Oppression is a System of Domination and Control: Response To Hugh Of “Feminist Critics”
| March 28th, 2007At the blog “Feminist Critics,” Hugh — whose view, if I’ve understood it correctly, is that both women and men are oppressed by the gender system, but women are oppressed more — writes:
This post shows that some of the objections to the notion of the oppression of men also serve as objections to various examples of what feminists consider to be oppression of women. My Double Standard Detector is going off. Either feminists should admit that men are oppressed, or they should relinquish some of their claims of the oppression of women. What feminists can’t do (rationally at least) is employ a broad conceptualization of oppression in characterizing harms towards women, while simultaneously constricting that conceptualization of oppression to exclude harms towards men.
Are women actually oppressed? Are men? I don’t know, and the answer depends on how we conceptualize “oppression.” Yet however we conceptualize it, we need to use the same standard for both sexes, rather than switching standards whenever it is politically convenient.
I agree that inappropriate double-standards should be avoided. However, I think that Hugh’s argument is based on his misunderstanding of how feminist theorists talk about “oppression.” (Hugh is by no means alone in this; feminists often discuss concepts like “oppression” in sloppy and imprecise ways, too. I certainly have. Most of us aren’t academic theorists, after all.)1
Hugh writes:
I only bring up the term “oppression” because feminists use it to characterize harms to women, but not harms to men.
Note that Hugh consistently talks about “oppression” as if it’s another word for “harm.” But I don’t think that’s how feminist theorists use the word. Marilyn Frye, in her essay “Oppression,” writes:
When the stresses and frustrations of being a man are cited as evidence that oppressors are oppressed by their oppressing, the word “oppression” is being stretched to meaninglessness; it is treated as though its scope includes any and all human experience of limitation or suffering, no matter the cause, degree or consequence. Once such usage has been put over on us, then if ever we deny that any person or group is oppressed, we seem to imply that we think they never suffer and have no feelings. [...] But this is nonsense. Human beings can be miserable without being oppressed, and it is perfectly consistent to deny that a person or group is oppressed without denying that they have feelings or that they suffer.
Frye could not have more clearly stated that suffering (which, as Frye uses it, is quite similar to how Hugh uses “harms”) in and of itself is not oppression. Similarly, in his book The Gender Knot (pdf link), Allan Johnson writes:
…If we say a group can oppress or persecute itself we turn the concept of social oppression into a mere synonym for socially caused suffering, which it isn’t.
My point isn’t that I agree with every aspect of Johnson or Frye’s discussion, but that they clearly argue that oppression is something significantly different from suffering (and also, I think it’s reasonable to infer, different from harms). If I’m correct about that, then Hugh’s argument seems inapplicable to what these feminist theorists are really arguing.
If I say “both this glass eye and this hammer are hard surfaces, but the ocean is not,” it doesn’t make sense to respond that I’m using a double-standard, merely because the marble, the hammer, and the ocean are all blue. Yes, they are all blue; but since “color” isn’t the metric I’m using to make distinctions, the accusation of a double-standard merely shows that my critic has failed to comprehend my argument.
I think the best way of thinking about “oppression” is that the word refers to systems of determining who gets to comprise the dominant or controlling class, not to specific instances of harm.2 Specific harms are not oppression in and of themselves; they are part of systems of oppression. (Since the same harms can be simultaneously part of the system, and results of the system, the system of oppression is a vicious cycle).
In this view, someone who says “X is an example of the oppression of cartoonists” is mistaken. X might be a result of the oppression of cartoonists, but X is not oppression.
Hugh writes:
One example is the argument that men cannot be oppressed by themselves. Yet there are many examples of women harming women (e.g. female genital mutilation) that are considered by feminists to be oppression. If women can oppress women on the dimension of gender, then men can oppress men.
The gender system is perpetuated by both women and men, and both women and men suffer under it. However, that doesn’t mean that the relationship of women oppressing women within the system is identical to that of men oppressing men within the system.3
When women perpetuate the system of oppressing women, such as in FGM, the conflict (if there is any conflict at all) is not over which woman gets to dominate the society. Neither woman will get to dominate the society; the gender system guarantees that virtually all members of the dominating class will be men.
In contrast, most examples of men contributing to the oppression of other men are instances of men attempting to become dominant, or to ensure that other men don’t become dominant. To quote from Adam Jones’ essay “Gendercide and Genocide”:
…In gendercides against men… the wider collectivity is “culled” and “sifted” to isolate a minority considered threatening, according to the blanket application of diverse variables (usually gender and age). Furthermore, the “challenge” and “threat” to “the dominant group” captures something of the competitive and belligerent character of intra-male politics, the principal challenge of which has always been to suppress perceived male rivals or competitors.
What makes the gender system one of oppression of women is that, even though both women and men act in ways that perpetuate the system, the system’s effect is that the dominating class will be nearly all male.4
Note as well that viewing oppression as a system of dominance does not make any claim about who is hurt more, or who suffers more. Suffering and harm are among the results of oppression, but they are not the metrics by which oppression is measured.
What’s unsatisfying about my own analysis, so far, is that a definition of oppression must refer not only to dominance, but also to injustice. Otherwise, we’d have to conclude that even holding an election — which is, after all, a means of determining who will be in a controlling class — is perpetuating a system of oppression.
We can, however, incorporate the concept of injustice into a conception of oppression as a system of dominance. For instance, swiping aspects of Caroline New’s definition of oppression (pdf link) (which I quoted in an earlier post) and combining it with the view that oppression is about systems of dominance and control, I came up with this definition of oppression:
Oppression is a system whereby a group “X” is systematically mistreated in comparison to non-Xs in a given social context, and in which members of group “X” are effectively prevented from joining the dominating or controlling class of society in significant numbers.
As I think I’ve demonstrated, it is possible to create a feminist definition of “oppression” which does not rely either on double-standards or on denying that men experience harm and suffering as a result of the gender system.
(This post is a cleaned-up version of a comment I left on Hugh’s post; Hugh has since replied to me there. There’s also a related post by Hugh here, which I responded to in Hugh’s comments here.)
(I’ve decided not to make the comments for this post “Feminist only.” However, I will be moderating closely whenever I’m online. Rudeness will not be tolerated, personal attacks will not be tolerated, and snide implications that feminists are man-hating bigots — even when delivered in “civil” language — will not be tolerated.)
- I want to add this disclaimer: My thoughts on “oppression” are actively in development. Therefore, my views stated today may well be inconsistent with views I’ve stated in the past, or the views I state an hour from now. (back)
- Although I didn’t reread any works by Catharine MacKinnon while writing this post, I want to point out that this post — and, indeed, any feminist discussion of oppression and dominance — doubtless owes a great debt to MacKinnon’s work. (back)
- I don’t think Hugh disagrees with me on this specific point. (back)
- To be clear, I am claiming that the members of the dominating or controlling class will be nearly all male; I am not claiming that all or most men get to be members of that class. (back)
March 28th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Just to quickly clarify, my view is that:
1. If oppression is a meaningful concept, both men and women are oppressed on the dimension of gender.
2. So far, the oppression sof men and women are incomparable due to the lack of an objective metric, but I suspect that IF they turn out to be comparable, the comparison will show that women are oppressed more. (Does this make me a feminist by Amp’s definition?)
3. Either way, I hold that the oppression of men does not get enough attention relative to how severe and prevalent it is, and that feminism is partly responsible for this problem, which is why I talk about gender politics in a way that is often critical of feminism.
This comment was written by Hugh Ristik (formerly "Aegis").Report this comment to the moderators
March 28th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I’m less interested in what academic theorists mean by the term than I am in what rank-and-file feminists mean when they tell me to “check my privilege”
I am unconvinced that the disproportionate number of men in positions of power is in any way my privilege given that I am not, have never been, and and never will be in such a position.
The majority of men appear to be in a similar position to me.
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March 28th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
If we are only considering men v. women in the patriarcy, I think I agree with everything in this post. But I do not think you can stop there, and when you start cross-secting race, class / ecconomic status, etc., this analysis does not hold up, because it seems to me that the wealthy and the dominate races use patriarcy as a weapon to aid in the oppression of specificly men of the underclass or subjegated races. Two examples I can think of are 1) how poor men are convinced to act as footsoldiers in wars that aid the wealthy because it is “manly” to be brave and willing to die for your countr, and 2) Southern lynchings of black men on flimsy claims of having raped white women.
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March 28th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Daran, see Amp’s footnote #4.
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March 28th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
One could argue that it _is_ your privilege because you’ve met at least one criterira (gender) for being in power. Your gender makes it more likely you will gain acces to this group, not less.
Also, those men who are in power will, by virtue of being men, share many of the same preconceptions, priorities, and preferences as you. They use their power to shape the world according to these preferences, to the benefit of men and the detriment of women.
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March 28th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
It is difficult to take a word like “oppression” and apply it to a discussion of class without taking into consideration the power relations that exist both between and within classes. The very idea of class denotes hierarchy and inequality. Two individuals within a class have, by definition, a greater degree of equality than two individuals from different classes. The idea of class leads in turn to discussions of the terms that are used to determine social status, terms such as age, race, sex, education, occupation, marital status and income.
But we must not be confused into thinking of social status as being synonymous with power relations. Power is a measure of the ability of a person or group, through action or inaction, to influence the actions of others. Power is relational in a way that status is not. The difference between status and power is this: Status is what divides people into classes. Power relations can extend across certain classes within a society and in some cases across all classes within a society.
Some types of power relations are greater than others. This holds true within classes, between classes and even between societies. Measures of status such as education, occupation and income do not have the same correlation when used as measures of power.
For example, income is more important as a measure of power in America’s class system than education or occupation. Education or occupation may provide a person with higher status, but income trumps both education and occupation where power is concerned. In other societies, religious, familial or political affiliation can be more important than any other measure in the establishment of both status and power relations. At the highest levels of the social order, in any society, political affiliation trumps all other measures of status and power.
The thing that makes gender (i.e., sex) different from any other measure of status or power is the fact that gender, even more than race, has maintained a consistent power relation throughout history and across civilizations, religions, cultures and societies. In almost all cases, the power relation between men and women has remained constant. Women have historically been subordinate and remain so. Even ethnicity and race can change from time to time with regard to its position in a given power relation. A race can be superordinate in one time and place and subordinate in another.
Here is where I am going with all of this. When it comes to gender, status is most useful as the metric that describes the current state of the power relation between women and men. It is not a good measure of the relative oppression of men as compared to women. A woman can achieve the highest status in the highest class and still be subordinate in the power relationship with a man of the lowest status in the lowest class.
It is one thing to say that the person occupying a superordinate position in a power relation is oppressed as a result of the relationship. It is another thing to say that the oppression is of a form that is in any way comparable to the form of oppression experienced by the person in the subordinate position.
To oppress a person’s ability or opportunity to grow and experience life in a way that leads to self-fulfillment and enlightenment is one thing. It is another thing to put that definition of oppression in the same box with the oppression that results from slavery or any other related form of ownership and control.
Oppression as the oppressor’s unconscious self-exclusion from the possibility of enlightened self-awareness is always the product of a superordinate position in a power relationship. Oppression as the oppressed’s inability to act independently of the desires and actions of the oppressor is always the result of a subordinate position in a power relationship. To act as if the two forms of oppression are in any way identical is disingenuous.
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March 28th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Uh, not in any statistically significant way. Michael, I’d like to introduce you to two people. This is Paris Hilton, and over here is Nameless Homeless Guy On The Street. Please explain to me how NHGOTS is in a superordinate power relationship with Paris Hilton.
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March 28th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Oppression is a System of Domination and Control: Response To Hugh Of “Feminist Critics” - Mar 28, 2007 - Ampersand Immigration Update - Mar 28, 2007 - Sylvia In Your Face! - Mar 28, 2007 - ilyka JAILING IMMIGRANT MOTHERS IN EL PASO (EL PASO, TX)
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March 29th, 2007 at 1:16 am
The likelyhood of me gaining access to the group of powerful people is zero. Zilch. Nil. None. Nada. Ninguno.
It’s like declaring someone to be wealthy on the grounds that they once had a lottery ticket which didn’t win.
And your evidence that men in power actually do behave in this way is?
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March 29th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Me (quoting outlier):
Incidently, Sailorman and I have been discussion this very issue. Here’s Sailorman’s post (which quoted a comment by me in full), and My reply. Sailorman responded in the comments, and I responded to his response. That’s where we’re at, currently. Sailorman seemed to think it quite unfair of me to ask him to show that his theory about how men in power behave is actually how they do behave. He seems to think I should accept it as an article of faith.
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March 29th, 2007 at 1:41 am
I’ve seen it. I still don’t see why I should check my privilege.
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March 29th, 2007 at 2:04 am
Yes, I think it does.
While I agree with your points 1 and 3, I differ on point 2 in that I think IF they turn out to be comparable, the comparison will show that women are oppressed less.
But I don’t think them comparible. As far as I can see, that puts my position just a whisker away from yours. If you’re a feminist according to his definition, then I’m just a whisker away from it.
I don’t believe that Amp thinks I’m just a whisker away from being a feminist.
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March 29th, 2007 at 2:50 am
I want to look at this from multiple issues, political, social, economic.
Politically (in the Western countries) we have no rules which deny women the opportunity to run, indeed many women could and have run for seats. America is a little odd in the way that it elects people however most countries are pretty representative. We have experienced the reverse of this however (in the UK Labour forced all women short lists for seats [and incidentally lost seats], Conservative were thinking of forcing 50%+ female short lists and Lib Dem have suggested targeted recruitment). Is there a systematic discrimination in the political sphere or is it simply the will of the people?
Socially society implies rules, however many of these are deteriorating on both sides of the fence. Again I cannot see a systematic discrimination against women. Perhaps in the 50s when gender boundaries were much more defined but now most women can do what they wish to with the major thing holding them back being themselves (as a male I was told my school / career / uni choices were silly, I bucked the trend and took them any way and am doing fine).
Economically I cannot see a way that society discriminates, women are more likely to inherit wealth now, businesses tend to operate based on profit so if a female run company makes a product that is useful its likely to sell well. Studies also show that for similar job / career paths men and women are paid almost identically (last one I read was $1.02 for every $1 a man earned). Women do however tend to occupy more flexible / part-time or non-paid occupations bringing down the average wage.
Is there a clear example of systematic discrimination in each of these areas?
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March 29th, 2007 at 3:24 am
Decnavda wrote:
I agree and disagree.
I disagree with you that this analysis cannot be held up; I think that it’s possible for this analysis to lead to the conclusion that men are not oppressed as men, but poor men can be oppressed as poor men, American Indian men oppressed as American Indian men, etc..
I agree with you, however, that it’s kind of an awkward fit. It encourages people to say stuff like “he’s not being oppressed as a man, he’s being oppressed as Black.” But, as many feminists of color have argued, it’s inaccurate to think that identities can be parsed in that manner.
This, in my view, is an advantage of a “women and men are both oppressed by the gender system” analysis: I think that view may make it easier to talk about the intersections of gender, race, class and other factors, in a coherent and accurate fashion, when talking about victimized men.
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March 29th, 2007 at 3:42 am
I feel odd about the turn this thread has taken so far.
No particular person has digressed the thread in a particularly unfair or far-off fashion. And yet, only a dozen or so comments into it, I feel that much of the discussion has at best been tangential to the subject of the post.
So I’m not blaming or criticizing anyone; I’m just expressing my concern and hoping that people can keep it in mind.
Daran and Hugh, if you want to discuss my definition of feminism and how y’all fit into it — which is fine with me — here’s a good thread for that.
* * *
Chris, I’m not going to discuss every issue in the world with you here, but I will refer you to previous posts. Here’s my post about why more women aren’t elected; and here’s a bunch of posts about the wage gap. As you’ll see, there’s a lot of evidence that an unfair wage gap favoring men does exist, at least in the US. As for your statistic, it’s meaningless unless you can cite the study it comes from.
In the US, the usual wage gap comparison excludes both part-time workers and non-paid workers. So while it’s true that women are paid less because of these factors, that’s not at all reflected in the usual statistics we see about the wage gap.
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March 29th, 2007 at 4:03 am
Daran, responding to Outlier, wrote:
This isn’t a controlled social science experiment; we can’t look at how the non-patriarchal United States differs from the actual United States. Inherently, when talking about issues as broad as this, it’s going to be a matter of opinion more than evidence.
That said, there is some evidence that having more women in office does lead to more women-friendly laws. It’s also suggestive that Sweden — which has the highest percentage of women in the legislature in the world, iirc — also has some of the (imo) best laws in many areas of interest to feminists, from prostitution to family leave to same-sex marriage.
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March 29th, 2007 at 4:09 am
Looking through this, I think that I need to rethink and expand upon the idea of dominance/control. I think that who is in the ruling class (meaning not just politicians, but CEOs of major corporations, editors of the major news outlets, and other such positions) is an extremely important aspect of dominance and control in oppressive systems, but I don’t think it’s the only aspect.
I don’t feel able yet to put what I’m thinking about into words, however, so I’ll have to think about it some more.
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March 29th, 2007 at 7:37 am
I would like to draw your attention to the http://www.xyonline.net site, which has done an excellent job of deconstructing the mra’s rhetoric and motivates. In particular the work of Michael Flood is quite enlightening.
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March 29th, 2007 at 7:38 am
“motives”
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March 29th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Amp, interesting post.
I especially like the fact that there’s at least some link between the oppression and the ability of the oppressed to escape the oppression. i think that’s where a lot of people go wrong by ignoring that link; it’s often an important part of the distinction between oppression and plain old bad treatment. I sometimes think of it as a bad sports analogy. Oppressors are biased referees. And who are you going to complain to about that–the referees? Doesn’t work.
For anyone who’s interested, BTW, I’ve been arguing with Daran on a related subject. he didn’t summarize it that well though–a more accurate summary is that I’m taking the position that disenfranchisement of women was oppression, and he’s arguing against that. opinions are welcome at my blog.
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March 29th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Amp,
You’re defination seems rather broad. It would seem to include people under age 50, UFO enthusiasts, men with beards, neonazis, anyone with large numbers of body piercings, etc.
This comment was written by jack brennen.All of the above are underrepresented in positions of power and it isn’t hard to imagine a social context in which they would be systematically mistreated. Yet do you consider all of them “oppressed”?
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March 29th, 2007 at 8:41 am
Ballgame comes up with the astute question:
Because Paris Hilton, like the majority of girls and women, have been socialized to believe that they can’t go out at night, can’t walk around by themselves, can’t have conversations with strangers, can’t be sexually free, all because the Nameless Homeless Guy On The Street is used, via the very, very, very minute chance that he is a rapist, to put fear in women and to curb women’s actions.
