I was raised a feminist. My mother was a feminist, and my father was too. When I was a girl, feminism was a noble pursuit- a drive to gain the equality (though now I prefer the word equity), that our mothers and grandmothers had not experienced. And it was needed. I do not doubt it, nor take for granted the ground that they took. We have perhaps forgotten how hard it was for women to do what they wanted in terms of partner choice, the choice to have children, attending school and universities, then work in a career of their choosing.
And yes, I know that battle has not been won everywhere. There are countries or cultures where horrendous things happen to you if you are female. But in my country and in my culture, and in many other western countries, I would suggest the tide has well and truly turned.
I have occasionally felt the sting of NOT being male – the invitation to join the “real men” at work when offered a leadership position, the fact that there was the assumption by the outside world, when my marriage broke up that it would be me that would care for my children, though I had also been the income earner (not that I opposed that I would, though the easy assumption did rankle), that I have struggled with that curious mix of needing pretty finery and makeup and eradication of hair in socially unacceptable places (except of course on my head!) to appear more professional, and so on, but I am very aware that I no longer live in a man’s world. This world is a woman’s world. And us females are now the humans holding the privilege.
(More on link.)
Probably a good debate topic, but I was just curious to reflect on the subject matter rather. What do you think? Should the phrase "female privilege" enter our vocabulary?
I've been saying as much for the past several years, actually. Commenting that sexism is starting to swing the other way. It's visible in media overly much. Especially if you look at commercials. Watch to see, in most commercials, which of the genders is treated like an imbecile. Who's the dumb one that can't operate the remote? Who doesn't know how to clean? Who can't be responsible? Men are only treated well in a commercial lately if no one has to be the negative partner.
Last time I posted an article, I didn't realize there was a single curse word in it, so I got infracted. I tried to scour the article just in case, but I'm nevertheless nervous to post it.
I've been saying as much for the past several years, actually. Commenting that sexism is starting to swing the other way. It's visible in media overly much. Especially if you look at commercials. Watch to see, in most commercials, which of the genders is treated like an imbecile. Who's the dumb one that can't operate the remote? Who doesn't know how to clean? Who can't be responsible? Men are only treated well in a commercial lately if no one has to be the negative partner.
It's an interesting thing to note.
From experience, I would tend to agree, males are typically made out to be the "dumb" ones on sitcoms, commercials/advertisements, etc.
Just a guess but I think it's easier for females to spot male privilege and vice versa.
Additionally, perhaps the sheer momentum of feminist studies enables us to see the male privilege but no similar "industry" of academics exists to counterbalance it.
Finally, sometimes I think feminism can look at something and see misogyny whereas others can look at the same thing and see misandry. The example I've used a lot here is romantic comedies.
Last time I posted an article, I didn't realize there was a single curse word in it, so I got infracted. I tried to scour the article just in case, but I'm nevertheless nervous to post it.
From experience, I would tend to agree, males are typically made out to be the "dumb" ones on sitcoms, commercials/advertisements, etc.
I dunno. "dumb blonde", which was almost exclusively women, used to be very common, but not these days. And nerds in movies/TV were predominantly men, with only recently women appearing as nerds. To me, it seems it is equalizing, rather than swinging to misandry.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
I agree with the article. I've been part of the MRM (I have alot of problems with the "movement". Too many radicals, willing to go too far, too much social Darwinism) for awhile now. I think the biggest problems by far (and the only ones that require any laws) are family law and false accusations.
Lol, I totally disagree. She claims women are privileged, but I really don't see it that way.
Despite feminists claim, genders are different. Men get higher salaries mostly because of labor laws, not because of a perception of efficiency (women are prone to pregnancy, PMS, menstrual colic). Yes, men generally work more than women.
Then she proceeds to brag about having her dinner paid by her date, or being able to hit her spouse without answering for it criminally. What the heck? Looks like she just arrived in the 21th century though a time machine.
In my country women pay less to enter a nightclub than a men. And when I use this argument, I keep hearing "But we spend more on hair/makeup/clothing than you do". In the end, this doesn't really matter. Getting a free drink, or a cheaper haircut are so small of privileges that she should feel bad by bragging about it.
Also, it's easy to think like that if you live in a big city. Go to the rural areas and see it for yourself. Women are being abused all the time, 13y old girls marrying 30y men, and so on.
Yes, there have been much improvement on the past 50 years, but we're far from equal. I can go further and say there will never be. Men and women are different, they have different needs/goals and they require different social norms.
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I'll file "Female Privilege" in exactly the same folder I file things like "Reverse Racism", "Islamization of America", "Creation Science", "The Homosexual Agenda" and so on.
If, indeed, the goal of Feminism is to have men and women treated equally, then "feminine privilege" is something that runs counter to their stated argument.
This phenomenon is much like that of black people being able to casually and "affectionately" refer to each other using the "N" word, and at the same time being terribly offended if someone of a different ethnic background does.
Either we are all different, in which case we should not have a real problem with people pointing it out, or we are all to be treated the same, in which case, claiming a specific privilege based on any arbitrary descriptor is wrong.
