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

[Freeky]

I just amended that post to express it a little more clearly. And yeah, I think I'm saying that people whose experience has been mostly limited to a certain class are more likely to see gender inequality as the primary injustice.

I'm also NOT saying that either way of thinking is correct.

The lower down in the class strata a person is, the greater the difference the effects of ALL forms of discrimination will be.

????

[LMNO]

ETA: perhaps a better way to say it would be that it seems to have created a divide between people who have or have had intimate personal experience with actual poverty and those who haven't (again, according to my perception of the posters here) regardless of everyone's current socioeconomic status.

Ok, I think I have a better grasp of what you're meaning.  But I still don't see it, most likely because I can't keep track of everyone's narratives very well.

[Cain]

Can't anyone see what's happening here?

Called it weeks ago.

And I got shat on and insulted for my foresight.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Can't anyone see what's happening here?

Called it weeks ago.

And I got shat on and insulted for my foresight.

No argument there, Cain.  As I've said, I need to start paying more attention when you say shit like that.

[Cain]

I am the Cassandra of PD social dynamics.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I am the Cassandra of PD social dynamics.

What I DO know, and what you warned me about (in general terms) is that I tried to join an Ism and it cost me dearly.

I won't make that mistake again.  Or at least I'll try not to make it again.

[Verbal Mike]

[replying to Garbo]
It felt to me like you were downplaying and discrediting my viewpoint that class seriously blunts, if not negates, any possible gender advantage poor people would have.  My "behavior" was simply to support an angle that I felt wasn't truly being honored or,respected in the conversation.  I work with poor people on a regular basis and feel their plight is largely ignored outside of the occassional empty platitude from a politician.  So I am passionate about them having fair and accurate portrayals of their reality.


And the intent is not to discredit the inequality of women, but, to put perspective on how a discussion of privilege could come across to someone who is in that position of class disadvantage.

At this point I should preface by saying that I generally tend to like you, RWHN, a lot of the time, but right now I'm pissed off about your contributions to this discussion, such as they are. And it's not your opinion, it's the way you participated in the argument.

That said, I definitely fell into monkeylike behavior and capitalized on how RWHN is the current "bad guy", and I feel kinda silly about that.

The quote above highlights a big part of my frustration: the class thing came up in one of the earlier threads, perhaps even the main Patriarchy thread, a few weeks ago. I remember p3nt was part of that part of the discussion and I'm pretty sure you were too. And the point was given some serious discussion, iirc. And – here's the thing – I clearly remember Garbo stating in no unclear words (as well as a lot of other people ) at that point that class is overall a bigger factor than gender. Garbo, specifically. And many people were saying class is the most important factor today. I might be misremembering things a little, but this seemed to me, when this thread here started, like one of the points we had collectively more or less agreed upon (at least to the degree that can ever happen here.)

And then you come back into the discussion and negate the focus on women's disadvantages by insisting that everyone acknowledges that class trumps gender. From where I'm sitting, that point had already been conceded weeks ago. So what you were doing was either trolling, or being very thick-headed about the concept of "privilege". The latter appears to have been the case. And I don't think it's excusable, in this kind of discussion, to refuse to talk about what people are talking about just because they're using a word you like to use in a different way. I think that's not much better than trolling, even if you didn't consciously decide to do it.


More generally (i.e. not only regarding RWHN) it seems to me pretty stupid to repeatedly object to a discussion of inequality towards women just because there are other forms of inequality. It didn't progress the discussion in any way whatsoever, from where I'm sitting.

At the same time, this discussion highlights just how useless the "privilege" term is, since it's too common a word and people get hung up on its meaning and distracted from what it signifies in this context. But that doesn't mean the concept it refers to is useless, it just needs a different name.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Jesus H Christ.

[MMIX]

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.

It would have been nice if someone had explained this earlier, before "a great has fallen" or some such shit.

It's a little late now.

I like CorbeauEtRenard's post and I got thinking about this and I reckon that if you turn these points around it may give people food for thought.

Lacking privilege does not necessarily make someone "part of the solution" it just gives them a different POV

Lacking privilege doesn't unproblematically make someone part of an 'oppressed class, it makes them part of a class that is unfavored in some way by society and/or culture. It could mean that as a woman you have, historically, been barred from the local cricket club, which is probably not the end of the world, but those same upper class women still share in the other downsides of being female in a male dominated world.

Lacking privilege does not mean you inevitably have the most perceptive insights and own a monopoly on valid solutions, 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 don't lack that particular privilege.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

You can't, but as ECH posits, within classes you can see gender advantage, and I agree with that.  But when you are comparing an impoverished white guy with an upper-class corporate white woman, the conversation about gender privilage doesn't make any sense, and frankly, is insulting to the man steeped in poverty.


I'm thinking maybe your middle-class privilege is clouding your view

OK, I don't think anyone would disagree.

So is it correct to say that that you agree gender privilege exists, but is not always relevant to a discussion on power dynamics in a community?

Nail on head! This is why I have no truck with feminism. Feminism is about equality for women. That's not how equality works. Equality is for everybody, otherwise it's not equality.

I couldn't give less of a fuck about women's issues. I'm not a woman. I give a fuck about people treating women like shit just on the strength that they're women but I feel no different to that than I would if it was a woman treating a man like shit because he's a man.

This is where me and feminism part company because, despite protestations to the contrary, all I've heard, in any of these fucking retarded threads are "men are okay cos men haz privilege. men can't understand what it's like cos men haz privilege" or the disgustingly patronising "men suffer too but just not as much as women, on account of the privilege thing"

If that's the feminist position then fuck feminism. If it's not then feminism has a long way to go before I'm convinced of it.

I like this.

Sometimes the oppressed get things all fucked up. Instead of trying to stop oppression, they try to BECOME the oppressor.

The enemy isn't "men" or "cis men" or "mentally ill guys on trains". It's oppression.

I'm with Malcolm on this one. "Wrong is wrong,  no matter who says or does it".

[The Dark Monk]

I'm with Malcolm on this one. "Wrong is wrong,  no matter who says or does it".

This one made me smile, due to truth. Thank you TFFAYS. I couldn't put it into words, but this did.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

For the record, I still like Pent and RWHN, in spite of our differences.

I haven't been particularly fond of RWHN, because a couple of years ago, I fell into the same trap that many people have fallen into here.

And for that I am sorry.

Same here, RWHN's a dick on drug issues. This isn't a drug issue.
I like to think there's more to people than one dimension.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

For the record, I still like Pent and RWHN, in spite of our differences.

I haven't been particularly fond of RWHN, because a couple of years ago, I fell into the same trap that many people have fallen into here.

And for that I am sorry.

Same here, RWHN's a dick on drug issues. This isn't a drug issue.
I like to think there's more to people than one dimension.

I'd like to think that as well.

[Faust]

I saw this and thought of this thread. I don't know why but it made me laugh.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I have one last thing to add to this conversation:

Nobody on PD is part of the problem.  Nobody on PD is who is perpetuating the fucking patriarchy or whatever the hell you want to call it.  If ANYONE here says someone here is part of the problem, you're smoking dogshit.  Yeah, I said that myself at one point or another, so I'm gonna be toking up right next to you.  Budge over, spags.

So stop this shit.  You are not talking to teabaggers.  You are not talking to Goddamn Pat Robertson.  You're talking to friends and allies, even if they don't want to wear the whole fucking uniform.

Nuff said.