If Paris Hilton were to meet Nameless Homeless Guy On The Street and he assaults her, 9:10 says that the first question to Ms. Hilton would be “why didn’t you know better” or maybe “why were you ever in a place that put you within close proximity of this man?” [which really just means: why didn't you recognize that he is still a man, despite social role and class, and as such you are only a female body, regardless of social role and class, and therefore you are fuckable, rapable, and ultimately just an extension of the male phallus, regardless, again, of social role or class.]
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March 29th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Cites please.
Are you including childcare and housework in your “non-paid occupations”? If you aren’t, then you need to include it in the benefits packages men get for working the more rigid, highly paid, full-to-overtime jobs.
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March 29th, 2007 at 8:47 am
I’m going to advance an idea. I’m not sure if it is correct or not, but I want to see what people, particularly Hugh, Daran, and Amp think of it. I’m a sporatic reader and even more sporatic commentator on Feminist Critics. So I may have missed some critical piece of information. However, from what I have read, I suspect that Hugh and Daran have fallen for the oldest oppressor trick in the book: make sure that various victims of oppression hate each other more than they hate you. Then they’ll argue with each other rather than fighting the system that oppresses both.
Basically, I think that Daran and Hugh often identify ways in which patriarchy hurts men–the draft (or registration for the draft) being a classic example–but mistakenly blame feminists rather than the patriarchy* for the damage thus inflicted. Feminists often fall into the same trap and accuse men who complain about the ways in which patriarchy restricts and oppresses men of “whining”. I understand the temptation to do so–listening to men complain about their oppression as men** is a bit like listening to whites in the US complain about their oppression as whites: it just doesn’t sound likely–but I don’t think it is entirely fair either. Men are oppressed by the patriarchy. They are less oppressed by and get more benefits from it than women, but it has its downside for men too. So let’s get together on this, people. If all people are suffering, what does it matter who is suffering more? Drop the unequal laws, point out social inequalities, teach equality. Everyone benefits. If you then want to argue about who benefited more, well, have fun.
*”Patriarchy” and “feminists” are both rather nebulous and debatable terms, but I’m using them for lack of any better descriptors.
This comment was written by Dianne.**As opposed to their oppression for being a member of an oppressed group. Being male is no protection against oppression on the basis of race, sexual preference, ethnic group, country of origin, size, religion, mental condition, or color of socks, of course.
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March 29th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Also like to point out that it’s more a pattern and regularity of the behavior and motivation for that behavior which distinguishes actual systematic oppression from incidental harms.
Many religious and misognist groups would like nothing better than for women to go back to the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. It’s about systemic control. There is no equivalent for men.
Various cultures have never attempted to force men into only one genderized role as has been the case with women. For centuries, the only role considered appropiate on a wide scale was motherhood and housekeeper - baby maker and bed warmer for someone else. Wives could make and sell things, but only after their primary duties were completed. Little tolorance was shown for women who existed outside this parameter.
The mra’s know this, but somehow they are under the impression that the cumulative impact of history stopped yesterday. Today is a new day in their eyes, and isn’t it silly to think those abusive control freaks are continuing the pattern?
Personally, I think there are much better question which explore the underlying basis of oppression; off the top of my head: “do men dominate women’s life choices”, “what evidence do we have for this”, “what evidence do we have that men don’t do this”, “do women dominate men’s life choices”, etc.
The more I look at patterns and trends, etc, on a wide time scale in various societies, the answers become painfully obvious.
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March 29th, 2007 at 9:06 am
sorry, couldn’t think of a different phrase other than “abusive control freaks”, and I was referring to past patriarchal modes of justification for their legalized unequal treatment of women.
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March 29th, 2007 at 9:40 am
I still don’t see why I should check my privilege.
Is it still your belief that being male gives you no privilege at all?
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March 29th, 2007 at 10:30 am
While your own statement of your position in that discussion is correct, it doesn’t make mine inaccurate. As you say, you’re arguing that disenfranchisement of women was oppression and in support of that position you’ve been arguing that having men in positions of power (we’ve focussed on legislators, but the arguments apply generally) leads to policies which benefit men.
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March 29th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Having failed to restrict the discussion only to feminists, you will now have to endure comments from the most oppressive group on the web: neophytes!
I understand Amp’s post 1) to attempt to reconcile various comments about “oppression” by arguing that different people have used the term in different ways, and 2) to expound on one definition that supports the conclusion that patriarchy “oppresses” women but not men.
That strikes me as a fine academic exercise. I suspect we could craft definitions of oppression that would say that blacks are oppressed but not whites, that poor are oppressed but not rich, that people with certain types of bodies are oppressed but not people with other types, etc. And we could explore how all the dynamics of oppression based on gender differ from oppression based on race, etc.
But to what end? If the goal is to blame or criticize, I kinda see a purpose. And as Amp acknowledges, people seem animated by the idea that this discussion is intended to blame and criticize. But if it isn’t, what motivates it? For example, how would a new conception of oppression influence public policy? Can we say that a policy of drafting men but not women is justified based on the disparate types of oppression in Western society? Given that Sweden has elected a larger percentage of women into the legislature than other societies, could we say that the Sweden would be justified in adopting a different type of draft than other Western nations? Or something like that.
Of course, you needn’t alter your discussion for the benefit of an audience of neophytes; I realize you are primarily speaking to each other, not to me. But if you could throw in an occasional practical implication of your arguments, it would be more edifying to those of us in the bleachers!
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March 29th, 2007 at 10:49 am
That’s never been my belief. What I believe is that in general both men and women enjoy significant (but different) gender-privileges. Sustaining the view that women do not requires feminists to deny, dismiss, minimise and ignore male disprivilege, and to slander and victim-blame men.
In addition, I as an individual do not enjoy many of the claimed[*] male privileges for reasons which are gendered, but which are not solely due to gender. For example, I do not have a career of any kind. Nor am I able to enjoy the kinds of personal relationships which others take for granted. I therefore tend to get a bit irritated when women with high-powered careers and who do enjoy such relationships dismiss my concerns and demand that I acknowledge my (personally non-existant) privilege.
[*]Some of the the claims are valid, others aren’t, still others I am undecided about.
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March 29th, 2007 at 11:04 am
in general both men and women enjoy significant (but different) gender-privileges
And those privileges are equivalent, or at least offsetting, so that for every disadvantage men suffer women have a corresponding advantage and vice versa?
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March 29th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Daran, you do know that “high-powered” career women might just not be feminist, right?
How much feminist theory have you read? Who did you particularly like or dislike? Which theoretical framework looks like it is most sympathetic to your concerns about gender?
You do us all a disservice when you don’t know your feminist theory and you mistake the opinions of women for feminism itself. Further, without a career and without a significant relationship with any given female, what females (aka: feminists) are you actually talking to?
It’s like you’re looking at a fraction of the puzzle and pouting in your corner because some woman isn’t there to console you and *show* you where the rest of the missing pieces are.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I believe what Daran is saying is that because some women have privileges (neurotypicality, class privilege) that he doesn’t, they should not be suggesting he has male privilege, because their “net privilege” is greater than his.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Why are you frightening women by evoking images of them being attacked by homeless men, which you acknowledge is a very, very, minute risk?
As you say, this is a very unlikely scenario. Many more times - orders of magnitude - more likely is that the homeless guy will get the shit kicked out of him for being male and homeless.
It’s also misandrist. Feminists generally appear to be blind to their own prejudice, but it we just change the label it will become apparent:
“If Paris Hilton were to meet a Black Guy On The Street and he assaults her…”
Your efforts to portray Nameless Nomeless Guy as privileged in comparison to Paris Hilton is absurd, prejudiced, and smacks of desperation.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Daran, you completely missed my point. You’re not even close.
I’m not saying those things. I’m saying those things, those threats of action that really have a minute chance of happening, are a major socializing force in the lives of girls and women.
It’s akin to saying to all boys that they should become Jewish becuase they might get raped by a Catholic priest. Rather, it would be like forcing all boys to undergo circumcision as a Jewish rite in order to prevent the miniscule chance they have of being raped by a Catholic priest.
But we don’t do that to boys.
Instead, we raise our girls to use the fear and threat of rape as a social delimiter.
Again, it’s not feminists saying these things about men. It’s men saying these things to women about *other* men.
Nice reversal though.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:25 am
more likely is that the homeless guy will get the shit kicked out of him for being male and homeless
By Paris Hilton?!
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Hey, and at least the homeless guy won’t have his homemade porn splashed across the world for the hopeless titillation of the male masses. At least his privacy is intact.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:28 am
“By Paris Hilton?!”
—————————–
No, by her bodyguards. Or anyone she could easily pay to do it.
This comment was written by Nemo.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:31 am
That’s true, but women who aren’t feminists don’t generally claim to be disprivilaged in comparison to me.
However there are feminists who are doctors and lawyers posting to this very thread.
Not very much, I haven’t liked any of it, nor found much sympathetic to my concerns, (unless you count Adam Jones, who self-identifies as a dissident feminist. I’m not sure you’d agree).
I’m unimpressed with the “appeal to theory”. If theoretical feminism is the same as street-feminism, then my criticism of street-feminism applies to theoretical feminism too. If theoretical feminism is different from street-feminism, then the latter’s appeal to the former is void.
(This works both ways. I’m equally unimpressed by the antifeminist “proof by quotoid” attack on feminism: Famous feminist Jane Doe said “X Y Z”. Therefore feminism is horrible QED.)
I don’t think I do. Perhaps I’m mistaking the opinions of feminists for feminism. Am I wrong to?
You, at the moment.
I don’t believe the missing pieces (which would render the whole coherent) even exist.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Man, I disagree with almost everything Daran says, but this is a vile argument.
Yes, the dude sleeping on concrete and eating shit he dug out of a dumpster has it better than Paris Hilton, because although, hey, strangers may watch him piss in public because he doesn’t have any other option, and because hey, he may need to beg random passers-bye for enough money to get through the day, at least naked pictures he consensually took didn’t get leaked by an ex-lover!
He’s got way more privacy!
Why, I’ll bet she would trade places with him!
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:35 am
I’m saying those things, those threats of action that really have a minute chance of happening, are a major socializing force in the lives of girls and women.
But the question asked was, how does the homeless guy has a superordinate power relationship over Paris Hilton - not which of them had what socializing forces applied in childhood.
He doesn’t have a power relationship over her. She can kick his ass. She could probably beat him bloody in public at noon and walk away from it laughing - because her power and position in society are vastly superior to his.
I suppose you could make an argument that the socialization is so terrible and so crippling that it arises to the level of creating such functional female inferiority that even hopeless homeless guys are better off than even super-rich glam gals. But (a) we don’t see much evidence of that in the actual life performances of women, most of whom seem to be strong, intelligent, self-confident etc. with broadly the same distribution and variability we see in men, and (b) if it were true, it wouldn’t be an argument conducive to the notion that women have or deserve agency.
In other words, if ordinary genderized socialization has such an effect on Paris Hilton that it makes her comparatively powerless next to the most feeble specimen of male power, then feminism is a doomed project because women are grossly incompetent to handle independent life. My own observations of what women are like leads me to roundly reject that consequential argument. Women do OK; socialization puts them at a disadvantage in some areas, but the magnitude of that effect does not swamp all other considerations. Quite the reverse seems to be true - that effect is more often swamped by questions of class or inherent ability.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:40 am
This may be a subject for another post, but I think it makes more sense to think of privilege as something that classes of people have, not individual people. So men as a class are privileged; being male is privileged. But individuals don’t “have privilege”; instead, they perhaps experience the results of privilege.
This is, I realize, a major departure from how feminist bloggers and others online talk about privilege, but I think it may be a more accurate and useful way of looking at how privilege operates in real life.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Amp writes:
“Flexible” doesn’t just mean “part-time” and “unpaid”.
Here’s an example — I work on projects where if I take off any time over a 2 or 3 year stretch of time, my replacement has to take several weeks or months to learn the project. I’ve worked other projects where if I was run over by a truck, the project would have been in a huge ditch, with little chance of recovering. That’s not very flexible.
There are other positions — full-time, paid positions — where the cycle times and learning curves are much shorter. Many of those positions are like commodities — a loaf of bread, bushel of wheat or gallon gasoline is just like all the others — and as with all commodities, the price is driven downward by market forces.
Women get driven into commodity work positions more than men, in large part I suspect, because women’s involvement, and thus continuity, in the workforce isn’t valued. Without the attributes of a non-commodity job, the wages are driven to whatever minimum level is supported by supply and demand. With theoretical full employment for women about 25% lower than it is for men, there is a large pool of ready candidates for any commodity work positions that are primarily occupied by women.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:43 am
How is it vile?
That I’m using him the same way Paris Hilton gets used? Notice please, that even though this is a supposedly neutral and theoretical argument, the only theoretical person is the homeless man. Paris Hilton is real, these things are really happening to her. Yet you can reduce her to theory while bringing the in-theory homeless man into a fuller sense of human dignity. Funny that.
Paris is just another rich gash right? She gets what’s coming to her, that silly bitch. Why did she think her private sex acts were hers to own?
But that theoretical homeless man, damn he’s got it rough. He might have to theorectically piss in front of a theorectical general public. Oh, the shame.
And you say I’m vile.
You’re fucking comparing a real woman to a theoretical man, saying that her class trumps his gender. Obviously, quite freakin’ obviously, it doesn’t. This thread shows that. He’s not even real, but damn, he might need to piss in public. The shame of the naked willy. That poor, cold, homeless, unclean willy.
Paris Hilton might get to piss in private, but that seems to be about it. Otherwise, her sex, her body, her name — all part of the great public sphere. Men feel a right to jack off to her image because she *is* a rich gash, and just a stupid bitch for filming herself having sex.
Nah, no privilege for teh mens there.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:45 am
but the magnitude of that effect does not swamp all other considerations
Nope. It’s interesting, though, that to present an example of “woman > man”, the example had to be so exaggerated: Paris Hilton vs. Homeless Guy. Stratospheric money and class privilege vs. bottom of the heap, so that we can pretend if any privilege can overcome the effects of gender privilege, then there is no such thing as gender privilege. The example’s not quite such a slam-dunk if it’s Recently Homeless But Now In Public Housing Woman vs. Homeless Man, or Community College Professor Woman vs. Factory Worker Man.
(Of course, if we’re going to point to outside threads, I’d note that Daran has such a sense of perspective on this issue that he refers to feminist arguments of privilege as “blood libel.” I’m sure the fact that he did so not long before Passover was completely unintentional, but it’s a reminder of why I quit blogging at CD.)
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Mythago (quoting me):
No most likely by other men.
Q Grrl:
Until she decides that it would be cool to make a video showing her rescuing homeless guys.
But you both are right. When he’s getting the shit kicked out of him, he can take comfort from the fact that his attackers have penises just like him, and that the happy-slappy mobile footage they’re also taking isn’t pornographic.
Hey we need another privilege list: How homeless bums have it so much better than wealthy female celebrities.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Her power and position in society are null and void the moment he does sexually assualt or rape her. Then his homelessness and his namelessness become Paris Hilton’s responsibility, because in this society a woman who is raped or assaulted is guilty of consenting until she can prove that she didn’t consent. Once she’s raped, she’s just like any other woman. A thing to be fucked by men.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:47 am
To clarify, so that nobody sees my earlier comment and attributes views to me I do not hold:
I agree with this completely.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
My “blood libel” analogy refers specifically to the idea that men are waging a war on women. As for Passover - yes, it was unintentional. I have next to zero knowledge of Jewish religious rites, holidays, or festivals. In fact, without looking it up, I couldn’t even say what Passover was about, let alone when it falls.
I may be ignorant about Jewishness, but I’m not antisemitic, and I object to the implication that I am.
In any case, my reference to my discussion with Sailorman was relevant to matters brought up here. This, by contrast has nothing whatsoever to do with anything here. Rather it appears to be an attempt at poisoning the well against me.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Ah, but now you want to switch from a personal and somewhat anecdotal critique of privilege to a class analysis of privilege. That, my friend, is why an understanding of feminist theory is highly relevant.
You seem to want the privilege to be relational, rather than the results of the privilege. Which blinds you to my criticism, which is: that despite all her social and class privilege, men, with their relative gender privilege, can always reduce Paris Hilton to her gash and what she puts inside it.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I wrote:
But perhaps they don’t, or they do but only occasionally or rarely. Being male or female is one aspect of a person, and an aspect that (on average) usually gives an advantage if you’re male or a disadvantage if you’re female.
But it’s still only one aspect. Other aspects of a person — aspects such as race, class, body type, etc., which we talk about a lot on “Alas,” and also things like inclinations, personalty, confidence, strength of character, talents, which we don’t talk about a lot — also have a lot to do with what happens to someone. You can’t just look at the fact that someone is “male” and reliably know much about his life, because although the class of people called “men” are privileged, how much any individual man benefits from privilege depends on many factors.
These discussion often wind up in places which ignore the idea of privilege accruing to classes, instead boiling things down to particular individuals; hence the perennial question, “what about Hilary Clinton/Paris Hilton/Meg Ryan versus a mentally disabled black man named Rupert sleeping in a gutter”? It’s pretty obvious to me that given the choice, I’d rather have Meg Ryan’s life than Rupert’s life; and that Meg’s life has many more “results of privilege” in it than Rupert’s. The most likely result of an altercation between Meg and Rupert is that Meg’s bodyguards beat up Rupert, after which any authority figures in the area will take Meg’s side.
But none of those differences are about male or female; they’re all about those other factors. The fact that Rupert has so many traits about him which, in a conflict with Meg Ryan, would prevent him from experiencing the results of male privilege, doesn’t mean that male privilege doesn’t exist or is always irrelevant. (And it doesn’t mean that Rupert, if he were an evil man on top of all his other traits, couldn’t rape with impunity and get away with it, if he selects a less well insulated victim than Meg Ryan.)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Something to bear in mind. This conversation uses the terms privilege and oppression to define the approximate poles of a discussion that addresses the relative benefits of men and women in society.
I made the distinction between measures of privilege as defined by measures of status and measures of oppression as determined by the power relation between men and women. Privilege and oppression are not necessary poles or end points on a continuum, but can operate in two separate dimensions.
The example,
can be interpreted in terms of a power relation as,
Pretty harsh words, but I am fairly certain that no reader here thinks that this is not a plausible scenario.
Someone may ask how much of that vitriol is the result of her politics and how much is the result of her gender? It’s debatable up to a point.