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Men don't really need to worry that much about being sexually assaulted unless they're in prison.
I'd say that pretty much trumps any supposed "female privilege" by an extreme margin. I don't really think there can be any debate over the fact that sexual violence against women is an infinitely bigger deal than any advantage that women can claim over men in any arena of our society.
The article also completely misses the fact that many of these supposed "female privileges" are confounded by class, race, and other factors.
Basically, I just don't think the points this article is trying to raise are all that important, and certainly not as important as the primary rallying cries of feminism (violence against women being the obvious crux).
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Men don't really need to worry that much about being sexually assaulted unless they're in prison.
I'd say that pretty much trumps any supposed "female privilege" by an extreme margin.
Sexual violence is far outside the bounds of modern society; it is nobody's "privilege". Even if it were, the pursuit of gender equality is not a competition to see which sex has more privilege. It emphatically does not help, when someone alleges one instance of sexism, to derail the conversation by bringing up another instance going the opposite direction. There's no "trumping" going on. So my reaction to your statement is, "What a pointless and horrible thing to say."
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candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Sexual violence is far outside the bounds of modern society; it is nobody's "privilege".
To be honest I disagree with this. It would be GREAT if sexual violence was "far outside the bounds of modern society." On paper, yeah, maybe. But once you get sensitized to the presence of sexually violent material in culture and common discourse (including areas in which it is not even tangentially related, like gamers using the term "rape" to describe a result in competitive gaming), you see it EVERYWHERE, because it is hiding in plain sight all over the place. YOU don't need to think about it. You see it as "far outside the bounds of modern society." That's your privilege. That's my point. It's a headache that you don't know you don't have. Women DO have this headache, because sexual violence is everywhere, and they have to worry about it, because they're at risk. That's a huge problem.
Even if it were, the pursuit of gender equality is not a competition to see which sex has more privilege. It emphatically does not help, when someone alleges one instance of sexism, to derail the conversation by bringing up another instance going the opposite direction. There's no "trumping" going on. So my reaction to your statement is, "What a pointless and horrible thing to say."
You raise a good point. I apologize for dismissing the original post out of hand, it was not productive. That said, I do think that there are more serious things to think about than who pays for the meal after a date, and a man who thinks that such a thing is worth complaining about is clearly (and to some extent willfully) ignorant of the much more serious issues that women face every day. My intention was to address that ignorance, not to dismiss the concerns raised in the article, but while I apologize for being less than delicate about it, I still think the goals of feminism are very much alive and necessary, and I don't think it's a helpful thing to claim otherwise.
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"Female privilege" as a whole reflects a very valid idea but in a flawed way—basically it should be used as a term, even though it's very much prone to misuse. To equate it with male privilege has implications that downplay the social power dynamics between men and women. This isn't to say that there aren't ways in which women are privileged over men, and it's certainly not to say that patriarchy is harmless to men, but it is to say that women are disadvantaged to a much greater degree. Plus the fact that privilege isn't binary. It's intersectional. A wealthy white woman is absolutely privileged over a poor black man, for instance. It's very difficult to point at a situation and claim that only gender is affecting power dynamics. It's also difficult to analyze privilege as a relative thing, and to acknowledge that privilege in some areas does not translate into overall privilege.
This is basically where the article in the OP is wrong. The author takes a few points of relative privilege and declares that women are now generally privileged over men, rather than only in specific circumstances. To do so is to reduce the issue of privilege to that simple binary, i.e. that if women have certain advantages over men, then women the privileged class and therefore that men are the marginalized class. Sure, women are in certain areas, but on the whole? Hell no. I'm in the rare group of people who've experienced both types of gender privilege, and I'll say right now, life is infinitely easier when presenting as a man (albeit an extraordinarily feminine one, which denied me some measure of privilege right there) in spite of the areas where women have privilege (and I won't get into the subject of cis privilege except to say that things get even worse in the situations where you lack it, which is another observation I can make firsthand). Sure, I've experienced female privilege in some areas, but it's nowhere near enough to outweigh the massive levels of privilege afforded to men.
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In my country women pay less to enter a nightclub than a men. And when I use this argument, I keep hearing "But we spend more on hair/makeup/clothing than you do". In the end, this doesn't really matter. Getting a free drink, or a cheaper haircut are so small of privileges that she should feel bad by bragging about it.
You hit on one of the major points here, but don't explicitly say it outright. Yes, there are areas in which women are privileged over men, but on the whole men are still privileged over women. Even the larger-scale issues of female privilege you'll see people trot out, such as custody cases, don't do much to outweigh the massive scope of male privilege. However, regardless, you still can't ignore that there are areas where women are privileged over men, and you can't write off the problem with "oh, well, we shouldn't analyze female privilege because men are the overly privileged group." Even in cases where female privilege isn't backhanded in nature, it's still important to have an understanding of relative privilege. For instance, where does such female privilege come from? Is it due to power, is it illusory due to marginalization, or is it a side effect of privilege hurting the privileged group? If you can't answer where privilege comes from and thus what the implications of that privilege are, you can't do a very good job of analyzing that privilege.
