, you should read more carefully. just consider that neither verbosity nor repetition is evidence of the strength of your case either.
I post infrequently on this site. I did not post on this thread until it had been running for over two months and was at comment 351. That rules out repetition.
On verbosity, I have now used a total of 205 words in two posts.
Is that a toddler tantrum I see?
yes, maureen, it is. I posted a long reply to this loser who was unable to comprehend what I had said in my previous post and completely twisted it to serve his agenda, but I think it got eaten. He might think you and I are the same person, as my first name (of my nom de plume) is also maureen, but as you and I and anyone who can check IP addresses know, that is not the case.
Suffice it to say that his cluelessness is only exceeded by his sense of entitlement. I don’t have the energy nor the desire to recreate my post for a cretin who incapable of understanding what I have already written, and then ascribes ill motives to you, me, and anyone else who in space designed for us have the gonads to stand up for ourselves and fight off people hostile to us.
Ofsnu, on threads started by me, please attempt to fight off the opposition without refering to other posters here as “losers” or “cretens.”
(Disclaimer: My moderation style is “random spot check,” and thus a bit arbitrary. I fully acknowlege that other people may have been just as bad and not gotten a comment from me. I’m sorry for that, but I don’t have the time to fully moderate every single comment on “Alas,” so spot-checks are the only viable alternative to no moderation at all. ““Amp)
Well, I’ve read all the comments and made a few myself. And I’ll say this, this world is full of many varied ideologies and veiwpoints. Some I agree with and some I don’t. I’m not sure where I fall in this particular subject.
Yes, I believe that institutional discrimination occurs. But, I believe that it starts with individual assumptions, ideas, and actions that no one bothers to think about. How do you fight the institution if not by correcting the individual’s viewpoints? We could dismantle the institution, but I’m not sure in this case it is feasible to do so.
I’m not making an arguement here. I generally don’t do debate, but listen and ask questions in an effort of form my own thoughts and opinions.
And in Jake’s defense, there are a good many female sexual predators and abusers out there. There are a great many men who abuse both women and children. It would seem to me that we should attack abuse in whatever form it rears its ugly head. But, then again this isn’t a children’s advocacy blog but a feminist blog.
And though I am a feminist, my two particular hot button issues are sexual harrasment in the work place and child abuse.
How do I as one individual woman, mother, and wife help change the social climate? Other than vote and discuss these issues with people?
And in Jake’s defense, there are a good many female sexual predators and abusers out there
Did anyone claim otherwise?
jake, you offered the example of a man whose abuser was female as proof that male privilege is false. Using this logic, the fact that a white trucker was attacked and beaten by blacks during the Los Angeles riots means that there is no such thing as white privilege.
I don’t understand why you feel defensive and accused of ‘original sin’.
(Oh, and a little hint: Don’t assume that you’re the only one who knows a male survivor of abuse or violence, or the only one who knows a survivor whose abuser was a woman.)
Hm, I just found this thread. (I broke my arm recently, which makes it hard to type.)
I’m wondering why it seems impossible in blogdom to discuss any topic whatever without people starting to scream at one another. My husband, a hobby printer, tells me that on one of the printer blogs he visits people recently started screaming and calling names about whether and how often to use capital (as opposed to lower case) letters, so it doesn’t have to involve a hot-button issue.
Why is everyone seemingly so angry? It’s not enough to say that it’s because I’m a disadvantaged woman/black/ gay/ poor person/ student/ whatever…unless you think lower case letters are disadvantaged.
On this topic, the list seems to be about right on, but nevertheless I’ve enjoyed being a woman. Having children and staying home with them isn’t a horrible thing. It’s actually a lot more fun than most of the things one might do for money outside the home, such as, for example, practicing law, which is what I did the rest of the time. (For immense stretches of sheer, mind-numbing filth and boredom, nothing can beat the law, including cleaning toilets.)
A more equitable society will be … more equitable, but not necessarily happier. Seems to me that we have more than our share of miserably unhappy, angry men, in spite of their lifelong privileges.
Did anyone claim otherwise?
No, I didn’t see anywhere that it was stated. And I might have worded my statement better.
mythago, i no such claims. i also made it perfectly clear that i do not support any “privilege” theory, regardless of whose name is placed in front of it. your analogy is off. i offered the example of this child (he is 15) to show that he has no such “privilege,” unless one were to include his experiences as “male privilege.”
let’s reverse the situation. why are you defensive about the female privilege checklist?
