My beef is: your male privilege doesn’t really say all that much about being male–mostly, it’s statements about not being female:

30. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.
…33. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.
34. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if I don’t change my name.
35. The decision to hire me will never be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.

All of these “not”’s and “never”’s are there to indicate: you do not have the experience that women have. To the extent that this list serves to alert people to the continued prevalence of sexism, this is fine. But to the extent that this list is really about trying to get men to see not only the oppression of women, but also their own privilege and the ways their experience is shaped by misogyny, the ways that they benefit from sexism, the list is unsuccessful. 30, for example, is not so much a statement about men’s experience, but a statement about women’s experience with a “not” on the front. Since the concept of privilege is really about trying to get the beneficiaries of oppression to see that they are beneficiaries, to be conscious of the ways their own lives are shaped by oppression, this list is problematic. One might say, instead of 30 (with some extra elaborations): “I expect to be treated with respect even if I am loud, aggressive, or dominant within a conversation. I expect few serious consequences from being aggressive or interrupting others. In general, I feel allowed or encouraged to take up enough space to assert my needs/viewpoint within a conversation.”

This general pattern is true of many, if not most, of the items on the list, though far from all. 27 and 29, for example, are “positive” statements–statements that are actually framed from a privilege-POV.

Also, statements like “am likely to” “likely, I was”, etc aren’t really “I” statements for a privileged person unless they are projective (e.g. in the future–things one might actually be guessing about). They imply that even men who do *not* have this privilege, or did *not* have this experience, still need to say “yes, I did.” It certainly goes against the grain of many of your less-clued-in commentors, but to say “As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters” asks for men to say “well, even if I wasn’t treated this way, I still got this privilege, somehow,” rather than to say “well, even if I don’t remember it, I had this privilege.” or “well, actually, my parents left me at home alone most of the time, but my sister was given many social opportunities, so I *don’t* have that piece, even though I have other pieces of male privilege that are still just as significant.” It comes with understanding that one does not *have* to fit neatly into a category in order to get the privileges ascribed therein–e.g. my partner is a POC who passes as white, and has a lot of white privilege, but not all of it.

It could be that a small minority of overly aggressive male drivers cause a disproportionate percentage of serious accidents, whereas women tend to make more frequent but less serious mistakes that result only in annoyance or minor damage.

Heard some interesting observations from a college professor friend which seem to confirm this pattern. He’s been teaching math and computer science for about thirty years, and says that in his classes, it seems like the top one or two students have nearly always been male, but then the next dozen or so best students are females.

So in terms of classroom success rather than car accidents, students at either extreme of excellent or very poor perfomance have tended to be male, while the females have been more tightly distributed along a narrower and taller bell curve, and less likely to have stood out. (You wouldn’t believe how he’s kicking himself for throwing out old gradebooks that could have provided data for checking the accuracy of this observation…)

But Robert reminds us that having that data doesn’t let us off the hook:

There are identifiable statistical patterns in the world. Properly evaluating and analyzing those patterns, among other benefits, lets us rationally allocate costs to the generators of those costs.

Is acting rationally in this fashion morally permissible?

This is a very very interesting question. I’ll venture the beginnings of exploring it by noting that rational analysis is just the quantification of observation and instinct. We need some basis for making decisions and shaping interactions in the lived world, though unexamined instinct can of course descend into acting on blind prejudice.

Maybe one of the biggest dangers in depending on “reason” is thinking that just because we can count something, it is therefore an absolute truth that may be depended on without fear of bias. It’s entirely possible that my professor friend has unconsciously given more help to male students who perform well than to female students at the same level. And of course, there are questions of who gathers and controls the data, who decides its accuracy and applicability, what decisions are suggested by statistical findings, etc.

(There’s my two cents, or two bits, in the kitty. It seems like it’s ok to leave long comments here, but please do let me know if I’ve violated formatiquette.)

It’s called triage. If you have one doctor who gets treated first? The person with the broken arm or the spine injury?

Wow. I can’t even begin to imagine how those things qualify as the “most important” traits of a chauvinist society. Frankly all of those seem like such minor issues that if that was really the extent of women’s problems in america I think feminism could securely call it a day. Which of course is part of the problem. You see those as important issues. To me they are so laughably minor as to be not even worth the time discussing.