This type of behavior is the result of the age old power relation between men and women, a relation that has at its center a set of institutionalized normative behaviors that include violence and threats of violence against women by men. These behaviors extend from the top to the bottom of the class hierarchy. This power relation is deeply embedded in everything that occurs between men and women in society. It is the source of the oppression of women by men. It precedes and effects everything that follows from it, including privilege.
It is really about men’s use of violence as the ultimate form of oppression and control. Any discussion of the relative privilege of women and men, or men and men, or women and women within a class system must begin with a discussion of oppression.
A few links to make the point:
http://hrw.org/women/
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20732&Cr=women&Cr1=violence
This comment was written by Michael.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
I didn’t said “flexible” means that.
He listed three factors — flexible, part-time and unpaid — which, in context, he implied were part of what causes the wage gap. I pointed out that two of those factors are excluded from the “wage gap” statistic people usually discuss.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I have next to zero knowledge of Jewish religious rites, holidays, or festivals.
Or, in fact, of what ‘blood libel’ actually refers to. I’m not sure how referring to a discussion you have had on the same issue (male vs. female privilege and feminist commentary thereon) on a blog referenced in the original post is supposed to be turning everyone against you in a dastardly fashion. Unless by ‘poisoning the well’ you mean ‘pointing out something I’ve said on the topic that people might find offensive’.
And it doesn’t mean that Rupert, if he were an evil man on top of all his other traits, couldn’t rape with impunity and get away with it, if he selects a less well insulated victim than Meg Ryan.
What’s with the Rupertism, Amp? ;)
The extra-bizarro thing about the Paris Hilton example is that in real life, when one is trying to isolate a causative factor, one tries to eliminate confounding factors. If you want to see whether house size results in a difference between groups A and B, you’d want to try to make groups A and B as alike as possible in all ways but house size. (Of course, it’s not always possible to do this, but that’s the goal.)
So if we’re really trying to figure out whether there is such a thing as gender privilege, we’d be comparing Paris Hilton vs. Kevin Federline, or Homeless Rupert vs. Homeless Rupertina.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Can we please stop?
I mean, shit, can’t we all concede that Paris Hilton (god i hate to talk about her) is way, way, more privileged than essentially everyone else on the planet, because gender privilege isn’t the only type of privilege out there that accrues to individuals and Paris is insanely rich, white, and famous? can’t we say “yes Daran, you have managed to list a single example of PEOPLE who are differently privileged from what one would generally expect. but since that says shit-all about privilege in general, can we move on?”
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Q Grrl, if you really think that nameless homeless guy (regardless of his race, if he’s mentally disabled, etc) can rape any woman and the woman will be blamed, then I think you’re badly underestimating or whitewashing the impact that factors like class (and, perhaps, ablism and race) have on how people are treated in society.
It’s true, of course, that many women are raped and then blamed for the rape. It happens all the time. But it’s also true that there are rapes that nearly everyone, even misogynist men, are willing to label as rape; these usually are cases in which the rape is taking place across lines of class or race or mental illness.
Suggesting that the homeless guy is well off compared to Paris Hilton because he’s not a celebrity with a porn scandal was a bad idea; it implies that you don’t take class, or any kind of oppression other than gender oppression, seriously. It’s not necessary to minimize and dismiss the disadvantages of being homeless in order to talk about male privilege.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
The example’s not quite such a slam-dunk if it’s Recently Homeless But Now In Public Housing Woman vs. Homeless Man, or Community College Professor Woman vs. Factory Worker Man.
Quite true, it’s not. That’s why the extreme case is used - to demonstrate that as a matter of logic, it is in fact a slam dunk that gender privilege is one factor among many. We usually prove arguments with the strongest case we have, rather than with the weakest.
Her power and position in society are null and void the moment he does sexually assualt or rape her.
For this to be true, the rates of convictions for crimes committed against rich and connected women would have to be the same as the rates of convictions for crimes committed against poor and helpless women. Are they?
Then his homelessness and his namelessness become Paris Hilton’s responsibility…
This makes no sense to me; perhaps there is some here-unarticulated logical thread behind it?
because in this society a woman who is raped or assaulted is guilty of consenting until she can prove that she didn’t consent.
Nah. While it is objectionable in the extreme that the sexual behavior of women alleging rape all too often makes it onto the list of questions to be considered in a courtroom, “consenting” is not a crime and it is not possible to be guilty of things which are not crimes.
It’s rhetorically satisfying to frame it this way, of course. But it isn’t logically compelling to anyone not already inhabiting the frame.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I couldn’t possibly agree more.
The problem is that there is a school of thought that says that if you are the oppressed, you are the oppressed, period, and thus there’s no such thing as a situation where X oppresses Y in this situation and Y oppresses X in this different situation.
You see it a lot in discussions of transgender issues, for example, folks who are so invested in their identity as ‘the oppressed’ that they can’t see the privilege they express over transfolks.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
That’s why the extreme case is used - to demonstrate that as a matter of logic, it is in fact a slam dunk that gender privilege is one factor among many.
As a matter of logic, the same example could be used to show that gender privilege is such a huge factor that a woman needs to be Paris Hilton and a man needs to be Rupert the Homeless Guy before his gender privilege is canceled out.
That’s not a counterargument I agree with, myself; but it’s no less valid than the deliberate implications of the example, namely that gender is either insignificant, or is no more significant than any other factor.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I think that this is a common consequence, though not an inevitable one, of the concept that all other prejudices grow out of sexism. If sexism and misogyny is ‘the top’, who cares what subordinate oppressions might come into play? I’ve got the trump card!
Now, like I said, I don’t think that it’s an inevitable consequence of that concept, and I don’t even necessarily disagree with the original concept, but I sure disagree with the conclusion, and it’s sure something I’ve seen a heck of a lot.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
That’s not what I’m saying though. I’m saying that Paris Hilton can be raped by any man, regardless of his class, etc., and still be held responsible for her rape. Her class does not insulate her from our rape culture.
Well, thanks for putting words into my mouth Amp. That’s not my position, which I’m sure you’re aware of. I never freakin’ said the theoretical homeless man was well off. I did say, in ways less eloquent than Michael above, that Paris Hilton’s privilege means less is the face of any theoretical violence (aka, rape) that this theoretical homeless man is willing to use against her.
I’m not minimizing jack about anything. And for the record I’m not talking about male privilege. I’m talking about how men can reduce women’s privilege to the sub-human level easily and effectively in our society.
Homeless guy is theoretical. Paris Hilton lost a great deal of privacy to wankers because of her ex-boyfriends distribution of a home video.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
wow, my comments are getting really weirdly cropped. Anyone else having that issue?
some of my paragraphs above are out of order. Le sigh.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Agreed!
I also wish that there was more discussion of context! I don’t at all think that gender is insignificant, or is no more significant than any other factor . . . but I’ll tell you, random white woman X has way more ‘driving a car in a nice neighborhood’ privilege than random black dude Y.
And he has more ‘walking the streets at night’ privilege.
And she probably has more ‘getting a loan’ privilege.
I just wish that the concept that X trumps Y trumps Z would fucking die. I don’t see why it’s useful except in a masturbatory sense.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Does anyone see a problem with this?
How about: “A white person’s power and position in society are null and void the moment a black person sexually assaults or rape them.”
There are two problems here. Firstly there is the framing of a homeless guy or a black as default perpetrators, both of which reinforce prejudice. Secondly, Q Grrl, having earlier complained about women being socialised into fear, is the one peddling it. (She’s not the only feminist to do this).
If feminists really were concerned about the (very real) widespread fear of being attacked while outside, why do they feed that fear Shouldn’t they be drawing women’s attention to the fact that they are far less likely to be attacked than men?
Q Grrl:
Yeah, and if cheese fell out of the sky like manna from heaven it would devastate the dairy industry.
You’re postulating a “what if” scenario, while ignoring the fact that Spears’ privilege means that she never need even see a homeless person, if she doesn’t want to, let alone be exposed to the (miniscule) risk that they might assault her.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Yo, you’re all smokin’ crack now.
I’m not the one to posit the homeless man vs. Paris Hilton thing. Have a good day.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
It’s not theoretical. HE’s not theoretical, and that’s why it’s vile.
I walk past a fairly large number of homeless men with much less privacy than Paris Hilton each day.
Don’t like the analogy?
How about:
I walk past a fairly large number of homeless men with much less privacy than anyone with a house with fucking walls each day.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
If the Paris Hilton and the homeless guy proves that women and men are equally victims of gender prejudice, doesn’t OJ Simpson prove that whites and blacks are equally victims of racism? How about Henry “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” Kissinger. Does his existence and power prove that Jewish people are really the beneficiaries from anti-semitism? Or do all these examples simply prove that society is complex and that there are multiple confounding factors such that no given person can be definitively said to be less powerful than any other based on a single characteristic (race, gender, ethnicity, etc.)?
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Right on.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Obviously, if you read this thread, a lot of people do. And they’ve brought up far better reasoned responses than anything you wrote in this post.
I usually dislike the “replace the word _____ with the word ‘black’” mode of criticism. I’ve been meaning to post about what’s wrong with it for ages. Anyway, unless race and gender are identical in regard to how men/whites and women/blacks are treated in society, especially regarding the particular issue of sexual assault, then this particular comparison will tend to confuse rather than clarify the discussion.
No one here has said or implied that homeless men are “default perpetrators.”
I don’t think that the comparison you bring up is legitimate, because for it to be legitimate we’d have to assume that all attacks are equal; for example, that a simple assault — say, being punched in a bar — is the same as a woman being raped by her husband in import or impact.
If it’s not the case that all assaults are equal, then simply counting up the number of assaults is not very meaningful. (Also, I don’t think it’s true that men are “far less likely” to be attacked, but that’s not very important because the whole comparison is meaningless.)
Regarding “If feminists really were concerned…,” are you aware that you frequently make these sort of personal attacks on the integrity and honestly of feminists when you debate feminists, or is it unconscious on your part? In either case, I’m asking you as a moderator to stop doing that while you’re posting comments on “Alas.”
Also, if we take your argument seriously, we’d come to the conclusion that feminists should never discuss bad things that happen to women at all, since doing so could conceivably increase someone’s fear. That would be a ridiculous outcome. I do agree that feminists should not be screaming “LIVE IN FEAR!!!!” at women, but I don’t agree that a fairly academic discussion of privilege on a blog is the equivalent of screaming “LIVE IN FEAR!!!”
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Exactly! This is a lot of what I was trying to say in comment #50, but you’ve put it better (and much more succinctly) than I did.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Q Grrl (quoting me):
Mea culpa. What I should have said was “How homeless bums have it so much better than Paris Hilton”.
(The bum in this case is a hypothetical representative of homeless bums as a class, but the celebrity is one particular celebrity.)
Here’s what you said earlier on in this subdiscussion (quoting ballgame):
My bold. You were defending a claim which was explicitly relational. By all means withdraw from that position if you wish, but don’t pretend that you were really arguing something else, and I’m being blind to it.
I can’t respond properly to your new claim until you tell me what you mean by “men”. Men generally? Men collectively? Some men? All men? And how do they do this? By viewing her porn video? Pardon me for thinking that Paris Hilton carries on being Paris Hilton regardless of who watches her video.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
I mean Hilton’s
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
What the hell? He is of course theoretical. He’s a made-up discussion point for the purpose of this thread.
If he’s not theoretical, call him by name. Like you’re doing with Paris Hilton.
If you want to treat this non-existant arguing point as a full flesh human being then quit fuckin’ using Paris Hilton. Just say “rich woman” instead.
Damn but ya’ll are dense.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Daran: can you explain how my critique of how fear is used against women is the same as promoting that fear. You’ve really lost me on that one.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Q Grrl to Daran
Which bit of feminist theory would justify the notion that a homeless man (and this is personal, by the way, I’ve been homeless myself for quite long periods of time) is, by virtue of being male, more powerful than a woman with millions? Which bit of feminist theory would predict that if a homeless man were caught raping a rich celebrity he would be acquitted on the grounds that the celebrity was a woman and therefore, in the patriarchy’s view, deserved everything she got? Which bit of feminist theory would justify you in holding two mutually contradictory positions: that on the one hand the fear of rape is unjustified - a delusion fostered by the patriarchy to keep women in their place, and that on the other hand the fear of rape is perfectly justified - given that if the perpetrator gets caught he will automatically be acquitted?
I ask because I’ve been debating with Ampersand (on FCB ) what I regard as an evasive tactic practised all too frequently by feminists who should know better: non-specific appeals to feminist theory as a way of defending otherwise indefensible positions (”Feminist 101ing”). He seemed unconvinced that it was much of a problem on Alas.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I also think that the ‘trading places’ thought experiment might be useful here.
That is, if we believe that members of class X always have more privilege than members of class Y, then in any given situation, any rationally acting member of class X would be willing to swap places with any member of class Y.
It’s fairly easy to disprove, because it’s ludicrously easy to identify a woman/black person/poor person/disabled person who would be unwilling to switch life circumstances with a man/white person/wealthy person/able-bodied person.
That doesn’t claim at all that being female, black, poor, or disabled has no connection to oppression, of course, or that being male, white, wealthy, or able bodied carries no privilege. It’s just that as many many folks have articulated, it’s complex, and you can have a lot of privilege in one area without missing that you’re oppressed in another . . . and simplistic reductions are not helpful.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Personal attacks like this one are against both the “Alas” rules and the specific rules I wrote for this thread. Please don’t do it again.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Tom, your claim was that people frequently say “it’s feminism 101″ as a substitute for making arguments and answering questions. Q Grrl has done no such thing; she has engaged with Daran’s arguments and answered his points. (That I don’t always agree with her arguments doesn’t change the fact that she has made arguments). Her asking Daran what feminist theory he’s read was in addition to, not instead of, her making arguments.
Your new position, it seems, is that it’s always wrong for feminists to ask what feminist theory the person they’re debating with has read, regardless of circumstances and regardless of if they’ve been making other comments. That’s nonsense.
Also, in general, the tone of your comments to Q Grrl seemed more like unfriendly interrogation than discussion (you could say the same thing about Q Grrl’s questions to Daran — but unlike Q Grrl, you haven’t contributed anything else to this discussion), and as you yourself admit, you’re only posting to this discussion to score points regarding a debate you and I had elsewhere.
If you want to continue the discussion we were having on “Feminist Critics,” by all means continue it, but do so there — or, if you want to do so on “Alas,” use an open thread. But if you continue posting on this thread (and I invite you to), please try and contribute to the subject at hand.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
No one said this.
Amp, it’s not a personal attack if you guys are being deliberately dense. But yeah, your blog and all that good stuff. If you prefer sophmoric reading comprehension and “debate” have at it. I, personally, think it is dense and irratating.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
And this is a tactic practiced all too frequently by Daran and you: There is one feminist on this thread who is making that point. Here–as usual–you’re trying to attack “feminists” and, by default, “feminism” by anecdotes or experience with a single feminist.
that, of course, is ludicrous.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Show me where I said this.
But if you wish to explore it, both Susan Brownmiller and Susan Griffith are good places to start. Audre Lorde too.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Q Grrl, if you had said “I think you’re pretending to not understand my point in order to score cheap debate points,” or “you’re being disingenuous,” or something else that actually means “you guys are being deliberately dense,” then I would not have objected.
But that’s not what you said, and you know it. You said that the other posters here are dense. That’s all you said. It was a personal insult, and it doesn’t belong on “Alas.”
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
How can a man consider himself a feminist critic when he hasn’t even read feminist theory?
The mind boggles. It boggles at the density of ignorance and privilege all wrapped up together.
Maybe ya’ll should take on quantum mechanics with the same negligence and intellectual laziness. Or congressional law. Or theology.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Okay, how about ‘disabled black veteran dude who slept in the doorway outside my last job and cried as people walked past’ or ‘guy rooting through the trash for aluminum cans to recycle’ or ‘guy who pees in the alley on the way to my job and who gets hassled by the police on a daily basis, and who (I’m sure) would really like to not have his entire life on display, but doesn’t have the option of hiring bodyguards, suing anyone, or even closing any doors.’
I don’t have full names, but hopefully that will help you to discuss in a non-theoretical way.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Tom,
The “privilege” that’s used in feminist discourse is not the kind of privilege that’s reflected by the size of your bank account.
Here’s what’s meant — if you get off the street and go into a store, you will be treated better, in many instances, than a woman of similar class, etc. Even if you later wind up back on the street, and then again get back off the street, this will be true.
Your advantages as a male cannot be lost by virtue of losing your job. They are something you get because you are male and short of becoming a female, you can never get rid of what you get just for showing up and being male.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
For it to be non-theoretical, you will need to name an actual homeless man. And then compare him to Paris Hilton.
Otherwise all it is, is speculative. You know, the other meaning of “theorectical”.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Myca writes:
Use Patrick. A somewhat mentally disabled guy who used to sleep under near the Exxon station by my house.
Every couple of months he’d get his act together and get a job doing landscaping work. Then, whatever it is that’s his disability, he’d wind up back on the street, living up my end of town because it’s safer to live on the street where I live due to the lower population density.
I’ve bought him shoes, cooked him breakfast, and driven him around town a bit. I’ve not seen him up my way in a year or two, so perhaps he’s finally gotten stabilized.
I don’t know the name of the more colorful street people, like the man who flies a sign that reads “Why sleep in a $200K when you can sleep under a $20M bridge?”
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
For it to be non-theoretical, you will need to name an actual homeless man. And then compare him to Paris Hilton.
Setting a bar that is too high to meet is not a useful discussion tool. It’s a way to shut down discussion.
Besides, I just named three actual, specific homeless men. If you do not share my frame of reference, you should not have asked for specific people you would likely not be familiar with. I can make up names for them, if it will help you.
This is why people have theoretical discussions. “Random homeless dude #5″ was under discussion because that’s someone all of us can identify, unless we’re so very insulated from the world around us that we can’t have a discussion of ‘a homeless guy’ because that conjures no useful images. ‘Paris Hilton’ was similarly under discussion because that’s someone all of us can identify, because she’s a celebrity.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
*******EVERYONE READ THIS*******
As I understand it, many people on this thread thought that Q Grrl was defending a position that Tom described thusly:
Q Grrl has clarified that this is not what she was saying. (Please don’t respond by explaining why you think that was what Q Grrl was saying. Even if you think it was once reasonable to think that was her position, it has now ceased to be reasonable to think so.)
I think the entire homeless person vs. Paris Hilton discussion, though no single individual’s fault, has become a “poison pill” digression to this discussion. (I say this even though it’s clear that I contributed to this digression as much as anyone else.)
Therefore, I am telling EVERYONE TO DROP THE PARIS HILTON VS HOMELESS MAN SUBJECT, AND ALL VARIATIONS OF IT. I want to try and return this thread to a more productive area of discussion.