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Just a guess but I think it's easier for females to spot male privilege and vice versa.
Unpacking and critically analyzing one's own privilege is harder than doing the same for groups privileged over you. It's a phenomenon you see in pretty much every strata, from women who refuse to acknowledge that patriarchy and male privilege can be hurtful to men as well, to certain nonwhite racial groups perpetuating racism against other groups, to the massive schisms within the queer rights movement.
Kind of reminds me of the observation that people are only as tolerant as they need to be in order to accept themselves, really.
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This phenomenon is much like that of black people being able to casually and "affectionately" refer to each other using the "N" word, and at the same time being terribly offended if someone of a different ethnic background does.
Reclamation is a vastly different thing from what you seem to think it is. When black people call each other "the N word," it's because they're taking this word that used to have such oppressive power over them and removing that power from it. It's something done in tandem with the rest of the civil rights movement, as a way of removing tools of oppression from the privileged classes. If "the N word" becomes their word, and thus not the privileged classes' word to use, then that's one less hurtful thing available to such classes. Not all slurs are reclaimed, however, and even "the N word" is somewhat contentious. Some slurs are just taken back and left to die. Either way, the word is that group's to use or not to use, and that's the symbolic part of reclamation.
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I'd say that pretty much trumps any supposed "female privilege" by an extreme margin. I don't really think there can be any debate over the fact that sexual violence against women is an infinitely bigger deal than any advantage that women can claim over men in any arena of our society.
This is just the argument that only the most marginalized group should be given credence (and by this logic, why be concerned about women's rights in America when there are places in the world where female genital mutilation is still a thing?). Yes, sexual violence perpetuated by men against women is much, much more widespread than sexual violence perpetuated by women against men (which does happen and should absolutely be taken seriously). No, this is not an excuse to treat power dynamics as a simplistic binary. I don't see how someone who refuses to acknowledge that there are areas in which women are privileged over men is really all that different from those who deny privilege on the part of groups in power—either way, it's a refusal to study the situation critically and objectively.
Edit because I seem to be incapable of hitting F5 to check a thread before posting a reply:
On paper, yeah, maybe. But once you get sensitized to the presence of sexually violent material in culture and common discourse (including areas in which it is not even tangentially related, like gamers using the term "rape" to describe a result in competitive gaming), you see it EVERYWHERE
Holy crap do you ever. It's the single biggest case of "cannot unsee" I've ever had.
I still think the goals of feminism are very much alive and necessary, and I don't think it's a helpful thing to claim otherwise.
The way modern, third-wave feminism works (or at least the brand I subscribe to), it's less about less about solely fighting for women's rights and more about fighting to correct power imbalances everywhere, even in cases where the privileged group is hurting itself. That said, you do still get some holdouts of tenants of the more insular second-wave feminism of the 1970s, where the discourse was much more ignorant of issues like intersectionality and relative privilege.
This is just the argument that only the most marginalized group should be given credence (and by this logic, why be concerned about women's rights in America when there are places in the world where female genital mutilation is still a thing?). Yes, sexual violence perpetuated by men against women is a much, much bigger deal than sexual violence perpetuated by against men (which does happen and should absolutely be taken seriously). No, this is not an excuse to treat power dynamics as a simplistic binary. I don't see how someone who refuses to acknowledge that there are areas in which women are privileged over men is really all that different from those who deny privilege on the part of groups in power—either way, it's a refusal to study the situation critically and objectively.
Yeah, you got me there, I'd take back what I said if I could. It was very poorly worded. Refer to my later post replying to Blinking Spirit for what I think is a more refined presentation of my stance.
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I'll file "Female Privilege" in exactly the same folder I file things like "Reverse Racism", "Islamization of America", "Creation Science", "The Homosexual Agenda" and so on.
Hopefully it's somewhere important, because we some social development in those areas. What we need to figure out is how to stop people from assuming that what they read is fact, and these ideals will stop gaining momentum.
Men don't really need to worry that much about being sexually assaulted unless they're in prison.
It always pains me to hear this claim, because it is almost always followed by other issues, and they use it to downplay it.
Sexual assault is sexual assault. Gender doesn't matter. Men need to worry about sexual assault too, even outside of prison. The main reason it's "not as big an issue" is because most men who have been assaulted don't wish to talk about it, because it's assumed that their social manhood will be destroyed by it, or they are in oppressive environments, like a prison.
Why do we divide it into a social commentary on "male vs female" when all of these issue are serious on their own rights? I don't get why everyone wants to group them together.
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"If you don't wear your seatbelt, the police will shoot you in the head."
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
I'll file "Female Privilege" in exactly the same folder I file things like "Reverse Racism", "Islamization of America", "Creation Science", "The Homosexual Agenda" and so on.
Agreed.
While I think there are areas where women are afforded more liberty (particularly in social and relationship spheres) they are still systemically deprived of equality. It is not the clear-cut case of inequality that it was previously, but I would hardly see females as being overwhelmingly privileged in the way that males are.
This world is a woman’s world. And us females are now the humans holding the privilege.