The problem for feminists on issues like this is that whether they are right or wrong they lose. If they are wrong they lose because they have devoted energy to trivial matters (and despite what you think yes there is a finite amopunt of time anyone and everyone has to devote to these issues). If they are right they still lose because they come off as, frankly, nutters. If somebody told me to my face that the use of “he” as a generic was the most important thing to change I’d be hard pressed not to laugh at them.

It’s a no win situation for you, so your best option by far is simply to refuse to get sucked into these things.

Patient: Doctor, I’ve broken my arm.

Doctor: Big whoop. The person before you broke her spine. You have no right to complain about a pitiful little arm break. You can still walk.

Patient: But, but the bone is sticking out at the elbow.

Doctor: Out of my sight, whiner!

I can’t even begin to count the number of times even recently that I’ve been told by people that because the number of men raped is so small compared to the number of women raped, rape of men is completely unimportant and even on several occasions that it *should not be discussed* (because it takes time and mental energy away from the issue of rape of women). Similarly, I’ve run into numerous statements that “real” men “know better” than to discuss issues of difficulty that they’ve run into in their lives because of their gender, because women get short shrift so much more often.

This also has a flipside, which I call the “But what about MEN?” phenomenon; it happens a lot onfeminist blogs. Let’s say that a discussion has been started specifically about rape issues as they apply to women. Almost invariably within the first 20 or so comments, someone will try to change the topic to either “but men get raped too” or “but what about men who are falsely accused of rape?” — and no amount of saying, “Yes, that happens, but it’s not what this discussion is about,” will get them to return to the topic.

It doesn’t just happen with rape discussions, either. No matter what the topic, if the discussion starts out being about women and women’s issues, pretty soon someone is going to make a “But what about MEN?” comment and try to hijack it. It’s one of those things that, once you notice it happening in the first place, quickly becomes glaringly obvious.

I suppose it could be argued that this is also an aspect of male privilege — the expectation that any substantive discussion of social issues will focus on men rather than women, even if the number of men actually affected by that issue is vanishingly small.

Another trivial point: Kos was born in El Salvador and came here as a refugee. I’m not sure about Aravosis. Still, if people imagine or assume they’re white then I suppose they’re still benefiting from white liberal male privilege.

Now a non-trivial point: FurryCatHurder objects that some male privileges are privileges by default, saying, for instance, that women tend to be much harder on other women about reproductive priorities than men are. The source of harassment is irrelevant since it’s still a privilege not to be subject to it, and in that sense it’s appropriate to include in your checklist.

His objection does raise the point that “the patriarchy” is a thoroughly co-ed institution so another privilege you might add might be that being a man means the burden of maintaining your privileges does not fall exclusively on you. (Anecdote: In the early 60’s, when I was a child, my sister bragged that she could be a school cafeteria lady and I couldn’t. My mom consoled me by saying that chefs were all men so I could be a chef instead… and added that chefs were always more important cooks than cafeteria ladies. Thus I became a beneficiary of male privilege thanks to my mother’s very-well-intentioned but oppressive-to-my-sister participation in the patriarchy.)

Oh yeah, about the pettiness thing. While there probably are breakdown points, it’s important to distinguish evidence from direct affront. For instance I happen to think the “you poke it, you own it” beer ad is more of an affront to men than women — it taunts cubicle-class men’s powerlessness more than it asserts they can meaningfully “own” women by penetrating them. However, even taunting references are evidence that claims of ownership still have resonance and that’s not a petty issue at all.

It’s a good food-for-thought list, Ampersand. Thanks.

figleaf

Critics who complain that this list is petty seem to be misunderstanding its purpose.

(Ampersand, correct me if I’m wrong)
This is not a list of the top 40 issues feminists should be concerned about. If it were, then issues such as trafficking in women or honor killings would certainly be on it.

This is a list of the manner ways in which male privilege manifests itself in OUR society. To paraphrase Peggy McIntosh, in this list Ampersand is identifying some of the daily effects of male privilege in his life- emphasis on “daily” and “in his life.”