I’ll wait a little while to allow for cross-posting; after that, I’m going to start deleting comments that continue that particular discussion.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Look, don’t fuckin’ put Paris Hilton in scare quotes. She’s not theorectical.
You have yet, that I can see, put out people’s real names in conjunction with Paris Hilton. Until you do, it’s theorectical.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Actually, no, please keep putting Paris Hilton in scare quotes.
You prove my point soundly.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Ampersand (quoting me):
I wouldn’t say it was “a lot”. At the time I was writing the above, nobody had objected either to that quote, or to Q Grrl’s rather grotesque argument generally. As far as I can see, besides myself, only Robert has challenged the precise quote (on different grounds), while only Myca has pointed to the general objectionableness of her argument. (I appreciate his doing so.) But the thread is fast moving, and perhaps I missed others also doing so.
The rest of your comment is a content-free snipe.
I don’t agree that analogies have to be identical. They have to be similar in all pertinent respects. In this case the stereotyping of men (in particular creepy men who live on the streets) as molesters is similar to the stereotyping of blacks as the same.
In any case, isn’t sauce for the goose also sauce for the gander? Dianne has made a comparison with race: “listening to men complain about their oppression as men** is a bit like listening to whites in the US complain about their oppression as whites”.
Dianne’s analogy fails because there is a pertinant differences. Nobody says “Albinarchy hurts whites too”, because, basically, it doesn’t. But there are real problems for men which feminists deny, dismiss, etc.
Yet you raise no objection to Dianne’s comparison.
Nor did the film industry say that blacks were default rapists and muggers, when they were casting blacks predominantly in those roles.
Why has this homeless man been cast as a rapist? He wasn’t introduced into the discussion as one. Do you see no predudice being played to here?
The risks and consquences of domestic violence have no bearing upon whether her fear of being assaulted by a homeless man, or more generally, of being assaulted outside by a stranger is well-founded, so this is a Red Herring.
Men are much more likely to be murdered, and, if assaulted, more likely to be seriously injured than women. I can dig out a cite for you if you need one.
Permit me to rephrase the point: Why do we not see feminist campaigns aiming to allaying women’s fears about going out?
(I would also add that I see plenty of attacks on my integrity as an individual, and feminists including you attack the integrity of critics of feminism generally, so I wonder if there isn’t a “one rule for them; another for us” in operation here.)
I do not agree that “if we take [my] argument seriously we’d come to [that] conclusion”. It’s quite legitimate for me to point to a disconnect between feminists stated goals (relieving women from the burdens imposed upon them by the Patriarchy) and their (lack of) action (failing to make efforts to allay those fears, even though they are unfounded). I could also point out that feminist actions in this regard are consistent with other possible goals, such as fomenting hatred towards men.
Would it be against to rules for me to do this? It’s pretty much the same technique you use when criticising, for example, anti-abortion arguments.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
The same way that a man can be a street-fighter without ever studying martial arts.
I don’t need to have studied mathematics to know that a proof which contains the statement 2+2=5 is bogus.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
If it had been just the single feminist on this thread, then Tom could never have commented about it on FCB, could he?
The things we criticise feminists for, are things we see time and time again.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Yes, I agree, Diane’s comparison would have been better not made, for similar reasons I think your comparison would have been better not made.
I disagree with the implication that I’m required to respond to each and every instance of logical fallacy X that occurs in a discussion on “Alas,” or else it’s illegitimate to respond to any of them.
I’m not responding to further iterations of the Paris Hilton discussion, for obvious reasons.
You’ve shifted your claim. Yes, many more men are murder victims than women, and men are more likely to be injured in an assault. But there are vastly more female rape victims than male murder victims, and for that matter quite possibly more male rape victims than male murder victims.
Because feminists haven’t seen that as the most pressing priority. Feminists do not have infinite resources.
There is indeed a double standard on “Alas,” as I’ve explained to you more than once in the past. As an MRA, or anti-feminist, or whatever the heck it is you’re calling your “I do virtually nothing with my time but attack feminists” position, there are about a billion forums available for you to smear feminists, demonize feminists, lie about feminists, and so forth. “Alas” is not one of them. If you can’t deal with that, then you’re free to go away.
This argument might hold some water, if it were not possible that you and many feminists might have a good-faith disagreement about what the burdens imposed on women by the patriarchy are, and which ones should be prioritized. If, however, such a good-faith disagreement is possible, then it seems likely that feminists’ “lack of action” in this one, single, narrow area doesn’t reflect a lack of sincerity, but just a failure of feminists to march in lockstep with Daran’s thinking.
Edited to add: Also, you weren’t criticizing feminist action in a general fashion. You were criticizing someone for bringing up a particular argument on this particular thread, and saying that for them to have brought up the argument on this thread is encouraging fear. That’s a ludicrous argument.
Yes, to say that would be against the rules of “Alas.” Say it again — even in an indirect way, such as the way you said it here — and you’re banned from this thread.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Daran writes:
Granted, a street fighter can fight without ever having taken martial arts. But unless you’ve studied, or at least have practical experience with, martial arts, you just can’t criticise it.
Your criticisms of feminists are just … weird. If you don’t understand what a term of art like “privilege” means, you bound to come up with these weird comparisions that have nothing to do with what “privilege”, as a feminist term of art, means.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Surely you jest. Surely.
Ever hear of “Take Back the Night”?
Also, read my threads about rape culture.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Daran:
The more I read you, the more it becomes obvious that you only critique what you think feminist might say. You’ve not read feminist message boards or blogs. If you had, you’d not be able to pull off the “feminists aren’t doing anything to allay fear.”
Amp, the fact that you didn’t catch that and set him straight is appalling. Especially with your comment about feminist limited resources.
What the hell? Has everyone forgotten what feminism is and what it’s doing?
This, Amp, goes beyond dense. This is being obtuse for the sake of… what? I dunno.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Q Grrl, good point about Take Back The Night. I was being obtuse.
(I’m sure that you’ve never in your life had a momentary brain fart; I’m not so lucky.)
Can you please provide a link to your “threads about rape culture”?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
outlier:
Me:
Ampersand:
If our theories aren’t at least in some way based on reality, then we might as well be arguing about dancing angels on a pin.
For a start, can you identify a single issue on which men’s interests generally and women’s interests generally don’t in fact coincide? I’m talking about men’s real interests here, not their feminist-theoretical interest in having every woman on the planet in terror of rape.
On the other hand, they may have a greater or more direct interest in a thing. Let’s call these women’s and men’s interests respectively. Can you identify a single act of legislation or government that disfavours women’s interests other than those based on conservative sexual morality?
Can the theory that powerful men “shape the world according to these preferences, to the benefit of men and the detriment of women” explain why the less vulnerable women were given priority over the more vulnerable men in the 1993 evacuation of Srebrenica? (Two years later, all the men were massacred.) Can it explain why the 1930 convention on forced labour prohibited the exploitation of women, but permits the exploitation of men?
My theory that powerful people of whatever sex “shape the world according to gender norms which often benefit women” explains both these things.
I think you realise the difficulty when you say ’suggestive’. Your theory (at least, the theory you’re defending here) predicts that the vote will split on gender lines with respect to these issues. Mine that it will along political lines, (since political consituencies often have different gender-norms). Your linked site shows that among US legislators it split on political lines. In particular, the Republican women sponsored no women-friendly laws at all. Also some things classed as women-friendly were just generally progressive (such as gay rights).
At best, your cite stands for the propostion that female Democratic legislators are more progressive than male Democratic legislators. Unfortunately we haven’t progressed far enough to recognise the idea that men’s needs matter.
I don’t know about Sweden. What the betting that, in enacting (or blocking) ‘women-friendly’ legislation, the votes were split along political rather than gender lines?
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Um, I realize this tread has moved way beyond this, but I just wanted to say, Amp, that you had a very good response to my concerns.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
[...] Oh well, it looks like, even on threads open to non-feminists, you can’t - you know - criticise feminism. I will abide by the ban, of course. (My last post was crossposted, so I wasn’t aware of it when I posted). [...]
This comment was written by Feminist Critics.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Daran, would anything at all convince you that the world is not run for the benefit of women? Or are you so resentful at those neurotypical high-powered career bitches giving you lip that no proof at all could ever be enough? I’m genuinely curious, because your hatred of a theory you admit you know nothing about goes way beyond the rational.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
“I think the best way of thinking about “oppression” is that the word refers to systems of determining who gets to comprise the dominant or controlling class, not to specific instances of harm”
I think this is the crux of the disagreement. The concept of dominant or controlling class is a relative one and is subject to multi-dimensional analysis.
In binary mode (in the US) black people are oppressed by white people.
In binary mode some upper class white people oppress lower class white people.
The problematic areas come when you mix possible classifications and try to analyze oppression. Can an upper class black man oppress a lower class white woman? Depending on the situation, the answer is clearly “YES”. If the situation is such that class or gender (or both) is more important than race, she can definitely be oppressed by him.
The typical problem is that any particular theorist gets stuck on single variables of oppression as if they were the only (or principle) one. This makes sense because they spend a lot of time studying that one thing. They then sometimes have trouble admitting that in a multi-variable world, the subject of their study of oppression along one dimension might be the oppressor along other dimensions–even so far as to negate the dimension of their study in the situation at hand.
So a gender-specialist may correctly identify that a man has oppressed a woman in some situation. That same man and same woman may potentially be in reversed situations of oppressor and oppressed along the racial divide.
This comment was written by Sebastian Holsclaw.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Daran writes:
Sure.
Access to sex.
Which is maintained by keeping women in terror of rape. But you knew that already, or you wouldn’t have excluded it as merely a “feminist-theoretical interest”.
Dworkin wrote extensively on the subject, but you’d have to have read Dworkin to understand what she’s saying. Heck, I don’t know of any feminist author who wrote more brilliantly on the subject. She and Susan Brownmiller saved my life 20+ years ago (for values of 20 pretty close to 10 + 10) with what they wrote on the subject.
You’d also have to understand that, as Dworkin put it (more or less — I’m in a Dworkin mood and may well botch the paraphrase …) men seem to fear what would happen if y’all quit it with all the stupid games you play get get sex, when the most likely result of ending the rape culture would be women being less afraid of men and more willing to engage in that which you constantly harass us into giving you.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Correction to the trackback: As Amp has pointed out in the comments here, I havn’t been banned. I was given a final warning. My apologies to him for the misreading.
Nevertheless, I won’t post to this thread again. I may reply in the thread at FCB to some of the comments made here and the thread is in any case open to anyone who want to discuss any of these issues with us, or otherwise to be free of the restrictions here.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Amp
I cop to the point-scoring - sorry, I should have point-scored at FCB.
Julie
Can you think of any kind of privilege which does not accrue more to a millionairess than to a homeless man?
I’m thoroughly puzzled by this follow-up:
The question is not whether a man is privileged over a woman of “similar class” but whether he is privileged over a woman who is incomparably wealthier than he is. What are you suggesting? That because men are more privileged over women of their own class, they are privileged over women of any class?
I don’t want to be unfair about this: perhaps you can reconfigure what you’ve said into a more cogent argument for me?
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Tom Nolan writes:
Yes, male privilege. That’s the entire point. All things being equal, a homeless man and a millionairess walk into various sorts of stores, and the homeless man is treated better. A homeless man and a millionaires, all other things being equal, the homeless man gets the job and the millionairess doesn’t.
Oh, you mean, a millionairess walks into a store waving around $100 bills and a homeless man walks in smelling of urine. Why didn’t you say so!
That’s a scenario that’s not being discussed because a millionaire walks into the same store and is treated better than the millionairess and a homeless man walks in and is treated better than a homeless woman. THIS is the scenario feminists talk about — all other things being equal, a man receives better treatment than a woman.
It’s the “all other things being equal” aspect that you and others keep ignoring. I think most feminists (except for the intentionally dense ones …) understand how class, race, religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation all intersect. And we can probably tell you that, for example, all other things being equal, whites are treated better than blacks, Christians better than Jews and Moslems, Western Europeans better than Eastern Europeans or Middle Easterners, and straights better than big queers like moi. We’re not ignorant about “class” and all the different classes. We (me and my tapeworm) believe that “all other things being equal” is how one determines power-up / power-down relationships.
There’s a lot to be gleaned from this, and a lot of stuff that, if men would just stop resisting this approach to things, could be beneficial to men.
All other things being equal, tall men are favored over short men. All other things being equal, masculine men are favored over feminine men. All other things being equal, stay-home dads are treated worse than work-for-pay dads. And so on down the line.
Feminism, and feminist analysis, is NOT the enemy of men. So … quit treating us like we’re your enemy. Unless your the machoest dude going, feminism has something of value to offer you.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
I disagree. The pertinent question here, in my opinion, is whether the male gender role dispenses a type of power unavailable to those in the female gender role. I would assert that it does; and with this power, those ascribing to the gender role of male have the responsibility to demonstrate that said power is not being abused.
I feel that this responsibility has not been met by the assertions thus far; furthermore, I find the examples by Q Grrl and others of exploitation based on gender roles compelling. Those inhabiting the male gender role can certainly point to certain patterns of behavior in it that they find personally destructive, but to assert that this means that the role itself cannot be considered oppressive ignores the inherent culpability of the dominant interactant.
The dichotomy of gender has helped to create a superior and a subordinate class structure- demonstratively debasing, in my view; but one that must be acknowledged to be rectified.
If you inhabit the role, then assume the inherent complicity in its destructive actions; find the courage to change it instead of discrediting those who demonstrate its abhorrent nature.
This comment was written by robin ruse.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Julie
What does “all things being equal” mean? Do you mean that if the homeless man and the millionairess appeared to be equally rich he would be treated better? That is a very unlikely scenario, but even if it were to come about it would rest on a simple misunderstanding. As soon as it became known that he was a pauper and she was a millionairess her treatment would be in every conceivable way superior to his. In other words the privilege accruing to her financial position would massively outweigh the privilege accruing to his masculinity.
Yes, if people didn’t know that she was a millionairess she wouldn’t enjoy the privilege due to a millionairess. So what? If people didn’t know he was a man he wouldn’t enjoy the privilege due to a man. Given that neither of these things is usually a secret, in what way is a homeless man privileged over a millionairess?
Or do you want to beg this question by repeating that being a man is synonymous with enjoying male privilege?
I don’t consider you or feminists in general to be my enemy , Julie. On the other hand, I do consider faulty reasoning to be the enemy of feminism. Really, you would do better to consider my arguments that to make - quite false - assumptions about my motives.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Tom Nolan writes:
Well, since most women aren’t millionairesses and most men are homeless, it has the advantage of dealing with real-world situations. That’s the answer to “So what?”
Feminism, and feminists in general, is very comfortable dealing with class privilege. Of course the woman with a bazillion dollars gets treated better than a man with smelly clothes and no money. Point conceded. But how many dollars, or how much wealth, or whatever, does a woman have to have before being treated like a man’s equal? If you think the answer is $0.00, you’re really mistaken. And if you acknowledge that the answer is greater than $0.00 you have to acknowledge that our reasoning isn’t the least bit fault.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
The first part is perceptive. They do tend to blame feminism for absolutely everything currently considered wrong in society, do they not? If you read their blogs, a certain pattern quickly emerges. They want women to stay home, put out, and shut up - anything other than this rouses their ire. This point is especially easy to see by reading the less popular mra blogs; the more widely known sites are similar in viewpoint but more careful in their accusations.
The last bit Diane mentioned, though, doesn’t explain why the mra’s are “whining”, or why some feminists take offense. It’s a given that, for whatever reason, some mra’s simply cannot differentiate the apparently subtle nuances between systematic patriarchal oppression done to others for their benefit as a class, and isolated harms which “blowback” to all men in general as a result. For these mra’s: they simply don’t “get it”, their lives are not going as they intended, they’re unhappy and looking for a scapegoat.
For other mra’s, however, Diane is most likely willing to assume benevolent reasons for their complaints against feminism; I am not so convinced. History again, I’m afraid. Just as there have always been men working hard to convince other men of woman’s basic humanity, there have always been others working hard to maintain women’s subjegation.
Anyone can say anything at all, but when asked what it is that they really want changed, the mra’s will propose what ultimately amounts to legal restrictions on women’s safety.
I’m confused as to why anyone would examine their rhetoric, and take their concerns at face value. They cannot display even basic comprehension of what systematic oppression actually means. They think there’s a giant cabal of feminazi conspiratores plotting their downfall. Every fact and study cited by them eventually proves fictious or duplicitous upon examination.
I know why I don’t take them seriously; now somebody tell me why you do.
This comment was written by mAndrea.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
“Every fact and study cited by them eventually proves fictious or duplicitous upon examination.”
I’ve been thinking about doing a very long blog post about this.
This one in particular: http://www.csulb.edu/%7Emfiebert/assault.htm and it looks like the author finally removed all the duplicate studies (there were at least 30 when I counted) and put it in alphabetical order. One night I looked up the first 10 studies which were available in full on line. None of them claimed what the author asserted, and one study didn’t exist anywhere at all. I even looked up the reseacher’s name - nope, nada.
This comment was written by mAndrea.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 1:05 am
“But how many dollars, or how much wealth, or whatever, does a woman have to have before being treated like a man’s equal? If you think the answer is $0.00, you’re really mistaken. And if you acknowledge that the answer is greater than $0.00 you have to acknowledge that our reasoning isn’t the least bit fault. ”
This is way too binary. My guess is that the difference in wealth necessary to get to equal is about $5,000 per year for the lower class, $10,000 for the middle class and somewhere in the range of $50-75,000 in the upper class. That is to say that if you are only doing SAME CLASS comparisons, the woman needs about that much to get to equal with a man.
If you are doing cross-class comparisons, an upper class woman is often in a position to oppress a lower class man.
So the reasoning is “the least bit at fault” because it fails to adequately look at how cross-class oppression can be stronger than male-female oppression. One of the key problems in this thread is that a number of commenters reduce everything to rape situations, when so far as I can tell, most male-female cross-class interactions do not actually involve rape or the threat of rape. Many of them involve things like purchasing goods and services from the lower class man.
This comment was written by Sebastian Holsclaw.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 2:51 am
Julie
Thankyou for that.
What do you mean “our reasoning”. I was arguing against your claim that male privilege outweighed any amount of a woman’s financial privilege, not against feminism’s claim that, all things being equal, men are privileged.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 5:14 am
Tom writes:
There you go again, assuming the “privilege” we’re talking about is like a bank account. A “bank account” sort of privilege goes away when the bank account is empty. Class privilege is something that doesn’t go away.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Glad to oblige.