This is the core flaw of the article: this is not an either-or scenario. Just because we can find an instance in which one group has a systemic advantage doesn't mean that the mythical balance of power is in their favor. It is quite possible for one group to have certain advantages in one situation, and the other to have advantages in another. Neither detracts from the other.
Also, I find it funny that when attempting to enumerate a compelling list of female privileges, the best that can be offered by the time slot #5 rolls around is an ability to win at blog comments.
The main reason it's "not as big an issue" is because most men who have been assaulted don't wish to talk about it, because it's assumed that their social manhood will be destroyed by it, or they are in oppressive environments, like a prison.
This is a pretty good example of how prescriptive gender roles deny men the agency to express themselves as they want, in this case the social acceptability to report specific crimes. There's also the fact that courts don't always take cases of women assaulting men as seriously as men assaulting women, even when the actual assault is just as severe in either case.
Although it's interesting to consider it from the angle that it's not really female privilege that causes women to be taken more seriously in such cases, but an oppressive "women are weak and need protecting" attitude bleeding over into the oppositionally sexist "therefore men are strong and thus shouldn't be protected" attitude causing backfire. Basically no one wins, and thus deconstructing the patriarchal power structure at work is to the benefit of both men and women.
Why do we divide it into a social commentary on "male vs female" when all of these issue are serious on their own rights? I don't get why everyone wants to group them together.
Honestly, I don't understand why society likes to see male and female as discrete and even oppositional categories. I mean, I can recite reasons for it all day long, but I still can't internalize an understanding of it because it seems so counterintuitive to me.
Quote from Tiax »
Also, I find it funny that when attempting to enumerate a compelling list of female privileges, the best that can be offered by the time slot #5 rolls around is an ability to win at blog comments.
And I'm too lazy to go reread the article to check, but I don't think she takes into account the fact that men get more readers and are taken more seriously anyway.
Men get higher salaries mostly because of labor laws, not because of a perception of efficiency (women are prone to pregnancy, PMS, menstrual colic). Yes, men generally work more than women.
Men working more should not have anything to do with hourly wages because often this is adjusted for, and in that area women are still making less in the US than men for the same position- despite being educated to a higher level on average.
In my country women pay less to enter a nightclub than a men. And when I use this argument, I keep hearing "But we spend more on hair/makeup/clothing than you do". In the end, this doesn't really matter. Getting a free drink, or a cheaper haircut are so small of privileges that she should feel bad by bragging about it.
Women paying less in nightclubs is 100% marketing psychology, and has nothing to do with any kind of privilage. Pub and nightclub owners know, from experience and market research, that Men (in general) will pay more to go in to a club that has more Women, where as Women (in general) will not pay more to go to a club that has a ton of Men in it. If Men will willingly pay a higher price or go to a club with more Women, then it stands to reason that you should do something to bring in more women, and lower prices are a good way to do it.
Women paying less in nightclubs is 100% marketing psychology, and has nothing to do with any kind of privilage. Pub and nightclub owners know, from experience and market research, that Men (in general) will pay more to go in to a club that has more Women, where as Women (in general) will not pay more to go to a club that has a ton of Men in it. If Men will willingly pay a higher price or go to a club with more Women, then it stands to reason that you should do something to bring in more women, and lower prices are a good way to do it.
Wait, I didn't know you could just dismiss an example of privilege by attributing it to market forces. In that case, sexual violence has proven itself profitable, therefore it is market force, therefore it is not an issue of privilege.
Only feminists who give feminists a bad name don't admit that there are some forms of female privilege. Anyone who wants to boil down discrimination to "one group always has it better" is oversimplifying the issue. Some groups may have it worse overall or in some areas, but the existence of a worse form of discrimination doesn't invalidate lesser forms.
I always feel like Feminists miss the goal of their movement, equality of the genders.
It always seems like they want to push "female>male."
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One interesting comparison I liked seeing in my philosophy classes was how feminism is seen around the world. In several countries,... can only remember India by name its been a while, women are actively against the feminist ideals.
That is where I think feminism is interesting. I think that the feminist movement is over the in US because they accomplished their goals.
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One of the major problems currently with the inequality of the sexes is education of males. They are falling behind in just about all categories. This needs to be examined and fixed. (I think Time Magazine had an issue about this...)
This is just the argument that only the most marginalized group should be given credence (and by this logic, why be concerned about women's rights in America when there are places in the world where female genital mutilation is still a thing?). Yes, sexual violence perpetuated by men against women is much, much more widespread than sexual violence perpetuated by women against men (which does happen and should absolutely be taken seriously). No, this is not an excuse to treat power dynamics as a simplistic binary. I don't see how someone who refuses to acknowledge that there are areas in which women are privileged over men is really all that different from those who deny privilege on the part of groups in power—either way, it's a refusal to study the situation critically and objectively
In the States we have a severe problem with under reported spousal abuse with men because of societal norms and a focus on only battered women. Young men, especially several decades when I was around most of your ages, there was a bad framework in the minds for some people to realize that they are in some sort of trouble. It's still just about as bad whenever I young man, even seeing some of the media about abused men is neglected in the face of the more attractive scene with the abused woman.