In modern America, it is not an effect of male privilege that men don’t have to worry about being forced into prostitution or murdered by their parents for having sex. American women don’t have to worry about these things either (generally speaking). Thus, these issues don’t belong on this list.

Noting that one does not have to suffer from some of the horrible things that happen in other countries is not relevant to exploring ways in which men (or white people) continue to experience privilege in OUR society. I am not saying that things that happen in other countries are not important- I’m simply saying they are not relevant for this exercise.

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.

It is perhaps petty to point this out, but this statement is simply not true. Indeed, it is perhaps contradictory on its face: by not sending any particular message, one is sending a message. But even that, I think, is not true. Every article of clothing a man (or woman) wears sends a message. Not everyone may get the message, or understand it in the same way, but the message is there nonetheless. Describe an outfit - any outfit - and anyone giving it thought can easily point out its message(s).

Perhaps this is better phrased “25. There are clothing options available to me that many people will perceive as value-neutral; it is possible for me to choose clothing with no regard for what message the world will perceive from my choice.”

For instance (pulled at random):

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.

The point behind this one is valid: women have a harder time being aggressive or loud than men do. But is this a male _privilege_? I’d say No. It is a female disadvantage. Many of the other points are in the same vein. I’m sure I’ll be accused of nitpicking, but it was distracting while reading the list. Just because women have it harder in certain areas does not make it possible to turn that disadvantage on its head and call it a “privilege”.

Maybe it is just that the language is so prejudicial. I would have less of a hard time if it was phrased differently, like:

29. Aggression is often seen as a positive male trait.

I took the loud part out…but that’s because being loud isn’t rewarded for men either.

In general, I think the list is just way too long. Many of the points feel like they are “reaching”, and the list as a whole is lessened by their inclusion.

If you are white and that is your experience, how can you help but be that way? For god’s sake, it doesn’t mean you are racist unless proof of non-racism is total denial of your own being.

Lists such as this are important in raising consciousness of one’s membership in a group.

They are bad to the extent that they deny individuality and reinforce the fascist idea that you only exist as a member of a group.

There is almost no inequality that happens 100% to women and 0% to men. Or 100% to blacks and 0% to whites, for that matter, and so on for any other disadvantaged group imaginable. But that some inequalities generally happen more to women than to men (to the disabled than to the ablebodied, to American Indians than to whites, and so on) is something that serious people can legitimately discuss and be concerned with. Contrariwise, if we are unable to generalize, then we will be unable to discuss patterns of discrimination at all.

I agree with what you’re saying here completely. My only (I don’t know if you would call this a detraction since it’s sort of orthogonal to the point in some ways, but that’s probably the closest word I can come up with at the moment) would be to note that all too often, those percentages are used to silence the people on the short end of the percentage. This, of course, can work both ways. Nonetheless, I can’t even begin to count the number of times even recently that I’ve been told by people that because the number of men raped is so small compared to the number of women raped, rape of men is completely unimportant and even on several occasions that it *should not be discussed* (because it takes time and mental energy away from the issue of rape of women). Similarly, I’ve run into numerous statements that “real” men “know better” than to discuss issues of difficulty that they’ve run into in their lives because of their gender, because women get short shrift so much more often. I believe that this is not only a real problem for the issue of recognizing the damage that our society can do to men (as well as to women), but a real problem for the whole concept of equality.

I agree that the term “male privilege” is problematic and subject to misreadings.

FurryCatHerder, regarding #9: I don’t quite understand your objection. Privilege doesn’t have to be conferred upon the privileged by the privileged to BE privilege. It’s not a matter of who is doing the dirty, but who is receiving the brunt of it.

Then call it something else, because I think that if a group wants to make itself miserable it’s wrong to take someone else to task for it. “Male Privilege” isn’t something that’s value-neutral, and I don’t think men are responsible for the way that I perceive women pressuring other women on the baby thing.

If the “Male Privilege Checklist” is a tool for getting men to think about things men create, and getting men to make changes in their behavior, I think #9 just doesn’t belong there.

And y’know… if it were legal for them to do so, I flat guarantee you that they’d jack up the rates for young non-white drivers even further — and for non-white drivers in any age group over white ones — and justify it the same way.