-title IX legislation
-affirmative action for women
-health insurance funding for the Pill
-health insurance funding for Viagra
-rape shield legislation and other rape law changes (given that men are the primary rapists and women the primary victims, any changes in rape laws tend to affect one group more than the other)
-divorce law w/r/t assignment of alimony and/or $$$ based on ‘home contributions’ (see note above re rape)
hey that was fun! i could think of them as fast as I could type! And of course there are more.
Could you really not think of a single example of that type of issue? that seems surprising to say the least–especially as I’ve listed some of these in recent threads in which we have disagreed.
What is this clarification for? “generally don’t coincide” already covers the examples where their interests are not dichotomous, but merely quite different with some overlap.
Hey, nice one. You managed to exclude (in the second half of your sentence) one of the most major areas relating to the subject. Are you conceding the discrimination in that area? Because if not, I don’t see why you should be allowed to make your “general” point while ignoring it.
Anyway.
What’s our “universe” here? if its’ worldwide, it is extraordinarily easy to list. (again: are you literally incapapable of thinking of a single example? or are you deliberately being obtuse? You have been on Alas for a while, how could you have missed this all?)
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Amp, you ask:
I was thinking mostly of the threads here where I dissect our rape culture. Also my threads about women-only space (it’s interesting that while MRA’s like Daran suggest feminists are fear mongering and not doing anything, they are also the most likely to take umbrage at women-only space. Go figure).
And yes, I have brain obtusity, amongst many other ailments.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 7:35 am
(And it’s for this reason I hate WordPress …)
Tom Nolan writes:
As I wrote in “My Reply, Version 1.0″, “bank account privilege” is not like “class privilege” in that “bank account privilege” goes away along with the bank account, but class privilege only goes away if one someone loses membership in the class =and= loses the internalized messages associated with that class membership. Because one is often unaware of all the internalized messages, losing those attitudes and beliefs, or even becoming aware that they exist and what they are, is just very difficult.
That’s what male privilege is in feminist discourse — the privileges, which include the internalization of those privileges as somehow “deserved”, perhaps because they were “earned” through great personal effort and not simply bestoyed upon the individual due to their class membership, that are granted due to being male.
What you’re arguing is that because “bank account privilege” exists, class privilege either doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter. Sebastian acknowledged that there are class differences between men and women — all other things being equal, men are privileged over women. The feminist argument is that because, all other things being equal, men are privileged over women. That if you lined up men on one side, and women on the other, ranked by “power” (or perhaps “bank acocunt privilege”), straight down the line, all those men would be privileged, one for one, over all those women. And, furthermore, that this is how male privilege, as a set of internalized messages and attitudes, is constructed. He is more deserving, more entitled, more worthy, more everything good, than women.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Julie
That’s axiomatic: the privilege which accrues to me as a member of a class can be lost only through my membership of that class. Likewise: the privilege which accrues to me as an owner of wealth can be lost only through the possession of that wealth.
It is agreed that loss of membership to the male sex (you know a lot more about this than I do, obviously) is generally speaking more problematic than the loss of a lot of money. But that has no bearing on the dispute at hand, and which I thought you had actually conceded: that, as a matter of fact, a millionairess enjoys way more privilege of every kind than a homeless vagrant.
Do you now wish to resile from your concession and say that, because it’s harder for him to lose his membership of his sexual class than it is for her to lose her money, he in fact enjoys more privilege than she does?
Why, by the way, do you think that when I refer to privilege I am exclusively referring to money? I take it for granted that money can buy lots of privilege, but I do not make the mistake of thinking that they are one and the same.
No, I’m not. I challenge you to quote anything I have written which would support such an accusation.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Me
Not wordpress: just me being dumb.
That should read
Sorry.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I wouldn’t call Daran an MRA, just somebody who irrationally hates feminism and seems to blame women for the disadvantages caused by his disability.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 11:37 am
“Sebastian acknowledged that there are class differences between men and women — all other things being equal, men are privileged over women. The feminist argument is that because, all other things being equal, men are privileged over women. That if you lined up men on one side, and women on the other, ranked by “power” (or perhaps “bank acocunt privilege”), straight down the line, all those men would be privileged, one for one, over all those women. ”
But since the question is akin to “can men be oppressed” in a feminist context, the answer is clearly ‘yes’. Since oppression is a multi-faceted evil, it is possible for women to oppress men–along a different dimension of oppression. White women can oppress black men. Upper class black women can oppress lower class white men. Etc.
This comment was written by Sebastian Holsclaw.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Tom Nolan writes:
… and they are orthogonal and therefore shouldn’t be mixed and matched.
That’s why … all other things being equal, men are more privileged than women.
“Money” buys a kind of privilege. It cannot buy the kind of privilege that is meant in terms like “male privilege”, “white privilege”, “straight privilege” or any of the other class privileges, besides “class privilege”. OJ Simpson, for all his wealth and access, was instantly reduced to a black thug by someone who decided to darken his photo on a magazine cover. That’s the lie that money buys privilege — it doesn’t.
Yes, of course the rich white woman is treated better than the poor black gutter occupant who smells of urine. But take that man out of the gutter, give him a bath, haircut, manicure, and put him in a suit and tie, and he’s got more “privilege” than her. Her money means nothing because short of changing sex, she’s a she and he’s a he and the he’s win just about every time they stand on equal footing.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Julie, I agree completely on the ‘equal footing’ point. I mean, duh, right?
My only quibble is that I don’t think the privilege that comes with wealth necessarily goes away when the money does. Being upper-class includes a host of social connections, manners, knowledge and culture about how to dress and act, knowing the right restaurants, the right wine, and so on. Although money can come and go, people with those traits have an easier time regaining money when it’s gone, and will often find themselves treated better in general . . . they’ve got privilege, in other words.
Of course, I think that this may come down to the difference between ‘having money’ and ‘being upper class’. I think you can have a hell of a lot of money without being a member of the ‘class’ “Upper Class People”. I think membership in that class is both a cultural and a money-based thing.
—-Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Actually, that’s why we have common cultural markers for things like The Nouveau Riche, and The Genteel Poor.
The Nouveau Riche = Money but no upper-class culture.
The Genteel Poor = Upper class culture, but no money.
Both would ‘kinda-sorta’ be members of the class “Upper Class People,” I think.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Okay, just one more comment. Dammit, I just keep thinking of stuff.
I completely 100% agree.
I think a lot of the pushback here though is because there’s also no group I can go to and say “Hey, I’m a white guy . . . can you give me a bunch of money, because I may be poor, but I’m really, really male and really, really white.”
I don’t think that privilege in one area cancels out lack of privilege in another. I don’t think there are trump cards.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
I think a lot of the pushback here though is because there’s also no group I can go to and say “Hey, I’m a white guy . . . can you give me a bunch of money, because I may be poor, but I’m really, really male and really, really white.”
How about a bank? In other words, would a bank be more likely to lend money to a “high risk” client if said client was white and male than if same were black, female, foreign, or otherwise obviously “other”? (This is a question, not a claim. I don’t know of any particular evidence one way or another.)
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Oh, almost certainly they’d be more willing to lend to a white guy than a black woman, all other things being equal.
But still, I think that their primary determinant of lending status would be financial solvency, and the fact that someone’s white/male/straight won’t help them much in getting a loan if they’re also dirt poor.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Banks do not generally grant loans to high-risk clients of any description. You want high-risk capital, you’re looking at a credit card company, a venture capitalist, or a loan shark. Credit card companies are racially neutral in their policies; it’s usually a computer making the decision. VCs and loan sharks are as racist as other people, so there you would probably see a difference.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
That’s pretty much my definition of an mra. Except they also are trying to rollback the gains of equality and safety for women.
I have been looking specifically for mra sites which do not do those things you mention, and I have only found two. In both of these cases, the site was careful to stick to one very narrow topic, didn’t mention proposed changes to existing law, didn’t mention women at all, and so it was impossible to determine how the author perceived women. These two sites were among a couple hundred I have read.
The pattern is obvious.
There are lots of wonderful men who aren’t like this, though, and I would be much more interested in hearing their thoughts, what they think needs improving or topics they think needs discussing - men like Amp perhaps, or Charles who posts here, and some others. The mra’s, on the other hand, simply can’t be trusted to give an accurate perspective. Unfortunately, those are the shouty ones who post every other second.
This comment was written by mAndrea.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Another article on gender and loan approval.
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Julie
But OJ Simpson was a man, wasn’t he? So, obviously his male privilege no more protected him from racial vilification than his wealth privilege. So why are you claiming that the privilege which results from wealth is fundamentally dissimilar from the privilege which comes from sex? Neither provides a hundred percent protection if one is disadvantaged in some other way.
Can you show me how wealth-derived privilege differs in quality from sex-derived privilege or race-derived privilege? If I get served first in a shop on account of my wealth, as opposed to my sex or my skin colour, how is that any less of a privilege? If the jury takes my word more readily on account of my wealth, as opposed to my sex or my skin colour, how is that any less of a privilege? If I get admitted to a hospital on account of my wealth, as opposed to my sex or my skin colour, how is that any less of a privilege?
Privilege can proceed from many sources, but its quality doesn’t change according to those sources.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Sorry, Julie, missed this first time round.
Not true at all. A man (as the result of some “Pygmalion” style experiment, say) who wore a tailor-made suit, who boasted the most perfectly manicured hands and who sported the best coiffeur that money could buy, but who was known to be a pauper would enjoy very little privilege in comparison to an ill-kempt, foul-mouthed and generally obnoxious woman who was known to be a millionairess.
Take the slovenly but well-known millionairess and the well-presented but notoriously broke man into Bloomingdales and see who gets the best service.
As to this
I know precisely as much as you have chosen to make public on this blog.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Tom wrote:
I think your argument conflates “the effects of privilege can overlap and be identical in many cases” with “the quality of privilege never changes, regardless of the source.” But the two aren’t the same, and although I think the former is true, I don’t think the latter is true.
There’s a lot that being in a privileged class has in common, whatever that class is. The primary thing, in my mind, is that privileged classes are always considered the “norm” for whatever society they’re in. A generic, unmarked person in US society is male, is white, is upper-middle-class, is ablebodied, is straight, is cisgendered, is thin, and so on.
But there are also differences. For example, one important difference between wealth-derived privilege and male-defined privilege is that the disadvantages of wealth-derived privilege are so few, so infrequent and so inconsequential. (Relatively speaking). While I think men in general are significantly advantaged by male privilege, I would qualify that statement with many exceptions, such as workplace deaths, estrangement from families, lack of services for male rape victims, mass killings of men in many wars, and so on. Although there are some Gasby-like poor little rich people out there, and the very rare instances of Patty Herst like targeting, on the whole the disadvantages of being rich are minor compared to the disadvantages of being male.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Amp
I think that Q Grrl was maybe right when she called me (amongst others) dense.
I cannot for the life of me see how what you have written - much of which, I hasten to add, is unobjectionable - is in any way at odds with what I have written. The gender role associated with the privilege one enjoys as a man may well bring with it all sorts of drawbacks which the wealth associated with the privilege one enjoys as a millionaire does not. That does not, however, imply a difference of quality between the privilege one receives as a man on the one hand, and the privilege one receives as a millionaire on the other. Does it?
My statements and yours seem “orthogonal” (as Julie would no doubt phrase the matter).
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Tom, I’m glad if our disagreement is merely a matter of semantics.
I think we are probably using different working definitions of the word “quality.” I was assuming you meant quality as in the oft-heard contrast between “quantity and quality”; quantity refers to amount, quality refers to type, or to details. There are differences in type and in details between how class-based oppression operates and how gender-based oppression operates, in my opinion.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 5:56 am
Tom Nolan writes:
There are too many instances in which well-known people — the genuine rich and famous — have been arrested or hassled because of their race or sex to believe that what you’ve described exists anywhere except rhetorically.
The exception of the rich white woman and the poor black man doesn’t prove that male privilege is some fiction. It proves that race and wealth are other forms of privilege. The important thing, that you don’t seem to grasp, is that people in classes which are power-down (women, people of color, GLBT, non-Christians in Christian countries, etc) cannot buy their way out of group membership.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 7:11 am
The important thing about wealth is that it’s not immutable.
The supreme court has, wisely, noted that there’s a huge difference between discriminating on the basis of an IMMUTABLE characteristic versus a changeable one.
Women and POC just… are what they are, in respect to their status as such. Wealthy people can become non-wealthy, and (admittedly harder but possible) non-wealthy people can become wealthy. certainly, small changes in wealth happen all the time to many folks, while very few change sex and essentially nobody changes race.
So it’s not that wealth privilege doesn’t EXIST. Of course it does. But it’s not worrisome in the same way as gender (or race) privilege, because it’s, hmm, more ‘neutral.’
It goes back to what i wrote above: “the ability of the oppressed to escape the oppression.”
If you are nasty to a woman because she is a democrat, that’s not gender-based oppression. If she doesn’t like it, she can become a republican. OTOH, if you’re nasty because she is female, what’s she supposed to do? Get a sex change?
You keep talking about wealth as if it’s equivalent to gender. It’s not.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 8:28 am
Julie
Yes, one can be racially and sexually harrassed and discriminated against despite being rich. It is perfectly true, that is, that wealth does not necessarily immunize against all the effects of racial and sexual prejudice (although it immunizes against many of them). But that shows only that privilege derived from wealth is no more impregnable than privilege derived from gender (remember: OJ Simpson was racially denigrated despite the fact that he was a man) or privilege derived from colour (who is going to be treated better in an altercation with the law: Oprah Winfrey or a white homeless woman?).
Julie, what I said about a dishevelled and foul-mouthed woman known to be a millionairess being assured better treatment at Bloomingdales (and in many other situations besides, naturally) than a well-presented man known to be a pauper was correct. No general statement that money is not an absolute guarantee against the effects sexual and racial prejudice can undermine the observable fact that the possession of wealth frequently does neutralize those effects.
This is something you need to take up with somebody who believes that no privilege accrues to membership of the male sex. Disputing it with me will be a frustrating exercise, as I believe no such thing.
It is you who are failing to grasp something, Julie: something you could have grasped long ago if you had paid attention to what I was actually writing rather than spent your time debating against positions I do not hold. I have never suggested that the mere possession of wealth allows people to buy their way out of group membership (though as a matter of fact wealth could be used to change a person’s apparent gender and colour). All that I have said is that wealth is a source of privilege, and that such privilege can and often does outweigh the privilege which derives from other sources (membership of sexual or racial groups, say). If you had grasped this (to me self-evident) truth you would never have been able to write
in the first place.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 8:39 am
Sailorman
I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I gave in comment 119.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 12:07 pm
The supreme court has, wisely, noted that there’s a huge difference between discriminating on the basis of an IMMUTABLE characteristic versus a changeable one.
That’s not accurate. The Supreme Court has noted that there is a difference between discriminating on the basis of certain categories that are Constitutionally suspect vs. ones that aren’t. It is true that race isn’t mutable, but the distinction isn’t “aw, they can’t help being that way.”
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Tom,
I went back and re-read virtually every word you have written in this thread, and my earlier response –
is my response.
You appear to be hear to set us poor feminists straight in our reasoning — and you said as much upthread, that faulty thinking (what you’ve accused us of here) is the enemy of feminism.
Feminism is not a “Theory of Everything”, in that it attempts to address all manners of oppression in some unified theory that can accurately predict if a gay black man in suit and tie and turban (signifying, perhaps, being non-Christian) has more or less power than a straight white woman in country garb (signifying some rural class membership) wearing a crucifix (signifying being a member of the dominant, Christian for the USofA, religion).
Your complaint with feminism seems to be that it either isn’t a “Theory of Everything” or that it isn’t paying attention to things other than gendered power structures, which is pretty much the same thing, only less expansive. Instead of not being about a bazillion things, it’s not about some shorter list. Somewhere in there is this complaint that because some men, under some set of circumstances are power-down, relative to some group of women with some set of attributes, feminism is illogical, or feminist thinking is faulty. My only response is that women in those same circumstance as the men who are relatively disempower still have more power than women in the same situation, and men in the same position as this hypothetical powerful woman have more power than her. That’s the validity of feminism to me — all other things being equal, men have more power (and men misuse that power) than women.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Julie
No, not “us”. You. I meant that you, Julie, are not doing any favours to the movement you love by defending it with what are, to say the least, problematic arguments. That is the second time you have tried to turn my debate with you and your arguments into a debate with feminism and its tenets. You seem determined to see our dialogue as an episode in the war between feminism and its enemies, but that isn’t how I see it.
That depends on which feminism you’re referring to. Some feminists believe that the oppression to which women are subjected by men is the cause and support of all other kinds of oppression. That is the view of Heart, for instance, and also the view of Twisty Faster - and of many of their followers (amongst which I do not count you, naturally). For them feminism is quite definitely a theory of everything.
Perhaps that’s true. And there is nothing wrong with concentrating on ameliorating the effects of one kind of privilege, one kind of unfair disadvantage. But your arguments in this thread have been of a different kind. You have suggested that the privilege that results from belonging to the male gender is somehow incomparable with the privilege that results from possessing wealth. And though you are willing to admit the fact that, yes, a man stinking of urine and dressed in rags might be somewhat less welcome in a shop than a very wealthy woman, you persistently suggest that wealth privilege can trump male privilege only in such extreme cases. But that’s nonsense. A man does not have to be an outright vagrant to find himself outranked by a woman in terms of privilege: once people know that she is wealthier than him they will take care of her needs before they take care of his. I, for example, don’t go into Harrod’s these days smelling of piss and dressed in rags the way I used to to but I still won’t be welcomed like Brittney Spears or Angela Merkel.
So why all that effort to minimize or deny an obvious truth? In my view, because you have categorized women as an oppressed gender and therefore find it difficult to face the fact that there are millions of women in the west who are very privileged indeed in comparison with millions of men. That’s an uncomfortable fact, but it isn’t to be wished away by invoking an inalienable “male privilege” which no woman can share.
Just think about it: the vagrant has forfeited all the other sources of privilege that he might have aspired to - wealth, professional success, community prestige etc. What privilege he has must derive from his being a man rather than a woman. And nonetheless he will still be the most shunned of creatures. Our millionairess cannot aspire to male privilege and may be, like the vagrant, without the talent necessary to achieve other kinds of privilege. But she won’t, of course, be despised like him. To have nothing but male privilege is a disaster, to have nothing but the privilege which derives from a lot of money - well, it’s a rather less dramatic predicament. Doesn’t that make you wonder if you are perhaps exaggerating the value of male privilege while underestimating wealth privilege?