The way modern, third-wave feminism works (or at least the brand I subscribe to), it's less about less about solely fighting for women's rights and more about fighting to correct power imbalances everywhere, even in cases where the privileged group is hurting itself. That said, you do still get some holdouts of tenants of the more insular second-wave feminism of the 1970s, where the discourse was much more ignorant of issues like intersectionality and relative privilege.
The "privilege" to be seen as a victim and a weaker sex does come with specific overemphasis by society, even though there is greater statistical evidence to not treat the possibility as even handily is myopic and puerile as a society.
"Privilege" is a nice hippy term of little consequence built around feminist theory, which is in and of itself has generated (or degenerated depending on your perspective) into a complex package of language, theory, and practice as if it feminism was a sort of science. At best it's some where between a political philosophy with a marriage to sociology which helps to generate a whole load of terms, theory, and practice that degenerates women's study and feminism in general. The third generation drift may very well be best served through better integration with other sciences ranging from the most bastard, political science, to the most scientific based on biology. Feminism tries to be an "all science and philosophy" to women, but is it effective in it's current framework? I severely question that as watching arguments play out with feminists, although not quite as doctrinaire there are still "traps" where a feminist can walk into especially with linguistics built out of a philosophy that is not extremely popular whole sale with it's intellgentsia.
Do we really need to frame iniquity anymore as "privilege?" Do we really need to create a whole sale neologisms to muddle up conversation among intellectual factions rather than forging consistency through out the various sorts of intellectual cadres that intersect to deal with bio-psycho-social issues of the day?
Why must we bifurcate issues of liberty between "men and women?" Why must we create terminology that's alien to other sciences and philosophies rather than achieving greater synthesis by reaching into those other fields and creating more ur-philosophies that deal with the subject of liberty.
Why should feminism even exist today as a separate area of study? What makes it specifically so special, whenever people such as my friend can be abused by a woman and delay getting help because there wasn't a movement behind his plight to realize that he was indeed being abused?
There is a time whenever tyranny of the minority and overemphasis becomes a dereliction of duty for civil society, and dealing with issues of scale such as abuse should be dealt with in a framework that is common to all and not just a specific sect or gender. Bringing iniquity out to the light and embracing liberty for more than just one minority requires collectivization for the given message. Feminism so far has failed to serve others that may align with it.
This is similar to how the black community and the hispanic community do necessarily always unite as a political formation, which hypothetically would be a force to reckon with. Granted there are hispanic blacks and other derivatives as well, which only makes it more perplexing to exploit those overlaps.
The role of identity is complex, however those that share similarities forging a collective identity requires outreach by one of the major players and feminism does not always protect men the same that women are protected.
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
I always feel like Feminists miss the goal of their movement, equality of the genders.
It always seems like they want to push "female>male."
How is the desire to be paid the same for the same work a desire to be "greater than" males? This is especially bizarre because women are coming to the workforce better educated.
One of the major problems currently with the inequality of the sexes is education of males. They are falling behind in just about all categories. This needs to be examined and fixed. (I think Time Magazine had an issue about this...)
That is actually true in the U.S. at least. Though the root causes are still foggy, it is a problem that needs to be addressed in a level headed way. The problem is that some groups feel that boys are failing because of a focus on educating women or minorities, but this is just not t he case as evidenced by the research.
I am all in favor of equality in all things. However Too say women have no privilage in anything is stright up wrong. I know in many fields I can't get a promotion or get hired because 60% of all hires or promotions must go too females. Yes they round up, If they are hireing only 2 people BOTH must be female, if there is a promotion position it MUST be female who gets it (finance industry, Management, Marketing, HR) If this quota is not met the person doing the hireing has a mark against them on there evaluations for "did not meet hireing specifications" That being said I know in some other industry its reversed (nurseing, Early childhood eduaction for example) by mere virtue of being a man I can get a job or not get a job just based on my gender. Even if My skills are significantly better or worse then the other person.
Does any of that count as true "privilege" in the same sense as racial or national privilege?
She has more examples of the reverse being true, and many of these are examples of sexism itself and not really a good thing (women are weaker, women need to be taken care of, etc.). Just sounds like a forced article I guess.
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Probably a good debate topic, but I was just curious to reflect on the subject matter rather. What do you think? Should the phrase "female privilege" enter our vocabulary?
I've been saying as much for the past several years, actually. Commenting that sexism is starting to swing the other way. It's visible in media overly much. Especially if you look at commercials. Watch to see, in most commercials, which of the genders is treated like an imbecile. Who's the dumb one that can't operate the remote? Who doesn't know how to clean? Who can't be responsible? Men are only treated well in a commercial lately if no one has to be the negative partner.
It's an interesting thing to note.
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http://www.singularity2050.com/2010/01/the-misandry-bubble.html
Last time I posted an article, I didn't realize there was a single curse word in it, so I got infracted. I tried to scour the article just in case, but I'm nevertheless nervous to post it.
From experience, I would tend to agree, males are typically made out to be the "dumb" ones on sitcoms, commercials/advertisements, etc.