(btw, nice try, but i made no such assumptions.)
and amp, thank you.
I think the female privelege checklist, as linked too, is deliberately written in an incredibly agressive and accusatory tone. It’s just so badly written as to be cringe worthy.
If it were better written, it might include things written like this:
If I am carrying a lot of bulky items, I have a better chance of being offered assistance in lifting or going through doors than a man of similar age.
There is more acceptance, socially, in how I handle my career path (work part time and parent, work part time and no kids, work full time with or without kids, parent full time)… as Tim Allen stated, men have two choices: “Get a job, or go to jail”.
If I perform poorly in mathematics or science (or indeed, in just about any acedemic area), I am not likely to be pressured to exceed my ability.
If I do not participate in professional level competitive sports, the chances of me incurring a life-changing injury in sports are extremely small.
If there is a draft or conscription, I have not historically been included.
If I do join the army, there are likely rules (in several countries, actually, although I can’t find the article at the moment), that prevent me from being a front-line infantry solider, thus reducing my chances of death in wartime.
So there is a place for the female privilege checklist. I would challenge Barry to write one, if he’s got the time… of any of us he has the best writing style (in that his tone is always very neutral even when his topic is not).
I have a much greater range of expression in my choices of clothing (dress, skirt, pants, skorts, etc. instead of just pants).
I rather enjoy being female too. And the one thing that I find to be my personal privilege in being a woman is that I rather enjoy motherhood. That being said I also enjoy working outside the home and all I am asking for is the same consideration that is given to men in my same position.
I’m lucky in that I work in a union shop, and so there is little institutional gender bias where I work. I still deal with individual acts of sexism, and I would like to see that change. However, until attitudes change (and I believe they are changing slowly) there will always be that “old” guy that feels like women ought to be barefoot and pregnant.
I do see an interesting shift occuring, though. More women I work with have partners that stay home, and more of the men that I work with actually want their mates working outside the home. I can’t speak for division of household labor, because I don’t live in those homes. In my house the rule of thumb is: Whoever is home when it needs to be done, does it. If we are both home, then we divide tasks equally. In addition to our children having household chores that are expected of them on a daily basis. It seems to be a fair and equitable system, and it works for us.
bean, like any “checklist of privileges”, of course it falls apart under the examinations of “my privilege X isn’t really such a great privilege”, or “Oh yeah, I might get A but I also have to do B”, or “Well that’s generally true but there are exceptions.
So it’s again, similar to the male privilege checklist, which was my whole point in writing an example as an exercise. The male privilege checklist is prone to the exact same arguments you listed, which is why this thread is so long.
I’ll grant you the sports injury one… I haven’t done the research to support it.
My point in having Amp take a crack at it is simply his journalistic tone, which is quite neutral.
Wookie – although I’m flattered that you think I’ve got a good neutral tone going (sounds like I’m talking about tanning, doesn’t it?), I have to agree with Bean that a “female privilege checklist” is something that I, as a male, wouldn’t feel comfortable writing.
I do agree, by the way, that there are disadvantages to being male. I’m fully convinced that sexism is a system that disadvantages both sexes.
so far, i don’t think there is any real disagreement on whether discrimination exists, just how that discrimination is manifested. certainly bias exist across the board, but in terms of it being a system of pervasive privileges, i do not think one can gather that from a handful of incidents in either case.
wookie, women in the military are often more prone to injury than males due to the nature of their activities. i would assume that this would hold true for sport injuries as well. in terms of severity, you might have a point.
I’m sorry, but I had to comment because this comment caught my eye.. (Even if most of the discussion has gone.)
“#30. Men can seek legal protections without being seen as representing a selfish special interest, because harm to the interests of men is understood as harm to society at large.”
nobody.really said,
“Really? So when men complain that judges are biased against them in awarding child custody, people don?t regard them as a bunch of whiners seeking to promote their own interests against the good of society?”
Note, now, that you just compared rape — an intensely violating attack on your bodily integrity and mind — with child custody. Note, now, that in most cases of child custody, the father is allowed to see the children if he pays child support. Note, now, that not getting child custody does not (usually, that I know of) cause long-lasting side effects including being terrified of all people even remotely matching the description of your attacker. Note, now, that not getting child custody does not make one fearful of going outside or being alone in their own house.
