How most men, even good caring men, have no clue what women go through

[CorbeauEtRenard]

I got here a little late to chime in directly on the "is talking on the bus inherently creepy" thing.

But I figure I'd still throw in my reaction to it.

I think what makes it creepy is not that it's on the bus, but that she is reading a book. Maybe it's not a universal thing, but in my experience, from either side of it, is:
Reading Book On Public Transport = Not Interested In Conversation Right Now So I Brought An Excuse To Politely Ignore Everyone

I've had quite interesting conversations with people on buses, but it was only when everyone involved was willing to have a conversation. If I'm reading a book, either it's a really good book and I don't want to be interrupted, or I wasn't in the mood to converse with strangers so I planned ahead and brought a book I could at least pretend to read.

tl;dr version:
It's not being on public transport that makes it creepy, it's willfully ignoring the signals that they aren't interested in being social right then.

'course I never got interrupted when I read a book on the bus, and it's probably partly related to the fact that I usually look like a viking warrior in a polo shirt. So maybe I just have an atypical experience with the situation.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think what makes it creepy is not that it's on the bus, but that she is reading a book.

And THAT is C&R once again nailing the issue in one post.

Well done.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It seems to me like a large part of the problem here is the problem I almost inevitably see crop up in discussions involving Privilege Theory.

There isn't a clear enough emphasis that privilege is something that happens to some people, not something they are doing.

Receiving privilege does not make someone "part of the problem" and in most cases, one could not divest oneself of a given form of privilege even if one tried.
Receiving privilege doesn't make you part of an oppressive class, it makes you part of a class that is favored in some way by society and/or culture.
Receiving privilege doesn't mean you can't have valid insights, but it does mean there's probably some different cognitive biases that are likely to be at play in your worldview than the cognitive biases likely to effect people who didn't receive that particular privilege.

A thousand times this.
I kind of thought this had already been pointed out, but I doubt any of us has a clear memory of more than a couple percent of this discussion by now anyhow.

I have to say though, this concept of all-pervasive memetic oppression – i.e. that it's not some concrete group of people doing the oppression but mainly everyone who isn't aware of it – seems to me very similar to (my understanding of) the concept of The Machine. So I'm kinda surprised how hard a time the concept has had getting traction in this discussion. And again, while I personally just make an effort to see past divisive language, I do think the divisive language is a big factor in this.

It's not men that oppress women. It's that people of all sexes and genders routinely participate in social and memetic systems that oppress everyone based on gender pigeonholes. The oppression is different for men and women. At this point I see no value at all in reiterating that "women have it worse". I personally happen to think it's true, but it's rhetorically pointless and counter-productive to make that the point of the discussion. The goal should be to identify forms of gender-based oppression and figure out how to counteract them. This is only possible on an individual level – you can't break The Machine or even directly change it, but you can locally tweak it in small ways, which over time can accumulate, possibly then become integrated in The Machine, and then possibly alleviate some of the oppression.

That said, because of men being a culturally privileged class, with a lot of culture catering towards some imaginary Typical White Straight Male, it's crucial to look specifically at how other groups, the biggest one being women, are oppressed. Not necessarily because "women have it worse", but because male privilege makes oppression of women either less visible to men (= men are usually not aware of the kind of stuff in the OP link) or seem natural and unavoidable (think of tropes like "women are better at X than at math/science/management" as an alternative to "women are kept from attaining important positions in society"). Insisting that "women have it worse" is just as counterproductive as insisting that "men have it just as bad".


Aside from all of that, the scientist in me is jarred by the insistence that no discussion of gender-based oppression take place without reference to other dimensions of oppression. (I'm talking about things like RWHN's reply to GARBO just now.) Throughout this discussion, we've repeatedly reached the point where everyone who's otherwise focussing on the oppression of women has to acknowledge that class is a huge factor in oppression as well. And class really is a huge factor, of course. But the discussion can be perfectly valid, and imho more in-depth and illuminating, when it abstracts away from other dimensions of oppression. Parallel discussions about race or class which abstract away from gender are valid and necessary as well. But when a big swathe of the population has a certain type of experience because of a common denominator, and the rest of the population does not have that type of experience and may not even be aware of it, you're not going to get a coherent view of anything by trying to take ALL factors into account all of the time. There are some things which suck about being a chick, some things that suck about being a dude, some things that suck about being a PoC, etc. By focussing on one of these you can get into the nitty-gritty and figure some possibly important details out; by insisting that every mention of oppression towards women be made relative to all other factors you're placing too high a hurdle for any kind of useful generalization to be made.