Just a guess but I think it's easier for females to spot male privilege and vice versa.
Additionally, perhaps the sheer momentum of feminist studies enables us to see the male privilege but no similar "industry" of academics exists to counterbalance it.
Finally, sometimes I think feminism can look at something and see misogyny whereas others can look at the same thing and see misandry. The example I've used a lot here is romantic comedies.
I dunno. "dumb blonde", which was almost exclusively women, used to be very common, but not these days. And nerds in movies/TV were predominantly men, with only recently women appearing as nerds. To me, it seems it is equalizing, rather than swinging to misandry.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Despite feminists claim, genders are different. Men get higher salaries mostly because of labor laws, not because of a perception of efficiency (women are prone to pregnancy, PMS, menstrual colic). Yes, men generally work more than women.
Then she proceeds to brag about having her dinner paid by her date, or being able to hit her spouse without answering for it criminally. What the heck? Looks like she just arrived in the 21th century though a time machine.
In my country women pay less to enter a nightclub than a men. And when I use this argument, I keep hearing "But we spend more on hair/makeup/clothing than you do". In the end, this doesn't really matter. Getting a free drink, or a cheaper haircut are so small of privileges that she should feel bad by bragging about it.
Also, it's easy to think like that if you live in a big city. Go to the rural areas and see it for yourself. Women are being abused all the time, 13y old girls marrying 30y men, and so on.
Yes, there have been much improvement on the past 50 years, but we're far from equal. I can go further and say there will never be. Men and women are different, they have different needs/goals and they require different social norms.
This phenomenon is much like that of black people being able to casually and "affectionately" refer to each other using the "N" word, and at the same time being terribly offended if someone of a different ethnic background does.
Either we are all different, in which case we should not have a real problem with people pointing it out, or we are all to be treated the same, in which case, claiming a specific privilege based on any arbitrary descriptor is wrong.
Standard:
WBRG Aggro-Reanimator Humans GRBW
Modern:
UR Twinning RU
G Venus Fly Trap G
U Artifacts Aggro U
Legacy:
B Reanimator B
WU Stoneblade UW
EDH
WBGGhave, Guru of SporesGBW
URGRiku of the Two ReflectionsGRU
WUBRGScion of the Ur-DragonGRBUW
Casual
Far too many to list
I'd say that pretty much trumps any supposed "female privilege" by an extreme margin. I don't really think there can be any debate over the fact that sexual violence against women is an infinitely bigger deal than any advantage that women can claim over men in any arena of our society.
The article also completely misses the fact that many of these supposed "female privileges" are confounded by class, race, and other factors.
Basically, I just don't think the points this article is trying to raise are all that important, and certainly not as important as the primary rallying cries of feminism (violence against women being the obvious crux).
Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
Sexual violence is far outside the bounds of modern society; it is nobody's "privilege". Even if it were, the pursuit of gender equality is not a competition to see which sex has more privilege. It emphatically does not help, when someone alleges one instance of sexism, to derail the conversation by bringing up another instance going the opposite direction. There's no "trumping" going on. So my reaction to your statement is, "What a pointless and horrible thing to say."
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
To be honest I disagree with this. It would be GREAT if sexual violence was "far outside the bounds of modern society." On paper, yeah, maybe. But once you get sensitized to the presence of sexually violent material in culture and common discourse (including areas in which it is not even tangentially related, like gamers using the term "rape" to describe a result in competitive gaming), you see it EVERYWHERE, because it is hiding in plain sight all over the place. YOU don't need to think about it. You see it as "far outside the bounds of modern society." That's your privilege. That's my point. It's a headache that you don't know you don't have. Women DO have this headache, because sexual violence is everywhere, and they have to worry about it, because they're at risk. That's a huge problem.
You raise a good point. I apologize for dismissing the original post out of hand, it was not productive. That said, I do think that there are more serious things to think about than who pays for the meal after a date, and a man who thinks that such a thing is worth complaining about is clearly (and to some extent willfully) ignorant of the much more serious issues that women face every day. My intention was to address that ignorance, not to dismiss the concerns raised in the article, but while I apologize for being less than delicate about it, I still think the goals of feminism are very much alive and necessary, and I don't think it's a helpful thing to claim otherwise.
Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
"Female privilege" as a whole reflects a very valid idea but in a flawed way—basically it should be used as a term, even though it's very much prone to misuse. To equate it with male privilege has implications that downplay the social power dynamics between men and women. This isn't to say that there aren't ways in which women are privileged over men, and it's certainly not to say that patriarchy is harmless to men, but it is to say that women are disadvantaged to a much greater degree. Plus the fact that privilege isn't binary. It's intersectional. A wealthy white woman is absolutely privileged over a poor black man, for instance. It's very difficult to point at a situation and claim that only gender is affecting power dynamics. It's also difficult to analyze privilege as a relative thing, and to acknowledge that privilege in some areas does not translate into overall privilege.