See, I agree with you that an unfair bias towards women in getting child custody is not good. It’s bad, wrong, whatever you want to call it. We should eradicate this (as well as the underlying thought-process that raising children is “women’s work”, which is just as damaging to women as it is to men).
But note, now, that rape is NOTHING FUCKING LIKE NOT GETTING CHILD CUSTODY.
Note, now, that ‘nobody.really’ didn’t make the comparison you’re accusing him (or her) of.
Note, now, that this comparison is only implicit in the text if you believe that the only important legal protection women seek is protection from rape.
Note, now, that I also find your argument difficult to swallow because, of all the legal protections women seek, protection against rape seems to be one of the ones LEAST LIKELY for point #30 to be referring to.
See, I agree with you that comparing rape to child custody is an unfair comparison. The comparison is bad, wrong, whatever you want to call it. When it actually happens, it should be challenged and eradicated.
But note, now, that arguing against straw men is bad.
Let me preface this comment by stating that I agree with the underlying premise that there is a massive cultural mechanism working to maintain the power exercised by the male gender.
That said, this doesn’t extend even a little bit into the realm of child-rearing, where women hold sway. I found a lot of bullet points I disagreed with, but one in particular upset me:
“11. If I have children and provide primary care for them, I’ll be praised for extraordinary parenting if I’m even marginally competent.”
Bzzt. Wrong answer. Thank you for playing, but you obviously haven’t tried this yourself.
If a man does an excellent job raising children and put their interests first in all things, most people will still favor taking the children from him and giving them to the mother in the case of a dispute, even without the first clue about how the mother acts. “Women are just more nurturing,” they bleat. Male day-care providers aren’t trusted like their female counterparts, and fathers get slaughtered in Family Court on a regular basis in most parts of the country.
I found the author’s dismissal of female advantages left a real bad taste in my mouth, especially since his argument seemed to go along the lines of “the male advantages are better so the female advantages don’t matter” (I’m putting words in his mouth, but he comes so close to this statement it feels like a paraphrase).
Yikes! I just read a fraction of the comments on this site and really don’t want to be associated with those people who put up lists of disadvantages that men face. I’m having a hell of a time in a divorce case right now and that statement really hit my hot button. I hope I aquitted myself better than a lot of the other critics here, but the word “bleat” jumps out accusingly at me from myself.
In any case, rest assured that I am quite sincere in my most — not just the frustration with Family Court being heavily weighted against fathers, but also the solidarity with ending sexism in other aspects of the culture.
I agree that the author has ackowledged that women have advantages as well in his comment responses, and don’t require yet another acknowledgement of that point.
I will nonetheless assert that the language in the original post did more to inflame my reaction than to quell it. In particular, the question of whether women enjoy unfair priviledge in certain areas has nothing to do with whether “sometimes bad things happen to men.” The point Peggy McIntosh framed her work with is the relevant one here — these advanatages are the result of massive mechanisms in the society, not indual acts, and certainly not happenstance as the above language implies.
Here is a third post, and I promise my final one today. My initial reaction to Peggy McIntosh’s article was twofold.
First, it seemed that there was an underlying premise that the solution to eliminating white advantage had something to do with white people somehow deciding not to take advantage of it. The real problem with that argument is that one fights racism, sexism, or other bigotry by exercising power, not by refusing it. The white person who takes a management job with hiring discretion from someone s/he suspects is a racist, then turns around hires a group of employees fairly, has done more good than by refusing the position and allowing that racist to hire a like-minded bigot who would perpetuate the evil practice.
These aren’t academic questions; I’ve definitely worked for bigots in the past. In fact, I’m fairly sure that EVERY large company I’ve worked for has had at least one bigot in my management chain at least for a portion of my tenure. That isn’t to say all my managers have been bigots, just that I’ve found at least one bigot in a senior position at each company. So it really isn’t practical to hide from bigots. Thwarting them is often possible, but that comes with its own set of problems.
More pragmatically, the advantages are so pervasive and often invisible that it just isn’t possible not to take advatantage of them. How exactly does one avoid taking advantage of not being pulled over by police when not doing anything wrong?
