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

[Verbal Mike]

Dictionaries are a good way to find out at least some well-established usage of words, but by no way the best source for terminology – and the sense we're using here is feminist/gender-theory terminology, not everyday well-established usage.
Wikipedia is often a great source for specialized usage, i.e. terminology/jargon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_privilege

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

People who are being treated poorly because of gender are definitely oppressed and we should work on ending that shit.  But assigning a label of "privilege" to people who are experiencing decency, I believe, is counterproductive, and yes, is inappropriate when talking about ACTUAL power dynamics that are linked to real conditions on the ground. 

Do you think you are not invalidating the systemic abuse of women by implying it isn't an "actual power dynamic"?

Privilege is a much better word than "experiencing decency" and I'll illustrate that in a second here.

It is a power dynamic but it is a power dynamic that is being created by an individual not allowing an individual to have their right to emotional and bodily autonomy.  It originates from an individual who is a complete waste of humanity.  Being an awful person doesn't come from privilege, it comes from a person being an awful person and having complete disregard for the freedom of another, and that individual can be male, female gay, straight, etc. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

To be clear, I'm not arguing that the discussion of gender inequality, naturally, is inappropriate, only when you ascribe or imply power to a group of people where a significant portion of that group enjoys no power.  But if you discuss that group in terms of class, you get much closer to the reality if things, and that discussion is completely appropriate and neccessary.

You conceded that most men actually do enjoy power over women regardless of their economic class, due to biology.

I wonder how many "rail thin" men in poverty are forced into prostitution and trafficked around the world? Would you say that because economically impoverished rail thin men are far less likely to be forced into prostitution that they are "experiencing decency"?

No, because the fact that women are forced into prostitution has nothing to do with those men unless they are the ones forcing them into prostituion.  They aren't even part of the conversation, and shouldn't be, because they are not part of the problem. 

You were the one who dragged them into the conversation to begin with to show us all how economically impoverished men have zero privilege. Now that they inconvenience your point, they aren't even part of it any more.

Classy move there, RWHN.

The fact of the matter is that even severely impoverished men do not face the same likelihood of being forced into sexual slavery as women who are in the same economic stratum. Call it what you want, but those are the facts and demonstrate your implication that such systematic mistreatment of women isn't an "actual power dynamic" is a reprehensible sentiment. If you only look at class you'll miss that these are mostly women and girls being treated this way.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

And I'm bumping this for posterity:

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.

[Verbal Mike]

Thanks, I was just coming back in here to read it!

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Thanks, I was just coming back in here to read it!

[AFK]

Dictionaries are a good way to find out at least some well-established usage of words, but by no way the best source for terminology – and the sense we're using here is feminist/gender-theory terminology, not everyday well-established usage.
Wikipedia is often a great source for specialized usage, i.e. terminology/jargon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_privilege

Yes, and what I'm telling you is that your feminist/gender-theory terminology is ridiculous outside of the Ivory Tower.  It means jack shit when you factor in class, which your wiki article DOES take into consideration.  Your wiki article also doesn't give any clear cut determination of on-balance male privilege.  There are some good examples of the myriad of ways in which society actually favors women.  How many male daycare workers have you seen?  How many male secretaries?  In my field, most of the Directors are women. 


We can talk about situations and elements of society where tpone gender is favored over another, but I still reject the blanket privilege that HAS been asserted in these conversations.  And I think it is still inappropriate to consider privilege in the context of those in our society who have no actual power or privilege.  Because that word, to them, is goong to mean what it means in the dictionary, and how it is used most often, which YES, is outside of the dynamics of feminism because feminism doesn't get to dictate how the rest of us use words.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

If we can't or won't agree on terminology, then discussion is impossible.

[Juana]

I'm actually really damn tired of this argument. Yes, class is more important. Despite being queer and a female, I largely catch less shit than a white person (because race is still more important*) of a lower social class because of my class and race. There are, nevertheless, certain areas in which ALL females and women catch shit. Reproductive rights hit every cis woman and female and those are on the line right now in a big way (if you deny this, DIAF). All women and females are not taken seriously (I don't think most people are doing this intentionally. It's bred in and is tough programming to crack), meaning we have to fight ten times harder to be believed than men. Slut shaming hits at every level - Kristen Stewart, a wealthy and famous actress, may end up with her career destroyed because she cheated on her boyfriend, while philandering men of all classes face comparatively little in the way of consequences.
Further, the number of women in poverty in this country far outweighs the number of men. If that doesn't say something, nothing will.


* Poverty in the US is overwhelmingly brown. If race were not a factor, an equal number of white people would be in poverty and an equal number of PoC would be in the middle and upper class. They aren't. Black people are a particular example of this because behind white people (and possibly Asians, I'd have to check), they have the most people with college degrees, yet the average household income is below ALL other groups, and they have a longer history of having middle class people at all than Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans. Historically, it is only when a group is accepted as white, or as good as, that a group is launched on a large scale into the middle and upper class (Asians are an odd case, I think, since their average household income is about ten grand more than white people's). Irish Americans are an excellent example of this, since they weren't included in any definition of "white" until sometime after the Civil War, and it was then - and only then - that large numbers of Irish Americans became middle and upper classes. And Irish Americans have been here in large numbers for far, far shorter a time than the majority Black people have been in the US. I suspect the same is true of Italian and Eastern European Americans, since they weren't white here either until not that long ago, and yet their ethnic origin makes absolutely no difference in term of how many of them are middle and upper class.

I don't know off hand if any studies have been done on this, but the same is likely true of PoC who can pass, or are fairly light. Aside from shadism within communities of color, the more white you look, the easier I suspect it is to find employment and so on.

[P3nT4gR4m]

OP - Most men have no clue what women go through

response - Most women have no clue what men go through - relevant how?

reply - It's a competition - women have it worse than men - winnars!



Meanwhile everybody is having a pretty shitty time of it and all we're doing by way of fixing it, is arguing about who has it better or worse.

This is what happens when "feminism"

Lets play the blame game

Is it mens fault for being butthurt and/or bitter or brainwashed or shit like that?

Is it feminisms fault for being an "ism" and putting the message out in dumbfuck, preachy language that alienates rather than persuades?

Bit of both?

Irrelevant - The shit happens regardless

Even if (and I say "if") all teh women were right and all the men were wrong, women are still sending out the wrong message to fix the broken men.

Try something else?

[Juana]

You are vastly misreading this.

OP - men don't experience the same harassment, day after day after day.

Response: mix of butthurt, NU-UHing, attempted discussion, misreading, miscommunication, and not reading things at all.

Reply: GENDER DOESN'T MATTER IN BROAD TERMS!



This is a sensitive matter. Butthurt is inevitable because everyone here has strong opinions on the subject and it's the kind of thing that people don't really like to change their opinions on because it requires changes in behavior and potentially large shifts in perspective. It also requires people to acknowledge how they benefit from a really shitty system. But I don't think it had to turn into the explosion it did. Both sides played part in this, through letting frustration explode and heel digging and NU-UHing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Can't anyone see what's happening here?

[Freeky]

Can't anyone see what's happening here?

Yeah.

I have a thought on this.  I'ma do something with it.

[Juana]

*shrug* Pent brings out my inner RWHN. I should probably think about that.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

*shrug* Pent brings out my inner RWHN. I should probably think about that.

I think you might first think about the first sentence in the above quote.

[Juana]

Freeky's, yours, or mine?