This is basically where the article in the OP is wrong. The author takes a few points of relative privilege and declares that women are now generally privileged over men, rather than only in specific circumstances. To do so is to reduce the issue of privilege to that simple binary, i.e. that if women have certain advantages over men, then women the privileged class and therefore that men are the marginalized class. Sure, women are in certain areas, but on the whole? Hell no. I'm in the rare group of people who've experienced both types of gender privilege, and I'll say right now, life is infinitely easier when presenting as a man (albeit an extraordinarily feminine one, which denied me some measure of privilege right there) in spite of the areas where women have privilege (and I won't get into the subject of cis privilege except to say that things get even worse in the situations where you lack it, which is another observation I can make firsthand). Sure, I've experienced female privilege in some areas, but it's nowhere near enough to outweigh the massive levels of privilege afforded to men.
You hit on one of the major points here, but don't explicitly say it outright. Yes, there are areas in which women are privileged over men, but on the whole men are still privileged over women. Even the larger-scale issues of female privilege you'll see people trot out, such as custody cases, don't do much to outweigh the massive scope of male privilege. However, regardless, you still can't ignore that there are areas where women are privileged over men, and you can't write off the problem with "oh, well, we shouldn't analyze female privilege because men are the overly privileged group." Even in cases where female privilege isn't backhanded in nature, it's still important to have an understanding of relative privilege. For instance, where does such female privilege come from? Is it due to power, is it illusory due to marginalization, or is it a side effect of privilege hurting the privileged group? If you can't answer where privilege comes from and thus what the implications of that privilege are, you can't do a very good job of analyzing that privilege.
Unpacking and critically analyzing one's own privilege is harder than doing the same for groups privileged over you. It's a phenomenon you see in pretty much every strata, from women who refuse to acknowledge that patriarchy and male privilege can be hurtful to men as well, to certain nonwhite racial groups perpetuating racism against other groups, to the massive schisms within the queer rights movement.
Kind of reminds me of the observation that people are only as tolerant as they need to be in order to accept themselves, really.
Reclamation is a vastly different thing from what you seem to think it is. When black people call each other "the N word," it's because they're taking this word that used to have such oppressive power over them and removing that power from it. It's something done in tandem with the rest of the civil rights movement, as a way of removing tools of oppression from the privileged classes. If "the N word" becomes their word, and thus not the privileged classes' word to use, then that's one less hurtful thing available to such classes. Not all slurs are reclaimed, however, and even "the N word" is somewhat contentious. Some slurs are just taken back and left to die. Either way, the word is that group's to use or not to use, and that's the symbolic part of reclamation.
This is just the argument that only the most marginalized group should be given credence (and by this logic, why be concerned about women's rights in America when there are places in the world where female genital mutilation is still a thing?). Yes, sexual violence perpetuated by men against women is much, much more widespread than sexual violence perpetuated by women against men (which does happen and should absolutely be taken seriously). No, this is not an excuse to treat power dynamics as a simplistic binary. I don't see how someone who refuses to acknowledge that there are areas in which women are privileged over men is really all that different from those who deny privilege on the part of groups in power—either way, it's a refusal to study the situation critically and objectively.
Edit because I seem to be incapable of hitting F5 to check a thread before posting a reply:
Holy crap do you ever. It's the single biggest case of "cannot unsee" I've ever had.
The way modern, third-wave feminism works (or at least the brand I subscribe to), it's less about less about solely fighting for women's rights and more about fighting to correct power imbalances everywhere, even in cases where the privileged group is hurting itself. That said, you do still get some holdouts of tenants of the more insular second-wave feminism of the 1970s, where the discourse was much more ignorant of issues like intersectionality and relative privilege.
Yeah, you got me there, I'd take back what I said if I could. It was very poorly worded. Refer to my later post replying to Blinking Spirit for what I think is a more refined presentation of my stance.
Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
Hopefully it's somewhere important, because we some social development in those areas. What we need to figure out is how to stop people from assuming that what they read is fact, and these ideals will stop gaining momentum.
It always pains me to hear this claim, because it is almost always followed by other issues, and they use it to downplay it.
Sexual assault is sexual assault. Gender doesn't matter. Men need to worry about sexual assault too, even outside of prison. The main reason it's "not as big an issue" is because most men who have been assaulted don't wish to talk about it, because it's assumed that their social manhood will be destroyed by it, or they are in oppressive environments, like a prison.
Why do we divide it into a social commentary on "male vs female" when all of these issue are serious on their own rights? I don't get why everyone wants to group them together.
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
Agreed.
While I think there are areas where women are afforded more liberty (particularly in social and relationship spheres) they are still systemically deprived of equality. It is not the clear-cut case of inequality that it was previously, but I would hardly see females as being overwhelmingly privileged in the way that males are.
This is the core flaw of the article: this is not an either-or scenario. Just because we can find an instance in which one group has a systemic advantage doesn't mean that the mythical balance of power is in their favor. It is quite possible for one group to have certain advantages in one situation, and the other to have advantages in another. Neither detracts from the other.
Also, I find it funny that when attempting to enumerate a compelling list of female privileges, the best that can be offered by the time slot #5 rolls around is an ability to win at blog comments.