Second, it occured to me that the attitudes and notions that enforce the dominance of a favored group in society are typically held, perpetuated, and enforced by the oppressed group as much as the favored group. In the context of racism (remember I was responding to the Knapsack article, not this derivate), a study in Berkeley found that nonwhite landlords were vastly more likely to discriminate against nonwhite prospective tenants than their white counterparts. In the context of this gender discussion, it’s easy to see that women are among the loudest and most vicious enforcers of male priviledge when they attack women who don’t conform to the societal roles.
I once had a boss that told me to be very careful in hiring blacks because once hired, they were very difficult to fire, so if the person turned out to be technically deficient (a legitimate concern in my profession) we could end up stuck with them.
Kareem Uvsumyungi wrote up in #224: To dip into the “we got it bad too” pile: men can’t work as waiters at Hooters. Is that sexism, and if so, should it be allowed?
Actually, there are lawsuits about that in a number of places, focusing on the fact that Hooters has a business license to serve food (a non-gender specific job), but not a business license to provide entertainment (a field in which a preference for hiring busty attractive women is legitimate.)
However, sometimes it can be hard to know where to draw the line. Pretty women tend to get higher tips – does that justify hiring only pretty women as waitresses in a restaurant where the staff share tips?
Rob wrote in #275, possibly not as a troll, 17. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for it; male heroes were the default.
– Is Big Bird a female, or a male? Maybe you watched too much TV. I was only allowed to watch Mr Dressup and Sesame Street, and Walt Disney on Sunday Nights. Don’t blame me because your mom let you watch Batman. I wasn’t allowed!
Walt Disney is consistently sexist; examples on request.
Big Bird is consistently referred to as “he”. See, for example, http://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/coloringpages/view.php?contentId=59625& (“Big Bird Sits Up When He Sleds”.)
Here’s a quiz.
1. Name 5 male Muppets.
2. Name 5 female Muppets.
I expect that most Americans can do #1 easily, and can’t go past Ms. Piggy for #2.
Damn. Now you’ve (partly) ruined the Muppet Show for me, ‘cuz I’ve applied the Mo Movie Measure to it.
could someone provide more detail on spousal abuse and men? i know a guy who was abused by his girlfriend and he argues that more men are physically abused than we think. i just wondered if there are any up to date, reliable stats? he argues that men are far less likely to report being abused by a woman and that the numbers don’t reflect the reality. also, is there anyone, organization, anything that has ever thought to do a 50 state canvass to actually pick x amount of random people per state, men and women to ask about abuse and rape? or to canvass both the population, the police reports and the hospital reports? a big undertaking but it doesn’t seem like there are a lot of reliable studies that have been done recently…with violence on the rise, it would be interesting to try to get more accurate numbers…
D3d, the CDC did a survey of a representative sample of the entire US, asking men and women about abuse and rape. That study, and the general issue of “men are equal victims” claims, are discussed in detail in this post.
maybe i missed that on the list, but what about the wage gap between men and women doing the same job?
I didn’t see it either.
Though I think that may be a secondary thing. E.g. I think that some recent research suggets that once you correct for time spent at home etc the salaries aren’t all that different. I think they ARE still different, but the widely-quoted 70% number is wrong; the difference is smaller than that.
This is still an effect of male privilege of course because women get stuck staying at home in the first place. But IMO you might better classify it as a “secondary” effect.
I should add something about the wage gap, you’re right.
I’ll need to think some about exactly how to phrase it, however.
Sailorman, I think the best research shows that a considerable wage gap remains after accounting for years and hours worked. However, I certainly agree with you about the importance of recognizing that differences in time spent at work are partly due to sexism.
Not offered in a debate-y way, but here are a couple of links of interest: I’ve written more about hours worked and the wage gap here, and about motherhood and the wage gap here.
Amp,
I’ll read your posts. I certainly agree there’s an OVERALL effect on women’s wages. And it’s my personal belief that there still is a wage gap even if you control. however, the truth is that what I’ve read on it (and it has been a while) didn’t do a very good job of controlling for time off.
If you look at “doctors” for example, you may find a wage gap–but you’d have to account for the speciality, which I seem to recall wasn’t done in one study. Surgeons make more than GPs, of course, and the hours/residency/etc for surgery combine with other societal factors such that fewer women are surgeons.
BTW, I read this privilege checklist for the first time a while back. I think it’s well done in general. Nitpickable of course, but what isn’t? And being me, I went and tried to draft my own ‘female privilege checklist’, on the theory that it’s the DISPARITY in privileges not the privileges themselves which are the problem. I tried to find “matches” figuring that I’d focus on the “no match” areas.