Your thinking in this thread has, in my view, been faulty. That doesn’t mean that all feminist thinking is. You say that my supposed complaint against feminism is “somewhere in there”. Since you’ve reread my comments on this thread, might I ask you to produce a supporting quotation? This is not the first time I have asked you to back up your accusations against me with quotations, by the way.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 10:42 pm
A lesson in opression from 753 B.C. to 2000 A.D.
Read that, and then try to argue that oppression of women is a fluke.
Seriously, try. This is a challenge, a dare, a duel, handbags at dawn.
Loser has to lick my shiny boots.
ps - oh nevermind, the narcissist has run away, too many unrefutable facts.
I’m not sure why arguing the differences between class oppression and gender oppression is a fruitful exercise. Sure they overlap, but who cares? Economic status can be changed through hard work, - biology, not so much. That is why gender discrimination is so much worse, regardless of how much or little wealth someone has.
In someone’s mythical heiress example, she is still subject to her equally wealthy boyfriend’s misogyny - that same old “woman is teh evil and needs to be controlled for her own good” mindset which has existed for millenia. I’m kinda tired of it.
No more excuses.
This comment was written by mAndrea.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Please remember that personal insults are against the rules of this blog. Thanks!
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 11:01 pm
I probably shouldn’t have used that word, even though [edited by Amp.]
I apologize for abusing Amp’s posting policy.
This comment was written by mAndrea.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2007 at 11:13 pm
lol
Sorry!
This comment was written by mAndrea.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 6:40 am
Tom,
I’ve defined my terms repeatedly — all other things being equal, women are power-down relative to men. Comparing wealthy women to poor men isn’t “all other things being equal”. The female vagrant has less power than the male vagrant, and the female millionaire has less power than the male. Can you at least agree with that? You’re free to reject that approach, but to the best of my knowledge, that’s how class analysis generally works.
We don’t compare highly educated women to uneducated men to determine if women are denied employment opportunities — we control for education. Nor do we compare millionaire women to vagrant men to determine if women are denied access to credit — we control for the factors that are supposedly used to determine credit worthiness. This is why your repeated “uncomfortable truth” is just irrelevant.
Nor is “wealth” an absolute immunity to such things as women not being used equally for medical research as men, resulting in medicines and treatments being focused more on men than women — a wealthy woman is no more assured that the medication she is taking, or the treatment she is undergoing, has been tested on others like herself.
Wealth, social status, education attainment, beauty, physical ability, race — none of these things are protection against living in a woman-hating society. They aren’t protection against being a victim of domestic violence or rape. And while they may protect her, to some extent, from legal attacks on her rights, such as the right to reproductive health care, her “protections” are limited to paying a sort of “tax” to escape draconian laws that seek to control her body.
None of those things — violence against women as women, ignoring women’s medical needs because women aren’t men, interfering with a woman’s control over her own body, et cetera, ad nauseum — are things that any vagrant man will ever experience. They are unique to women. Just as “white privilege” doesn’t include a history of African Slavery and Jim Crow Laws in this country, “male privilege” doesn’t include being a target of the rape culture that exists in this country. Those experiences, while the may overlap on individuals, are unique experiences of those CLASSES of individuals.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 6:47 am
The female vagrant has less power than the male vagrant, and the female millionaire has less power than the male.
Hmm. I certainly agree about the millionaires. Not so sure about the vagrants.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 7:20 am
Hi Amp,
great post! sorry, I haven’t read all the comments, just the first 50 or so. I’m not going to engage with the discussion here, since I haven’t read it all, I just wanted to respond to the original article.
I too use Frye’s “Oppression” as the basis of how I think about the subject, and I also think that “oppression” has two distinct parts: subjugation and privilege. Where oppression exists, there is a simultaneous privileging and subjugating of two classes which are constructed as binary opposites. It seems clear enough to me that an oppressed class, having less power as a class, is unable to oppress as a class the group that is privileged by the oppression. If we accept that oppression is a system of institutionalized subjugation and privilege, it is pretty clear that those who are subjugated don’t have the power necessary to construct such an institutionalized system.
Saying that men are oppressed as men by patriarchy (which is the term I use for oppression as a system that privileges men and subjugates women) is illogical if we accept that oppression is a system of institutionalized subjugation and privilege. Patriarchy is set up to subjugate women, to disadvantage women as members of a social class called “women,” so that the very act of existing as a woman is disadvantageous to any member of that class. There may very well be other kinds of oppressions that accrue privileges to individual women (intersectionality), but those systems do not include patriarchy. Patriarchy is set up to accrue privileges to men, to benefit men as members of a social class called “men,” and conversely, if some men experience oppression, it is not due to patriarchy but to other forms of oppression.
This comment was written by thinking girl.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 8:14 am
Naturally, so why did you say
All things are not equal in this example - she is immeasurably richer than he is, but you are still insisting that he can expect better treatment than she can. That is: you have not argued that male privilege prevails when all other things are equal, rather you have argued that it prevails in the face of any amount of wealth privilege. If you had not done so, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Do you not see that the “all other things being equal” says nothing at all about the balance of privilege? If I compare a man and a woman and eliminate all differences in privilege between them but male privilege, then it’s an analytical truth that his privilege prevails against hers. If I compare a man and woman and eliminate all differences between them but wealth privilege, and she happens to be wealthier than him, then it’s an analytic truth that her privilege prevails against his. It’s not a matter of “all other things being equal male privilege prevails.” Rather it’s a matter of “all other things being equal any given privilege prevails”.
Now, if you want to combat the deleterious effects of male privilege on the grounds that one cannot fight all evils at once, then that’s fine by me. But it’s not a good idea to justify your choice on the “all other things being equal” argument, because that argument could just as easily (and just as fallaciously) be used to justify prioritizing wealth or race or national or age privilege as the main problem.
That wealth privilege does not counter all the effects of a lack of privilege in other areas is not in dispute. What is in dispute, apparently, is the notion that this is true of wealth privilege alone. But as I have repeatedly pointed out, and as you have repeatedly failed to acknowledge, no form of privilege offers immunization from a lack of privilege in other areas. The millionairess, despite her wealth privilege, cannot get the drugs she needs; the homeless vagrant, despite his male privilege, cannot get food without having to dig it out of rubbish-skips, cannot get adequate shelter, cannot get a job, cannot get medical coverage of any kind, cannot piss in private.
No, that’s very true: a male vagrant does not, as you say, suffer from violence directed against women as women, nor does he have his medical needs neglected on the grounds that he is a woman, nor need he fear that his body be subjected to the interference which is reserved for women. But then does a female millionairess suffer from the violence directed against the homeless man just for being a homeless man, does she have her medical needs neglected because of poverty and vagrancy, does she risk institutionalization or incarceration on the grounds that her mere existence is an outrage?
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 8:19 am
Ahem
There should be a paragraph break between “…having this discussion.” And “Do you not see…” in comment 151.
It’s a small matter, but could you fix that for me, Ampersand?
[Fixed! --Amp]
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 8:43 am
Then, either a) there is some other gender-based system of oppression other than patriarchy which exists side-by-side with it which explains the very real feminine privileges which currently exist (lower casualty rates and presumptive non-combatancy in war, lower rates of death and injury at work, no requirement to internalize violence and consequently superior emotional health, etc.), or b) your definition of ‘patriarchy’ is grossly inaccurate.
Frye’s discussion of ‘oppression’ suffers from a similar defect.
This comment was written by ballgame.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 10:47 am
Tom, I can’t figure out what you’re trying to say and I wish you’d quote the comment you want to respond to. Assuming Amp didn’t already address this in #88 (the one that starts everyone read this). See also Amp in comment 50, since you keep ignoring Julie’s version.
I think Julie’s made a dubious comment or two in this thread. But instead of addressing any actual flaws you appear to be fighting a straw-feminist of your own creation.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 10:49 am
ballgame, is “presumptive non-combatancy” worth much if, in practice, women are currently in combat? To me, it looks like a disadvantage: all the danger, none of the combat pay. Oh yeah, and all that intra-unit rape that the male soldiers don’t have to worry about. Just saying.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 11:39 am
defenestrated: it is true that women are in combat. It is also true that men are raped (yes, even on occasion by women). Saying that since a small percentage of Western combat casualties are female, we can therefore conclude that male combat casualties are not a predominantly male gender issue, seems no more valid to me than saying that since a small percentage of rape victims are male, rape is not a predominantly female gender issue.
This comment was written by ballgame.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I said I was going to stay out of this thread, but I just couldn’t let this pass.
Defenestrated:
Ignorance of the facts in the face of media misrepresentation is one thing. Wilful denial after having had the true facts drawn to your attention is another thing entirely.
Women do not have “all of the danger”. Women in Iraq face one eighteenth of the danger that men do. That’s right. For every woman killed in Iraq, eighteen men are killed. For every woman injured, eighteen men.
This is not to suggest that Iraqi women don’t face horrendous levels of violence. They do. But the violence faced by Iraqi men is off the scale.
And they’re not combatants, and they’re not getting combat pay. They’re just ordinary men trying to get on with their lives, make a living for their families, and rebuild a ruined country. Some of them are just looking for work. For example, from the UNAMI Report for November-December (my bold):
Including a woman. In other words, killed four men and a woman. And the other incidents likewise mainly or solely men. Labourers, construction workers, people waiting for busses. or buying and selling food in a market.
And there’s nothing exceptional about that paragraph. Download any of those reports and its the same story, over, and over, and over again. (mAndria in particular is invited to examine “every fact” cited by me about Iraq or anything else, to verify that they are neither “fictious [n]or duplicitous”.)
Your “combat pay” remark is precisely the kind of sexist presumption that ballgame was talking about.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 12:58 pm
mAndrea, not mAndria. Sorry about that.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Daran, it seemed obvious to me, reading Defenestrated’s post, that the group she had in mind was American soldiers, not Iraqi civilians.
(You, on the other hand, seemed to think she was talking about Iraqi civilians. Maybe she can clarify which she meant.)
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Daran, ballgame said:
and then said:
[bold mine]
This comment was written by defenestrated.I’m not discounting the experiences of Iraqi women by responding to an argument that doesn’t factor them in.
Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 1:18 pm
hf
hf, do you see those white boxes I’ve included in my comments? They’re the bits of Julie’s comments I’m responding to.
I have no clue what you’re talking about. My debate is with Julie, not with Q Grrl: everything I have said since comment 106 has been a reaction to something that Julie has written. Hence the absolute plethora of quotes from her in my comments.
Now, how about some quotes from what I’ve actually written which might back that accusation up?
Ampersand
If if you feel that I have argued unfairly against Julie, if you feel I have misrepresented her views, if you feel that this whole topic should be taboo, in fact if you have any reason at all for wishing me to desist from commenting here, then just say the word and I’ll stop. I have no wish to abuse your hospitality.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
mAndrea:
Seeing as you’re so concerned about factual accuracy, you might like to know that the “rule of thumb” reference to domestic Violence is a myth (my bold):
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Tom:
I don’t wish you to stop commenting here.
I do think that your arguments against Julie here sometimes are using too fine a comb for what is, after all, a blog comments discussion. For example, I thought that her point in saying “clean that homeless man up, give him an expensive haircut, etc…” was to try and get at the idea of trying to hold all things equal, and your response to her has mainly been to point out how taking care of all those surface elements falls far short of actually holding all things equal.
On what I see as the essential point, my guess is that both you and Julie would agree with this:
If I’m right (and maybe I’m not) that both of you would agree with that, then you and Julie are more in agreement than disagreement. But I’m not sure that you’re perceiving the extent to which you and Julie are in agreement.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 2:06 pm
oops, that should read Iraqi men and women. It helps if I include my point while making my point, no?
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Daran, what about the “rule of thumb,” specifically, do you claim is a myth?
It’s a myth that the phrase “rule of thumb” has its origins in a law saying that husbands can beat wives with a stick so long as the stick is not bigger around than a thumb.
It is not a myth that husbands were long legally allowed to “chastise” their wives physically, including by beating their wives with sticks. It is not a myth that more than one pre-20th-century judge believed that there had been a common-law rule that husbands were allowed to beat wives so long as the whip or stick was not larger around than their thumb. Nor is it a myth that for centuries, it was in effect legal for husbands to physically chastise their wives, so long as no great physical injury was done to their wives.
So in many substantive ways, it’s not a myth. Only from the narrow and (from a feminist perspective) relatively unimportant issue of word origins is it a myth.
The Fennick article referred to in Daran’s comment (not by Daran himself, but by the person he quoted) can be read here. This article by Jack Stranton, about how feminists came to be mistaken on this question, is also worth reading.
[Edited to soften my claim a little, and to add in the final paragraph.]
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Well, in fairness to Daran, Amp, the relatively unimportant word origin of “rule of thumb” is often what feminists talk about when they mention it. “Sexism is so pervasive and entrenched that we even our idioms derive from the mistreatment of women, like ‘rule of thumb’, the ancient rule that a man can beat his wife…” etc.
Also, you should cut the guy some slack. He’s getting married, and that’s distracting.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 2:38 pm
It is not a myth that husbands were long legally allowed to “chastise” their wives physically
The use of the past tense is not wholy justified. Admittedly, this particular ruling did not stand. However, I strongly suspect that similar rulings in other places have.
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 2:39 pm
ballgame,
I’m rather put off by drawing a parallel between ‘lower casualty rates and presumptive non-combatancy in war,’ and rape. Military enlistment is (for the parties relevant to ‘Western combat casualties’) voluntary; rape, by definition, isn’t. Your original argument included workplace death rates, which also only pertains to a voluntary choice of employment. I hope you understand that the ’superior emotional control’ you mention is, apart from being a somewhat dubious claim, in no way comparable to rape.
Your comparison implies that women are in some way asking for rape by being women - I doubt that’s what you mean to say, but that’s the implication.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Amp (and Julie, if you’re reading)
I agree with this
100%.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
In fairness to me, that’s not at all how it was used in the link Daran provided. If Daran wants to object to specific instances that use the term “rule of thumb” in the way you describe here, that’s fine; but to apply that specific criticism in the way he did was not, in my view, very substantive.
Daran’s getting married? I had no idea.
Moziltov to you and your fiance, Daran!
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 4:33 pm
That’s ridiculous, defenestrated, and more than a little insulting to me and the intelligence of the readers on this thread.
My point stands. The tiny fraction of women who suffer combat casualties does not negate the fact that war is hell … predominantly hell for men. While it is true that the American army is volunteer (or was volunteer until the various stop-loss programs were put into place), it is nonetheless an outcome of a highly gendered indoctrination which is not voluntary. Women, by and large, are exempt from the requirement to internalize violence. Men (boys), by and large, suffer serious consequences — emotional and physical — if they try to avoid it. This is a significant feminine privilege.
BTW, I didn’t have actual figures before, but as of early February, less than 3% of American fatalities in the Iraq war were women. (Go here and click on the “Graphical breakdown of casualties”, then click on “Gender” for source.) Just to be clear: on an individual level, the sacrifices made by women in this conflict are no less meaningful than any man’s; their deaths are no less tragic.
This comment was written by ballgame.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 4:41 pm
as of early February, less than 3% of American fatalities in the Iraq war were women.
What percentage of American troops in Iraq are women? What percentage of combat or front line troops are women? (Or maybe, what percentage of troops that go out of the green zone are women since officially the percentage of women in combat is zero.)
This comment was written by Dianne.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 5:15 pm
[...] Over on Alas, I argued: If feminists really were concerned about the (very real) widespread fear of being attacked while outside, why do they feed that fear? Shouldn’t they be drawing women’s attention to the fact that they are far less likely to be attacked than men? [...]
This comment was written by Feminist Critics.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Tom Nolan writes:
No, a wealthy woman does not experience the violence that is directed against a man who lives in the gutter.
However, and this is the key point here, the man in the gutter is not experiencing violence on the basis of being a MAN. A woman who lives in the gutter, and I’m sure you saw women when you were homeless, is no less likely to experience violence, and far more likely than a man to experience rape, both by people who don’t live on the street and those who do, including those who live in the miserable hell-holes called “Homeless Shelters”.
This is why … all things being equal — wealthy or destitute — women are power-down relative to men. Even on the street, women have less power, are subject to more violence, including more sexual violence, than men.
Is it a tragedy that men and women who live on the street are subject to violence? Yup. Should we, as a society, work towards ending the causes of these problems? Yup. Is “Alas, a Blog” a feminist blog? Yup.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 5:23 pm
ballgame writes:
This is why I have a hard time categorizing intra-class violence as “oppression”. Violence by men against women is … oppression. For women to stop being beaten and raped by men, men need to stop. However, for men to stop beating up and killing other men, men, well, need to stop as well.
Hmmm.
Feminine privilege or men behaving badly? I’m casting my vote of “Men behaving badly.”
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 5:29 pm
ballgame, I’m not sure what you mean by saying that males have to “internalize violence.” Does ‘to internalize violence’ mean to: Join the military? Support war? Engage in physical violence? I’m not sure what emotional and physical consequences come to men who don’t engage in any or all of the above. You may well mean something else, and if so I’d appreciate it if you could be clearer on that. I’m not saying that life necessarily isn’t harder for the weak pacifist on the playground, but for adult men (which is the properly valid parallel; young boys and girls are, AFAIK, equally likely to be molested, so rape as a “predominantly female gender issue” mainly pertains to adult women), I see no such impact upon the nonviolent-male population.
There’s still a false parallel between the consequences you argue hit men “if they try to avoid [internalized violence]” and rape, which hits women no matter their socialization, no matter their internal thoughts and feelings, no matter what they try to do. I can see a closer parallel between your point and the ’slut-shaming’ that women often get when they try to get around the conditioned fear of rape that includes not walking alone or wearing a certain style of clothing.
Take that last paragraph to mean that I’m not saying that men don’t necessarily deal with what you describe, but that in my opinion it’s a much more variable and subjective harm than your comparison would suggest.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Robert writes:
I don’t spend a lot of time reading studies about the homeless. What I do know I know from working directly (one-on-one) with the homeless up this end of town, as well as down the interstate highway corridor. One of the things I used to do (still do — just the target group has changed …) is take out sack lunches to homeless people in the area. And anyone here who’s ever been homeless can rest assured that I’m not taking out cheese crackers …
In speaking directly with several dozen homeless men and women, as well as countless dozens more during time at soup kitchens, the one thing I learned that really shocked the snot out of me is the amount of crime that takes place at shelters. I was also shocked by the amount of rape and prostitution (which I think is really rape since it’s situationally forced) that occurs. Based on that, and again, not a study, just what I’ve learned on my own, I’d say that homeless women are significantly more disadvantaged than homeless men. The only group that might approach homeless women is young gay men and trans women who often find themselves forced into sex work as their only means of survival.