This is a pretty good example of how prescriptive gender roles deny men the agency to express themselves as they want, in this case the social acceptability to report specific crimes. There's also the fact that courts don't always take cases of women assaulting men as seriously as men assaulting women, even when the actual assault is just as severe in either case.
Although it's interesting to consider it from the angle that it's not really female privilege that causes women to be taken more seriously in such cases, but an oppressive "women are weak and need protecting" attitude bleeding over into the oppositionally sexist "therefore men are strong and thus shouldn't be protected" attitude causing backfire. Basically no one wins, and thus deconstructing the patriarchal power structure at work is to the benefit of both men and women.
Honestly, I don't understand why society likes to see male and female as discrete and even oppositional categories. I mean, I can recite reasons for it all day long, but I still can't internalize an understanding of it because it seems so counterintuitive to me.
And I'm too lazy to go reread the article to check, but I don't think she takes into account the fact that men get more readers and are taken more seriously anyway.
Women paying less in nightclubs is 100% marketing psychology, and has nothing to do with any kind of privilage. Pub and nightclub owners know, from experience and market research, that Men (in general) will pay more to go in to a club that has more Women, where as Women (in general) will not pay more to go to a club that has a ton of Men in it. If Men will willingly pay a higher price or go to a club with more Women, then it stands to reason that you should do something to bring in more women, and lower prices are a good way to do it.
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Only feminists who give feminists a bad name don't admit that there are some forms of female privilege. Anyone who wants to boil down discrimination to "one group always has it better" is oversimplifying the issue. Some groups may have it worse overall or in some areas, but the existence of a worse form of discrimination doesn't invalidate lesser forms.
It always seems like they want to push "female>male."
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One interesting comparison I liked seeing in my philosophy classes was how feminism is seen around the world. In several countries,... can only remember India by name its been a while, women are actively against the feminist ideals.
That is where I think feminism is interesting. I think that the feminist movement is over the in US because they accomplished their goals.
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One of the major problems currently with the inequality of the sexes is education of males. They are falling behind in just about all categories. This needs to be examined and fixed. (I think Time Magazine had an issue about this...)
In the States we have a severe problem with under reported spousal abuse with men because of societal norms and a focus on only battered women. Young men, especially several decades when I was around most of your ages, there was a bad framework in the minds for some people to realize that they are in some sort of trouble. It's still just about as bad whenever I young man, even seeing some of the media about abused men is neglected in the face of the more attractive scene with the abused woman.
The "privilege" to be seen as a victim and a weaker sex does come with specific overemphasis by society, even though there is greater statistical evidence to not treat the possibility as even handily is myopic and puerile as a society.
"Privilege" is a nice hippy term of little consequence built around feminist theory, which is in and of itself has generated (or degenerated depending on your perspective) into a complex package of language, theory, and practice as if it feminism was a sort of science. At best it's some where between a political philosophy with a marriage to sociology which helps to generate a whole load of terms, theory, and practice that degenerates women's study and feminism in general. The third generation drift may very well be best served through better integration with other sciences ranging from the most bastard, political science, to the most scientific based on biology. Feminism tries to be an "all science and philosophy" to women, but is it effective in it's current framework? I severely question that as watching arguments play out with feminists, although not quite as doctrinaire there are still "traps" where a feminist can walk into especially with linguistics built out of a philosophy that is not extremely popular whole sale with it's intellgentsia.
Do we really need to frame iniquity anymore as "privilege?" Do we really need to create a whole sale neologisms to muddle up conversation among intellectual factions rather than forging consistency through out the various sorts of intellectual cadres that intersect to deal with bio-psycho-social issues of the day?
Why must we bifurcate issues of liberty between "men and women?" Why must we create terminology that's alien to other sciences and philosophies rather than achieving greater synthesis by reaching into those other fields and creating more ur-philosophies that deal with the subject of liberty.
Why should feminism even exist today as a separate area of study? What makes it specifically so special, whenever people such as my friend can be abused by a woman and delay getting help because there wasn't a movement behind his plight to realize that he was indeed being abused?
There is a time whenever tyranny of the minority and overemphasis becomes a dereliction of duty for civil society, and dealing with issues of scale such as abuse should be dealt with in a framework that is common to all and not just a specific sect or gender. Bringing iniquity out to the light and embracing liberty for more than just one minority requires collectivization for the given message. Feminism so far has failed to serve others that may align with it.
This is similar to how the black community and the hispanic community do necessarily always unite as a political formation, which hypothetically would be a force to reckon with. Granted there are hispanic blacks and other derivatives as well, which only makes it more perplexing to exploit those overlaps.
The role of identity is complex, however those that share similarities forging a collective identity requires outreach by one of the major players and feminism does not always protect men the same that women are protected.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
That is actually true in the U.S. at least. Though the root causes are still foggy, it is a problem that needs to be addressed in a level headed way. The problem is that some groups feel that boys are failing because of a focus on educating women or minorities, but this is just not t he case as evidenced by the research.
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She has more examples of the reverse being true, and many of these are examples of sexism itself and not really a good thing (women are weaker, women need to be taken care of, etc.). Just sounds like a forced article I guess.