When I look at the two together (mine’s not done yet) it serves to put things in an interesting perpective: The male list contains a fair number of things for which there is NO equivalent female privilege. Try as I might I can’t come close to making them match. No way, no how. Even when I picked up arguments with which I personally disagree, I couldn’t match them.
So then I took out all the ones on your list which HAD a match. And I ended up with a (to me) more “powerful” list. Now, I think of two male privilege lists: there’s the “long list” (yours) which can be challenged–not as a whole, but good challenges can be made to parts of it. And there’s the “short but unassilable” list. Both have their uses.
It was actually a very interesting exercise. I’ll never post my ‘reverse list’, though, for fear of attracting the “wrong” type of commenter! ;)
Sailorman,
I certainly agree that there are some wage gap studies which fail to account for important things, either because the study is badly designed or because it has a different focus from the “how big is the unaccounted-for wage gap” question.
However, I don’t think that’s true of all wage gap studies.
I’d be interested in seeing your “unassailable” list. Since you don’t want to post it, if it’s in a computer-friendly format, would you mind emailing me a copy?
In case you haven’t seen, amp, this was linked to over at metafilter, where the general population is snickering about how privilege checklists are meaningless/don’t matter because some people have “not having a migraine at the moment” privilege and stuff, and boobs totally make life easier. Hi, Mefi! I, for one, welcome our new white male overlords – oh.
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/52905
One fun comment: “Interesting that the “male” privilege one was written by a woman.”
One more: If I choose to go to a single single sex school, no one will assume that they have privileged knowledge of my sexual identity.
As a graduate of a woman’s college — which I viewed gratefully as a safe and supportive place for all women regardless of sexual orientation, race, religion, or age — I am disgusted by people who see such institutions as an excuse for enjoying their homophobia. My daughter just decided to go to the college I graduated from 30 years ago — Smith — and has been deluged with outrageous homophobic comments, made with the kind of unselfconscious impunity with which bigots once spoke about Jews or Blacks.
It strikes me that homophobia is a male privilege as evidenced by abundant examples of it as an acceptable — even requisite — form of humor. But like every other male “privilege” it is simply an obvious and egregious injustice.
I would like to add something about how stereotypes against women negatively affect men. My school (I’m attending college for Aerospace Engineering) happens to be in a fairly urban area, and like all urban areas has its fair share of muggings. The thing is, without fail, every single person who gets mugged or assaulted is a single male traveling alone or with another male. Women are told from day one to never go out at night and to travel in large groups and well lit areas, hence they protect themselves. Whereas the men believe that attacks only happen to women and put themselves in danger when they go out alone in the dark. For them to be afraid would be ‘effeminate.’
Just one more way these pathetic stereotypes manage to oppress and damage all at the same time.
A major conference on Male Privilege may sound ridiculous to most men, but it might prove more valuable than imagined since men would learn to recognize the halo effect of male privilege, learn about its obligations with respect to women, and learn to appreciate the drawbacks and vulnerability to men (and women) that it imposes.
At first glance, male privilege to men is ideal to men. But careful analysis suggests that it can undermine mental health, physical health, and create false and unrealistic expectations in the marketplace that cause unanticipated and needless problems, stress, or failures for which men are regularly held accountable.
To suggest that advantages have costs is to refuse to ignore realities of basic human relations response when disparities exist. Learning to gracefully handle and manage disparities in status and expectations of society and its effects would be deemed by most to be a social responsibility that accompanies the concept of management and excellence. It may also be the failure that brands most males as ignorant, uncaring, and insensitive helping to exacerbate already volatile gender relations, or those that reside in resentment beneath the surface in most social situations. The pervasive nature of male privilege in most nations are at least a cause of unnecessary tensions that otherwise might be alleviated with the study and analysis of disparity in gender relations, and can only help to identify issues, isolate conflicts, and provide an effort toward resolution.
Ignoring problems rarely cures them, and individual problems multiplied often become enormous obstacles to prosperity, convenience, or comfort – all of which currently are the criteria for success.
If female empowerment, confidence and self esteem are worthy of examination, certainly, male privilege and its effects are a key to harmony and social justice.
It seems that everyone who posts on this website is genuinely interested in the empowerment of women. We may disagree about the extent of women’s opression, or what needs to happen first, or whether men suffer from sexism.