Generalizations are not avoidable. They have some nasty side-effects which you have to be aware of. They should not be used to pigeonhole individuals like GARBO just did to Faust, for example. But we humans cannot understand anything we don't already know without using it. Insisting that no generalization be used at all, even in a group like this one, highly aware of its ill effects, can come across as, and often functions as, a way to shut down the conversation altogether. (I know it's not intended this way, this just seems to me to be the impact it has.)

To me, one of the cool things about this discussion has been that all these discussions of specific and general aspects of gender-based oppression, especially the oppression of women, which I don't experience myself, have given me a better understanding of oppression in general, one which I can generalize and apply to other forms of oppression. Discussions of Kyriarchy/The Machine/intersectionality as a whole would be fascinating, but far more abstract and difficult to gain direct insights from, IMHO. And gender-focussed discussions, even female-focussed discussions, feed into that kind of discussion in a way that seems highly productive and well worth the time.

I honestly don't remember the last time I've found a discussion of any sort in any form as interesting and important as this one. ETA: Meaning the gender inequality threads in the past weeks here, taken together.

These two posts, taken together, are superb.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I would be far more suspicious of a very attractive person approaching me and trying to talk me up. Historically, it's only ever been out of some cruel prank.

You and me both, sister.

She's probably just looking for a bit more of the airbrush tool in Photoshop.

Ain't we all?

And yes everyone, obviously we all know how social interactions work... as Roger pointed out, we really aren't basement dwelling rejects here for the most part... I'm just trying to point out the privilege that attractive people are born with and benefit from.  This thread is about dialogue, right?

I'm a million posts behind, but yes, speaking of uncomfortable topics, pretty people, male and female, have a privilege in most societies.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

One of the things I wanted to mention related to class oppression and how it links to gender oppression is how strongly they are interlinked. Oppression of women ensures a booming population of impoverished workers for our prisons.

What is the #1 predictor of class status in adulthood? Class status at birth.

Who has babies? Women. Who has poor babies? Poor women.

Statistically speaking, women are hit harder and suffer more from poverty than men and are more likely to become impoverished after a divorce, largely due to the combination of job discrimination and the fact that women, poor women in particular, are still (and probably always will be) the default caregiver for children. Those children then, typically, grow up to be poor, particularly if the father simply disappeared, as unfortunately many do. The harder it is for women to achieve equality, particularly reproductive equality, the more assured we are, as a society, of a large underclass population.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

One of the things I wanted to mention related to class oppression and how it links to gender oppression is how strongly they are interlinked. Oppression of women ensures a booming population of impoverished workers for our prisons.

What is the #1 predictor of class status in adulthood? Class status at birth.

Who has babies? Women. Who has poor babies? Poor women.

Statistically speaking, women are hit harder and suffer more from poverty than men and are more likely to become impoverished after a divorce, largely due to the combination of job discrimination and the fact that women, poor women in particular, are still (and probably always will be) the default caregiver for children. Those children then, typically, grow up to be poor, particularly if the father simply disappeared, as unfortunately many do. The harder it is for women to achieve equality, particularly reproductive equality, the more assured we are, as a society, of a large underclass population.

This is, of course, what's behind the right wing drive to outlaw both abortions and the pill.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

One of the things I wanted to mention related to class oppression and how it links to gender oppression is how strongly they are interlinked. Oppression of women ensures a booming population of impoverished workers for our prisons.

What is the #1 predictor of class status in adulthood? Class status at birth.

Who has babies? Women. Who has poor babies? Poor women.

Statistically speaking, women are hit harder and suffer more from poverty than men and are more likely to become impoverished after a divorce, largely due to the combination of job discrimination and the fact that women, poor women in particular, are still (and probably always will be) the default caregiver for children. Those children then, typically, grow up to be poor, particularly if the father simply disappeared, as unfortunately many do. The harder it is for women to achieve equality, particularly reproductive equality, the more assured we are, as a society, of a large underclass population.

This is, of course, what's behind the right wing drive to outlaw both abortions and the pill.

Gotta keep that prison fodder coming!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hell, if poor women stopped having babies who grew up to be impoverished and hopeless, the drug problem might diminish to such a degree that funding for the Great War would have to be cut, and we can't have that! Plus, then who will consume all the contraband the DEA imports? It would be economic disaster (for the upper class).

Meanwhile, wealthy women will continue having the same access to birth control and abortion they've always had.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Hell, if poor women stopped having babies who grew up to be impoverished and hopeless, the drug problem might diminish to such a degree that funding for the Great War would have to be cut, and we can't have that! Plus, then who will consume all the contraband the DEA imports? It would be economic disaster (for the upper class).

Meanwhile, wealthy women will continue having the same access to birth control and abortion they've always had.

Yep. When they introduced the idea of cutting welfare in the 90's, they said they would help with education. Of course, it didn't happen that way. IIRC, Clinton was on TV blaming Newt & co. for that. Yeah, right.