If someone has some kind of study that would be great.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 6:08 pm
The ad hominem aside - how is it ridiculous and insulting for me to point out that bringing up rape in order to make a comparison to voluntary situations (enlistment, employment) is irrelevant, misleading, and rather demeaning to rape survivors?
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Based on that, and again, not a study, just what I’ve learned on my own, I’d say that homeless women are significantly more disadvantaged than homeless men.
Thanks for the personal insight. You may well be right.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 6:43 pm
In post #177, Julie, Herder of Cats said:
Then in #178, Defenestrated said (and I’m truncating her quote to focus on the relevant bits):
I just wanted to say that much of the time, the choice of enlistment or employment is precisely as situationally forced as prostitution. People do what they need to do to survive.
No, I’m not saying that ‘working in a coal mine’ is exactly like being a prostitute (at all, at all, at all), just that it’s sort of unfair to write one off as “she was forced to do that just to get by” and another as “don’t bother me with the things men choose to do.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Robert writes:
One thing I didn’t share, was that when I first started being involved I used to tell homeless people where the shelters were, how to ride the bus there, etc. After a while, and I guess it was us getting to know each other (if the light is red and someone is flying a sign, almost invariably I roll my window down, make small talk, and fork over a dollar), I learned that shelters are a really bad scene. Some of the complaints, like that couples are split up, seem sketchy — maintaining housing for mixed sex couples would be extremely difficult. But learning about the crime that occurs in and around shelters was just a huge shock. These are the “reputable” shelters, too — Salvation Army here in town seems to be no better than any others, not that I know of any others by name.
The other thing I learned, which also rocked my perceptions, was that there are people who view living on the street as a way of life. They can’t deal with the stress of a more traditional (”socially acceptable” might be a better term, I dunno) lifestyle. While low income housing might be a workable solution for those people who are in poverty, I don’t know of a solution for the ones who aren’t mentally up for living in a house or apartment.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 6:55 pm
If, by “situationally forced,” you mean that women choose to engage in prostitution because they need the money, then that’s an example of an advantage homeless women have that homeless men don’t. It may not be pleasant, but they clearly prefer it to the alternative, or they wouldn’t do it. Men don’t get to make that choice.
I’m not saying that the advantage of being able to make money through sex work outweighs the disadvantage of greater risk from violence, but it is an advantage.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I was also shocked by the amount of rape and prostitution (which I think is really rape since it’s situationally forced) that occurs. - Julie
Prostitution is a job. Rape is a crime that requires intent, and at least one unwilling participant. For the homeless it’s no more situationally forced than shoveling slag, or getting arrested so you can mule. The reason prostitution is a preferred means of earning income is because it generates the most for the least.
I’d say that homeless women are significantly more disadvantaged than homeless men. - julie
Random homeless shelter photo. Where are all those significantly disadvantaged women hiding?
It varies from place to place, but in North America there are generally about 9 men on the street for every woman. Here is a list of homeless deaths in the month of June 2004 in Toronto. Thanks to the nomenclature of Jane and John, we can determine the gender of the dead. It’s more or less proportionate to the estimated gender populations on the street.
This comment was written by Jams.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Myca,
I haven’t said anything along the lines of “don’t bother me with the things men choose to do.” I was pointing out the error of the logic in comparing them to what some women are forced to do, period. My discussion with ballgame (and Daran, when an omission he’d been fine with til then suddenly became objectionably ’sexist’ in a feminist’s argument) has been entirely separate from Julie’s remarks re prostitution.
I don’t entirely agree with Julie’s assessment of prostitution as rape largely because I share the reasoning behind what you said. I understand and relate to Julie’s reasoning as well, but I think it’s important to keep the two semantically separate in order to avoid just this sort of conflation. By all means, there’s a strong parallel between the cultural drives that lead men into dangerous jobs and those that lead women into prostitution. In my view, both are outcomes of economic oppression and would be most accurately described as gendered expressions of the same harm. Neither is, in my opinion or my previous comments, the same as rape.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 7:37 pm
btw - in “I share the reasoning behind what you said,” I meant:
Truncating to focus on the relevant bits too, here and above.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Julie, Herder of Cats said:
Hmmm, I’m wondering… What about woman-woman violence? Is something like female genital mutilation not oppression since the primary perpetrators are women?
This comment was written by Hugh Ristik (formerly "Aegis").Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Oops, the second paragraph shouldn’t be a blockquote. I’ve been back for so little time, and already I’m making a mess.
[Fixed! --Amp]
This comment was written by Hugh Ristik (formerly "Aegis").Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 8:06 pm
[Comment deleted by Tom's request. Please note that I only do this if I get the request before anyone has responded to the comment in question. --Amp]
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 9:05 pm
*sigh*
Me: Combat casualties are a male gender issue.
You: No they’re not. Some women are casualties too.
Me: Vastly disproportionately male, so still a male gender issue. Otherwise, if a small percentage of ‘other gender’ folks automatically means an issue is now a ‘human’ issue and not a particular gender’s issue, then the small percentage of male rape victims would mean that rape is a ‘human’ issue and not a feminist issue.
I categorically disagree with your characterization of my comparison, but I don’t want to belabor a tertiary aspect of this discussion, so I’m moving on.
Your earlier question, defenestrated, is far more germane:
But it’s there. One can see evidence for it in the higher rates of male suicides, the lower levels of emotional spontaneity, and the generally more shallow (and oft-times non-existent) relationships men have with their friends (particularly their male friends). These can most easily be explained by the need to develop emotional armor — to display non-vulnerability — during a boy’s childhood, when the threat of violence from other boys is pretty omnipresent. Boys who fail to do this can get pounded.
By the phrase ‘internalize violence’, I am referring precisely to this process whereby a boy is compelled to assume responsibility for the violence in his environment, especially the violence which others inflict on him. He is forced to develop the capacity to inflict pain on others, to internalize the values of the violence-based hierarchy he lives in, to shut down or compartmentalize his capacity for empathy for others (which is a liability), and in general to eschew emotionally-based relationships for power/performance-based ones. The impact of this process lasts a lifetime.
The best description of this impact was in an article I like to cite by Elizabeth Gilbert. She penned a piece for GQ (”My Life as a Man,” Aug. 2001) about spending a few days literally living as a man. She discovered among other things that merely being playful could risk eliciting a violent response when you’re a man. I quoted a small part of her story in a comment at Happy Feminist’s.
To me, this process is clearly oppressive and not chosen, and to dismiss the impact of this as ‘not oppression’ because a tiny minority of its victims end up dominating society is grossly misleading and inhumane.
This comment was written by ballgame.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Cool. Me and you? On the same page.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Oh, I also wanted to say, Defenestrated, that I wasn’t gong after you specifically or thinking that Julie’s logic was yours, just that these are both arguments I’ve seen a lot.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:56 am
Is the only humane response to unchosen harm to label it oppression, and any other response is by definition “inhumane”?
You and the other folks from “feminist critics” — along, I admit, with many feminists — seem to put a lot of stock in idealogical purity, and in the word “oppression.” I don’t care that much. I personally tend towards the “women and men are both oppressed by the gender system” view, but I don’t think it matters much if people disagree with me about that.
The vast majority of people I’ve encountered who think men are “oppressed” are essentially conservatives who oppose any substantial change and are more interested in attacking feminists than in helping men. (I’m speaking in general over the last fifteen years, not about anyone who has been part of this current discussion.) This has made it difficult for me to believe that most people who believe men are oppressed are likely to be agents of positive change. There are individual exceptions, but the vast majority of the time, a huge focus on men’s oppression is congruent with being against change (except for freeing men from paying child support, of course).
I’m more interested in what the practical policy options people favor are, and in general, what social changes they call for. From what you’ve written here, someone who thinks that standard gender roles do terrible damage to boys and men, for the reasons you’ve mentioned and more, and who favors those roles being changed, is “inhumane” unless they agree with your precise definition of “oppression” and no other. If that’s really your view — and I hope it’s not — then your view seems overly stringent and doctrinaire to me.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:21 am
[...] One common feminist argument I have heard in discussions about “oppression” and “privilege” is that men are advantaged over women, all else being equal. In a discussion about oppression over at Alas, a Blog, Julie, Herder of Cats puts it this way: The feminist argument is that because, all other things being equal, men are privileged over women. That if you lined up men on one side, and women on the other, ranked by “power” (or perhaps “bank account privilege”), straight down the line, all those men would be privileged, one for one, over all those women. [...]
This comment was written by Feminist Critics.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:47 am
ballgame, OK, I see where our disagreement has come from. I’ve said elsewhere around this blog that I’m not really down with rape being framed as a “female gender issue.” Prison rape and sexual violence towards transmen come to mind as predominantly male issues and exactly the kind of experience I don’t want to downplay. That female soldiers are predominantly the soldiers getting raped isn’t contingent on a female-centric framing of rape, but since many of my fellow feminists would disagree with my view, I can understand why you would have assumed that I was presenting a contradiction.
Thanks for clarifying that. Your comment makes a lot of sense to me, but I still dispute its relevance as a ‘feminine privilege’ in this context for several reasons, chiefly that a woman is also expected “to assume responsibility for the violence in [her] environment,” albeit in different ways. What is a predominantly female issue is the expectation that women can’t walk home at night, can’t drink around other people, can’t be alone with a man etc., without at the very least those decisions being questioned if violence does occur (and sometimes even if it doesn’t).
I disputed your use of ‘presumptive noncombatancy’ as a feminine privilege, which wasn’t to say that all the men (of any race) who’ve died in war are in any way unimportant. By the same token, I don’t see ‘not getting raped’ as necessarily a male privilege, because, unfortunately, some men are raped. The surrounding cultural expectations are another story, but aren’t really relevant to the discussion as far as I can tell.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:49 am
Myca - That’s what I thought, since we’ve tended to find ourselves on the same page, but thank you for clarifying.
This comment was written by defenestrated.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:17 am
Myca writes:
I knew this was going to get brought up.
I think there are a lot of different levels of “survive”. When I think about survival, I look to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. “Physiological needs” are the basic survival needs, without which someone is much more likely to die from starvation, exposure, disease, illness or injury.
I worked in one of the shelters that was set up here in town (it was the biggest — I think it had somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 people at the peak) after Katrina. I spoke with a man who smashed a hole in the wall of the Superdome kitchen to start the stoves and ovens to cook pallets of chicken wings and other food that was there. Had he and others not done that, people would have been hungrier than they were. That’s survival at a pretty basic level. I also knew people who engaged in raids on warehouses to get unroasted coffee beans. We then roasted, ground and brewed the coffee so we could have fresh coffee. We weren’t going to die without coffee (some here will dispute that, but work with me, okay?), so this isn’t a basic survival need. We had food, water and shelter, we just wanted fresh ground coffee in the morning before heading out to gut houses.
When I say forced, I mean the former and not the latter.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:24 am
If, by “situationally forced,” you mean that women choose to engage in prostitution because they need the money, then that’s an example of an advantage homeless women have that homeless men don’t.
You assume, naturally, that there is no comparable task that homeless men are more likely to be able to do than homeless women.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Surprized to see this thread still breathing, I only came back for a footnote.
That anyone familar with feminist theology needs discussion in order to distinguish sytematic oppression and “collateral damage” from that oppression, is a sad indicator of something not-quite-right in the head. In my mind, that incomprehension disqualifies future dialogue between persons as equals.
You are either seeking truth, or you are seeking justification for non-truth. You are either seeking to enlighten, or you are seeking to obfusciate.
Amp has graciously allowed a middle ground - general ignorance - hence his continued efforts to educate, but I am not so patient. Ignorance only works as an excuse ONCE. Failure of each successive elucidation merely highlights either intellectual limitations, or WILLFUL disregard.
“Let’s Define Oppression” might be considered basic feminist theory, but when you need a never-ending debate about the definition of oppression, the whole thing becomes downright retarded, an exercise of poking at shadows with sticks.
Requiring eternal discussion of whether a problem exists is an excellent technique for avoiding constructive work.
Three things. First, patterns of past behavior are important indicators of future behavior. Identifying repetitive traits of individuals and groups helps to simplify that process.
Second. The attributes of the various men’s rights groups as a whole display amazing similarities to the attributes of what is considered abusive personality disorder in individuals.
Third. It is neither productive nor necessary for anyone to deconstruct every single argument or debunk every single invalid study of the angry men’s movement in order to prove the irrefutable truth: that their current thinking process only allows for the continued domination of women.
It is only necessary to prove: pattern.
I would be more than happy to further explain all these ideas. My only problem is finding the concise words and sound-bite phrases that appeal to a certain type of person - what Dr. Altmeyer refers to as “right wing authoritarian”.
no more excuses
This comment was written by mAndrea.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:42 pm
lol, that’s hilarious, thank you!
You are correct, of course. Women DO get a “extra” - because men will pay for sex with skanky, possibly disease-infested, homeless drug addicts, - while women will somehow manage to satisfy their libido without resorting to such risky behavior. It’s not fair!!!!
If men weren’t so ready to jump in the sack with just anybody, perhaps more women would pony up the cash for such a delightful opportunity?
Spin it like a record, baby.
But seriously, I thought the reason there were less women living on the streets was because they tended to wind up dead quicker. Wasn’t there a study or two which found women have a higher risk aversion? Women have a greater propensity to seek out help before circumstances get that bad.
This comment was written by mAndrea.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Here, have some batteries for your sarcasm meter. No offense or insult intended toward sex-workers!
This comment was written by mAndrea.Report this comment to the moderators
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:21 am
because even while fucking someone who might as well be NHGOTS, Paris Hilton knows the important thing is not that she’s having fun, but that she’s looking good.
Overall, she has more power than HG, no question about that. But no matter how much money and power she has, Paris Hilton knows that in the end it’s not her pleasure that’s important - it’s how much pleasure she can give.
I think robin had it spot on with
The issue, as Ampersand pointed out in the original post, is not about who suffers more. Homeless guy is undeniably suffering more than Paris Hilton. The issue is that even he has power that even Paris Hilton does not have access to.
The Happy Feminist recently wrote a post about how feminism’s goal is not to make every woman happy. The purpose is to give women more viable choices. Arguing about whether or not she has it better than NHGOTS completely misses the point. Feminism looks at such issues through a gender lens not because it cares more about PH than HG, but because society looks at everything through a gender lens - and at the same time often pretends to do otherwise - so if we want to be able to help people, such as the homeless, we need to understand what they are up against. That includes gender oppression.
(warning - slightly off-topic rambling follows)
Asking men to check their privilege at the door isn’t just an exasperated demand from feminists annoyed with hearing the same false assumptions over and over again. It’s also an important step in helping men become better men. Just as women need to learn first that saying no is ok before they move onto doing so when they want to, many men (and other privileged people) homeless guy included, need to develop realistic and fair expectations about what society owes them in order to be able to demand the rights they are owed without stepping on the rights of others.
While I’m sure the request has been abused upon occasion, most often I see feminists asking men to check their privilege when they barge into discussions and express outrage and/or shock that everyone doesn’t immediately focus on what they want to talk about.
Personally, I think this pisses so many of us off not only because it’s such an obvious example of the privilege they refuse to acknowledge, but because so completely illogical from most women’s perspectives. While individuals are individuals, play among girls more often focuses on relationships while play among boys most often focuses on rules. In girl world, if you want people to agree with you, you listen first and then argue, often using empathy and sympathy to sway. In boy world, you argue rules down to the tiniest detail and you start off by picking apart your opponents declarations. In girl world, the goal is to make as many people as happy as possible. In boy world, the goal is consensus through clearly defined rules.
So, its not just that so many men demonstrate their privilege by expecting to be the focus rather than part of the group, but that they also bring false assumptions about the purpose of debate. In feminist circles, it’s usually a blending of the traditionally female and male perspectives on group decision making. Rules and rights are important, but so are emotions and relationships. The guy barging in by arguing the details of a theory in progress or the legal consequences of what was mostly an emotional reaction isn’t just wanting everyone to focus on him or expecting everyone to debate him on his terms, he’s also often immediately breaking the girl code by disregarding the feelings of others and assuming that clearly defined rules and rights is the main goal of the debate.
Feminists become frustrated when rape threads veer off into debates about legal details not because they most often do so when when non-feminist enter into the discussion, but because non-feminists usually assume the rules and rights perspective and ignore the parts that many feminists consider to be the real meat of the discussion. So it becomes a double slap of not only derailing the topic of the thread, but also the intent.
When we argue over, for example, where the line is between persuasion and rape, we aren’t doing so only in order to come up with better laws, although that is one of the end goals. We are also doing so because the act of doing so helps us understand people better; what they want and need, the extent to which they care and empathize for others. In turn, that informs how we act and what we argue. Wether or not emotional blackmail is ever legally defined as a crime, it’s connection to rape is important to explore because the law can only do so much. And yet most non-”feminist-only” discussions of that topic on this very site tends to end with words like “jerk” as if that’s all we need to know. That by itself - the assumption and insistence that the discussion is over once it’s concluded that the action is mean but not illegal - is an example of privilege, of not only valuing the “boy” perspective over the “girl” perspective, but also being completely ignorant that the latter exists at all even as one assumes that everyone believes in the former.
It may very well be that whatever legal flaw being pointed out is quite correct and important, but by not “checking their privilege at the door” many men close themselves off to important discussions that are vital to everyone’s rights and happiness.
This comment was written by Mickle.Report this comment to the moderators
April 3rd, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Mickle said:
And what power is that?
This comment was written by Hugh Ristik (formerly "Aegis").Report this comment to the moderators
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Important to whom?
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Guys, post #88.
Seriously.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
sorry Myca (and Amp)
my bad - I was just sort of thinking out loud and was using the PH thing as a springboard and I should have nixed that part and rewrote the beginning. If you think this post should be deleted even though PH is only tangental to what I’m about to say, I respect that and sorry for putting you in that position.
Brandon and Hugh - kudos on bolstering the whole “miss the forest for the trees” aspect of the “masculine” discussion style.
If what I said didn’t make sense to you then just flipping say so. If it made sense but you disagree, wtf is up with the “to whom?” and “what power?” How could my argument make even the least bit of sense if you really had no idea as to what I think the answers to those questions are? If you think I’m wrong, tell me how and why. Pretending to be a ditz and nitpicking via rhetorical-like questions may be great for scoring debate points, but it often does jack shit for useful in depth discussions.
This comment was written by Mickle.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I think the biggest problem in this particular thread has been the definitions of words like “oppression” and not nitpicking rules, like “what is rape?”