But we all do agree that some amount of change is necesary.
Some who posted earlier, and may have offended, such as steve, had a good message but may have been misinterrpreted.
I think that they were saying that men and women both need to be active in attempting to not be victims (and perpetrators) of sexism.
However, women are arguably more systematically opressed.
Fantastic book:
Childhood in America-Paula S. Fass and Mary Ann Mason
this book is not just about children. it is about the history of family and gender in america. it has really interesting articles about how both genders are affected by sexism.
Seek these ones out:
“Women as childbearers”-Catherine M. Scholten
“Mothers and Fathers working and rearing children”-T.Berry Brazelton
“Infantile Sexuality”-Erik H. Erikson
“How schools shortchange girls.”-American association of university women report
“Courtship and gender differences.”-Ellen K. Rothman
“The Progressive Era Transformation of child protection, 1900-1920.”-Linda Gordan
“Contraception” and “Abortion”-U.S. supreme court
also, there is a fantastic movie out, “Stage beauty”-its is a fascinating look at gender and what that means.
Ampersand – I stumbled upon your list today quite by accident. It’s fantastic!
I’d like to suggest an addition: As a male, I can sit in a standard sized chair and my feet will rest comfortably on the ground. As a result, I am more comfortable at work, especially in meetings. I am able to purchase a desk, chair, kitchen table, countertop, toilet, car (especially the seatbelt) and sofa that is designed to fit “me” without having to look for (and pay extra for) a specialty item.
Lori, your addition has nothing to do with gender, it has to do with height. There are short men and tall women.
j,
However, on average men are taller than women. Making things “man sized” is a privilege men enjoy. Sure, some men don’t get it, but that’s the same thing will all male privilege.
Some things are easier to use when oversized than when undersized. And some compensations are easier to achieve.
Privilege surely has something to do with it. But from a practical standpoint, it’s easier to fit a small person in a big chair than the reverse. And it’s often easier to “add height” to an area to fit a short person, through stepstools, platforms, etc than it is to figure out an ergonomic way for a taller person to work at a short counter.
None of that excuses shit like seatbelts, etc, for which there’s no defensible reason not to fit short folks.
“29. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch. ”
Because getting called an asshole and a psychopath is so much better. Why thank you “Ampersand”.
I disagree with you; it’s has not been my observation that aggressive men are frequently called “assholes,” let alone “psychopaths,” solely for being aggressive.
My own personal experience would seem to indicate otherwise. So we have anecdotal evidence from both parties. Which of these statements is right?
Daniel, I’d posit that if you’re routinely called an “asshole” and a “psychopath,” there’s something more going on than loudness and aggression. Just a thought.
Not I personally. I’m a pacifist. But I see it frequently.
I wish we spoke French. Then I would have said on for “you,” and since I hadn’t said tu or vous, there would have been no misunderstanding. English really needs an on.
We have it, it just sounds a little pretentious/pedantic.
Robert, yeah, I thought about double-posting to mention “one,” but as you say, it’s annoyingly pedantic.
Plus, it still leaves difficulties in conjugation: One wants to have their cake and eat it too seems ungrammatical, while have his cake and eat it too is obviously problematic to pro-/feminists, and have her cake and eat it too is equally arbitrary.
You just have to (one just has to) accept “they” as being the third person singular gender non-specific pronoun for humans (“it” specifies the absence of gender, rather than being gender ambiguous, and is therefore not appropriate for humans) as well as being the third person plural gender non-specific pronoun (just as “you” is both singular and plural, “they” is both singular and plural for gender non-specific cases). What we actually lack (although I can’t say I miss it) is a gender specific third person plural. Apparently, groups don’t have gender (even if all members of the group have the same gender, the group is ungendered) in English.
Admittedly, the use of “they” for the third person singular gender-ambiguous is infrequent and depricated for formal use (although it has a long history and is not a new usage).
Charles, “is infrequent and depricated for formal use (although it has a long history and is not a new usage)” is roughly the same as what I meant by “seems ungrammatical,” which is why I didn’t say “is ungrammatical.” In other words, I agree :P
We need a gender-nonspecific third person singular pronoun that’s more casually acceptable than “one,” and a corresponding plural pronoun that’s more formally acceptable than “they.” All of which is pretty off-topic, though I guess it tenuously ties in with #31 on the checklist.