I’m all for discussing how under class workers have their lives endangered by upper class business owners, whether it’s men working construction, or women working in sweat shops. But I’d much rather discuss those as economic class / power issues than some kind of “men oppressing men as men” situation.
The other thing, and I found this double-plus-extra offensive, was women forced into sex work for survival was trotted out as a privilege. I’ve encountered this before, including from men who weren’t on the street and thought it was really unfair they couldn’t earn money as sex workers from women. Oh, and to rebut the “female privilege” assertion, there are male prostitutes out there — they just happen to have sex with men for money, and not with women. So I’m thinking this isn’t so much a gendered privilege as who knows what. I mean, “gay privilege — the right to be a gay male prostitute.” WTF?
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Julie - I was referencing other threads. I should have provided links (and should do so now, but don’t have the time).
It’s the same thing, though.
Clarification and trying to understand each other is good; getting bogged down in insisting that everyone use language the same way at the expense of the larger issue is bad.
As you point out, it leads to really idiotic stuff such as convoluted proofs that prostitution is a female privilege.
Irregardless of whether or not you think that prostitution is an honorable job that should be open to all, it takes a lot of selective thinking and arguing to come to the conclusion that being less likely to be the consumer or the boss, and more likely to be the employee on the bottom, grants one - or is a result of - any amount of privilege.
While there are all kinds of shitty jobs that the patriarchy considers to be men’s work only, I can’t think of any where the consumers and the bosses tend to be overwhelmingly women.
This comment was written by Mickle.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
I can’t think of any where the consumers and the bosses tend to be overwhelmingly women.
Child care.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Robert,
You really, honestly think that child care is commonly considered to be men’s work only? Or did you not actually read Mickle’s comment in which was written:
While there are all kinds of shitty jobs that the patriarchy considers to be men’s work only, I can’t think of any where the consumers and the bosses tend to be overwhelmingly women.
(my bolds)
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 7:41 pm
Mickle,
I really enjoyed reading the second half of your comment #201 (the off-topic ramble). Excellent analysis and something that I have been observing for some time (which is not to say that I have not been guilty of the same).
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Mickle said:
Ok, it didn’t make sense to me. I find it highly implausible that the homeless guy has power that Paris Hilton doesn’t have access to. It seemed kind of dishonest for you to make such a bold claim with stating what your evidence was. BUT, I am aware that I could be wrong, so I asked you what you thought that power was. Perhaps I’m missing something, or perhaps you have a different conceptualization of power than I do.
This comment was written by Hugh Ristik (formerly "Aegis").Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Oh, and if Amp doesn’t want this thread of discussion to continue, then he is welcome to delete my previous post and this one.
This comment was written by Hugh Ristik (formerly "Aegis").Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Hugh
A ghostly voice from way upthread can be heard in answer:
“Yes, male privilege. That’s the entire point. All things being equal, a homeless man and a millionairess walk into various sorts of stores, and the homeless man is treated better…”
Oh God no! Just when you thought the nightmare was over it all starts happening again! It’s worse than Dead of Night.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Mickle:
You’re right—your argument doesn’t make the least bit of sense without clarification on the answer to my question. That’s why I asked it. You can’t be vague in laying out the foundations of your argument and then accuse someone of nit-picking when he asks you to clarify.
Clarity is a prerequisite for useful, in-depth discussions.
Myca, Amp et al:
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Sorry about that. I came into the thread late and never saw the original cease-and-desist notice.
Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
You really, honestly think that child care is commonly considered to be men’s work only? Or did you not actually read Mickle’s comment…
I think you’ve mis-parsed Mickle’s comment, Jake. Mickle was saying that there are men-dominated jobs, where men are both the bosses of the industry and the primary consumers, but not women-dominated jobs, where women are both the bosses of the industry and the primary consumers. Or so I believe; Mickle?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Tom Nolan writes:
And next we’ll be hearing about secret shadow governments of women forcing men to do our evil bidding.
Oh — for the meeting next Monday — it’ll still be Passover, so watch what you bring to eat. The secret Jewish women’s shadow government members can’t eat chametz until Wednesday.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
And next we’ll be hearing about secret shadow governments of women forcing men to do our evil bidding.
You know, I always suspected as much. It’s when you go to the bathroom together, isn’t it? That’s when you’re having the secret meetings. Nobody pees that much.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I dunno, Robert. Surely Mickle (as well as the rest of us) can think of jobs where women are both the bosses and primary consumers. You’ll notice that what you quoted was merely the second part of a (compound? I was never good at grammar terminology) sentence. Nail salons, hair dressing establishments come to mind immediately. No, I think the first part of the sentence is extremely relevant to the second part. If I’m wrong about this, I will be very surprised.
On a side note… I think that it’s dishonest to quote part of a sentence and not include an ellipsis (??? my badiness at grammar terminology rears its ugly head for the second time in one comment - you know, one of those “… ” thingies) to indicate that one is doing so.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Er, didn’t I use an ellipsis? I meant to. And I see one up there. Where should there have been another ellipsis?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
“Ok, it didn’t make sense to me. I find it highly implausible that the homeless guy has power that Paris Hilton doesn’t have access to. It seemed kind of dishonest for you to make such a bold claim with stating what your evidence was. BUT, I am aware that I could be wrong, so I asked you what you thought that power was. Perhaps I’m missing something, or perhaps you have a different conceptualization of power than I do. ”
If she accuses him of rape, he has a higher chance of being believed if he says she just regrets having had sex with a homeless guy and was ashamed of “slumming”.
Why? Because he’s a male. And “everyone” knows what a slut she is, she even recorded herself having sex and hangs out with Britney Spears, and that slut doesnt even wear panties, omg oh noez!!
I’d call that power she doesnt have access to.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Robert,
I believe Jake was referring to the lack of ellipses in comment #208.
You’ve misinterpreted “any” as meaning “any job,” a misunderstanding compounded by your quoting a sentence fragment rather than the entire sentence in comment #208. It seems clear that “any” means not “any job,” but “any shitty job that the patriarchy considers to be men’s work only.”
I.e.: “I can’t think of a shitty job that the patriarchy considers men’s work only, in which the consumers and bosses tend to be overwhelmingly women.”
Child care is certainly not an example of such a job.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Pheeno:
Maybe, but maybe not. Sure, people believe that P.H. is a slut, and that sluts lie about being raped; but they also believe that homeless men are dangerous psychotics who are eager to rape pretty young white women. So perhaps the bigotries would balance out in that case, or work in Paris’ favor.
Responding to Mickle, in comment #201, Hugh wrote:
(For context, I’ll remind readers-in-general that in the same post, Mickle also said “Overall, [PH] has more power than HG, no question about that.” And I agree with that.)
I think that homeless Bob might have the ability to go back to under the bridge or in the park or where-ever he hangs out with his homeless friends and (consciously or not consciously) expect some degree of deference to him because he is male. Insofar as all the usual sexisms aren’t rendered irrelevant by Bob’s homelessness or other aspects of his individual situation, they can still benefit Bob. (When homeless Bob’s homeless baby is wailing, who is in charge of it: Bob, or bob’s homeless partner Kate?) That’s a kind of power.
In contrast, Paris can go home to her mansion and, while she might expect her friends to defer to her because she is rich or famous or just because she has a powerful personality, she won’t expect any degree of deference to her because she is female.
* * *
I think it’s weird that all of you folks are so fascinated with the “homeless man versus Paris Hilton” comparison — so much so that you all REFUSE TO LET IT DROP.
Personally, I think it’s about as uninteresting a comparison as can be imagined. For feminists, I can’t imagine why it’s considered a productive discussion to have, since it inevitably forces us to try and imagine situations which somehow divorce Paris of her race, her wealth, her fame, etc.., in order to deal purely with her womanhood; similarly, we try and imagine situations which somehow divorce nameless homeless dude from everything but his maleness. It’s as if the last twenty years of discussions about intersectionality never even happened.
You can’t divorce nameless homeless guy from his homelessness, any more than we can divorce Paris Hilton from her whiteness. These traits interact and intersect; they are not modular. To treat them as if they are modular is, in my view, a conceptual mistake.
* * *
I’m in Florida visiting my folks, and I don’t have frequent access to the computer. I won’t be monitoring this discussion closely, therefore. But as a general request, if you MUST discuss the Paris vs Homeless Dude question any further, please try to say something interesting.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 4th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
OK. Paris Hilton vs. Homeless Dude, bare knuckles, no weapons, no other rules. Who walks out of the ring?
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Paris Hilton, her bodyguards beat the living snot out of NHG, male privelage ftw (or perhaps this should in fact be female privelage since men in general are more willing to wade into a fight for a woman than vice versa or male/male female/female - speaking as a former bouner?).
Out of curiosity when you walk into a store what kind of “preference” / “privelage” / “bigotry” do you want / get, while I know the plural of anecdote isn’t data, when I walk into the store as a white male aged 18-35 I barely get noticed by staff, and from experience working in stores most people don’t get any noticed paid to them unless attractive / rich / something odd about them. In most stores I have worked in women tend to get more notice from both the female and male workers (though perhaps for different reasons).
Relating this to PH and NHGOTS PH is semi-attractive, rich, something odd (bodguards), so would get noticed, NHGOTS is likely something odd (poorly dressed) and possibly a few others (we didn’t get many homeless people in our store so I can’t really add comments). So both are very understandable.
This comment was written by Chris.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 1:10 am
Tom, did you read the comment you just quoted, or did you stop reading at that part?
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 6:25 am
hf
Yes is the answer to that question. Given that I debated these matters back and forth with Julie over the course of many, many comments, and given that you claim to have read those comments, I’m surprised that you needed to ask it.
If you come up with substantive complaints and questions - supported by quotations of something I’ve actually written - for me to answer, then please don’t hesitate to bring them to my attention. Until then, perhaps you should turn your mind to other things. That’s what I shall be doing.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Tom,
We’ve refered back to where you’ve made your claims. What you don’t seem to much care for is a discussion of male privilege that stands on it’s own without all the other issues you’re trying to drag along for the ride.
I don’t think anyone here would claim that male privilege is the only thing out there, only that male privilege exists and provides significant advantages to males that are denied to females.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 7:58 am
bad marriages?
heh.
Sorry to make a joke. But I can’t help but laugh at the fact that we are STILL debating PH in light of Amp’s “no PH!” comment.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Julie
I don’t want to debate this proposition for a very good reason: I agree with it.
And if you’d limited yourself to saying as much I would never have taken issue with you.
Do you really want to get back on the merry-go-round? Do you really want me to point out where our disagreements lay, to summarize the arguments you used to bolster your position and my arguments in rebuttal? Given that anybody the least bit interested (ie no-one) can actually head back up thread and read our debate, I think that you and I can move on. What do you say?
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Tom Nolan writes:
Sorry, I don’t believe you. And I don’t believe you because you introduce irrelevancies every chance you get. Not only did you do that here, but you also created a traceback thingy where you picked apart what I said — that all other things being equal, men are privileged over women.
I did limit myself to it. That’s what “all other things being equal, men are privileged over women” means. I’m sorry — there’s just not other way to interpret it. Obviously there are clearly other things out there. Those would be the “all other things being equal …” things that are being held equal. You want to introduce “intersectionalities” so you claim that male privilege doesn’t exist, as you and others do on Feminist Critics.
Well, if you expect me to accept your absurd assertion that male privilege doesn’t exist, I’d be more than happy to get on the merry-go-round all over again with you.
You’re happy to agree with what I write as long as you then get to go back and claim it doesn’t mean anything. This statement –
really does mean something. PH v. HG is a distraction you and others want to keep bashing us over the head with so you can chop away at what
means. If you disagree with it, have the spine to say so.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Me (referring to the proposition that there is something such as male privilege)
Julie
Fascinating. You are explicitly thrusting an argument on me which I have never made and have never believed. Pure ventriloquism.
You mean a trackback? No, I didn’t. Julie, what on earth are you talking about? I’ve done nothing more technically challenging on this thread than quote your actual words.
Since I’ve never made such an assertion, why would I expect you to accept it?
Honestly Julie, you’re just arguing with a figment of your imagination. Which is fine on a blog, if that’s what you want to do. Just as long as you don’t do it while travelling on public transport.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Julie said:
I see the confusion: that post was by me, not by Tom.
Nobody on Feminist Critics has claimed that male privilege doesn’t exist. Your claim that Tom or other people on Feminist Critics don’t think male privilege exists is merely you substituting our arguments for those of some generic antifeminist. What I have argued is that all else being equal, males are not always privileged over females. That doesn’t mean that male privilege doesn’t exist; it just means that male privilege isn’t as universal as feminists often make it out to be, and that female privileges exist also. Maybe you are confusing “male aren’t always privileged” (which is what I’m arguing) with “males always aren’t privileged” (which is absurd, as you say).
In fact, I explicitly say: “When all else is held equal, sometimes men are advantaged over women, and other times, women are advantaged over men.” Just because females are privileged over males in some situations that feminists don’t typically acknowledge, it doesn’t mean that males don’t have unjust advantages over females in other situations. In a previous post What Feminist Got Right, I argued that “Males have some systematic advantages over females that they do not have a right to.” I see no reason that feminists can’t agree with this position, while believing that male privileges simply dwarf female privileges.
This comment was written by Hugh Ristik (formerly "Aegis").Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Note: in my last sentence,
the position I mean is that men are privileged in some contexts, and women are privileged in others.
This comment was written by Hugh Ristik (formerly "Aegis").Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Tom, Hugh (typhonblue, NYMOM, e-i-e-i-o …),
Most every “female privilege” you’ve identified isn’t a “female privilege”. It’s an example of how women are excluded from engaging in the acts that men use to assert their dominance over each other, a byproduct of men exercising male privilege, or the result of the intersection between class and gender.
It’s not a “female privilege” that women are systematically excluded from blue collar work by men — it’s male privilege that allows men to exclude women. That more men than women then die in male-dominated fields is a result of male privilege.
It’s not a “female privilege” that men kill men in pursuit of a dominant position. It’s a byproduct of women not being permitted to occupy positions men occupy and there being no need to murder the maid when killing the local drug dealer is more lucrative.
It’s not “female privilege” that in a smack-down between PH and HG, PH wins. In a similar smack-down between Bill Gates and Homeless Woman, Bill Gates wins. Notice a pattern?
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Julie said:
I apologize for this tangent, but the idea of Christian privilege intrigues me. If we were to look only at outcomes, and not at the processes that produce them, we might come to the conclusion that it is Jews, not Christians, that are privileged. After all, they’re overrepresented in government, in prestigious occupations, and in higher education, and they have higher median incomes than gentile whites.
I don’t think that Jews are privileged over Christians in the US. But it seems to me that anyone who agrees with me on this point has to acknowledge that:
1. When one group is doing better than another on these indicators, this is not prima facie evidence of privilege working in their favor, and may even happen despite privilege working in favor of the other group.
2. When one group is doing worse than another on these indicators, this is not prima facie evidence of privilege working in favor of the other group, and may even happen despite privilege working in favor of the first group.
Am I wrong?
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Julie
Hugh, typhonblue, NYMOM and myself all have differing philosophies and points of view. We are not “y’all”. Your comment is in reply to something Hugh wrote. It would be sensible to address it to him alone.
And may I repeat some advice which I have offered to you elsewhere? That it’s a good idea to debate the person who’s debating you, and to bear in mind the argument whch that person is actually making?
So, over to Hugh…
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Brandon Berg writes:
Yes, but this isn’t how “privilege” is examined –
I’m a college graduate. I make a lot of money. If someone else is a high school dropout, it’s not “college graduate privilege”, like, some sort of undeserved perq I get just because I went to college, it’s something I earned. Some other form of privilege might have gotten me into college, and kept the high school dropout from going to college, but that just shows that it’s the PROCESS, not the OUTCOME that’s relevant.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Julie to Brandon
You appear to be mixing up mere wealth and privilege here. Sure, if you’ve worked hard for your college degree and somebody else dropped out of high school because he didn’t feel like making the effort, then who would dispute your extra spending power?
Privilege, however, is of its nature unjust. And wealth and education, though they do not imply privilege, often bring it in their train. A classy accent and a stuffed wallet might and frequently do mean undue influence and preferential treatment - over and above what can be legitimately purchased.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Tom,
“Privilege” is unjust, merit isn’t. “Privilege”, in a feminist discourse, is unearned. I have white privilege because I am white. Not because I’m particularly honest, law-abiding, educated, or the opposite of any other attribute ascribed to people of color, but simply because I have “white” skin.
When my half-sister(*) and I go out together, she gets treated worse that I do. Not because she’s a bad person, but because she has black skin. When we tell the stupid bigots that she’s my half-sister, they suddenly decide to either treat her better, or me worse.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.–
(*) We’re not actually related, we just tell people that because it messes with their head and they deserve to have their heads explode.
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April 5th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
No, Tom, you didn’t debate Julie as far as I could see. Quote a substantive statement by her that you disagree with, one that preceded my last comment. If you think she meant that part about the idiot comparison literally, then you need to read the whole comment like I just asked you to. Because she plainly meant something that you claim to agree with. (That, and she appears to call the HG/PH comparison idiotic.) This presumably explains her hostility — you keep attacking her and we still can’t figure out what you hoped to prove or why it matters to you. In particular, what did you hope to accomplish with this bit?
She doesn’t need a reason to fight a form of oppression. If she has to pick one form to focus on — or if a blogger has to choose a topic for one comment thread out of a billion — s/he can make an arbitrary choice and doesn’t need to justify it to anyone. (See Chris Clarke on the subject of “focusing on the important shit”.) That should go without saying. So if you didn’t intend to say that she shouldn’t spend any time on feminism, with all this criticism and harping on PH, please tell us briefly what you did mean to say and why. It kind of sounds like you started out venting largely unrelated anger from your personal history, or criticizing Heart and other people who may not actually be here.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Julie:
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.I don’t see why you said I’m wrong, or even where we disagree. What you said is consistent with the two numbered propositions I gave in my last comment.
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April 6th, 2007 at 4:57 am
Brandon,
I’m not clear that you believe the process by which things come into being that matters more than the outcome. I know that sometimes people argue counter positions to show they are wrong, so maybe that’s what’s happening here. Perhaps you could clarify which you think is more important — process or outcome — and if you think it’s unjust that a person who, through merit, graduates college justly deserves higher pay than someone who, through a free choice, drops out of high school.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 7:36 am
hf - I can’t believe you want to put us all through this, and I suspect that once I’ve answered your questions you will simply disappear. But here goes.
Julie’s original statement
was not withdrawn or significantly modified in the post it was made in. Julie did concede
but she still insisted that a homeless man who was not physically repulsive (ie one not smelling of piss or dressed in rags) would receive better treatment than a millionairess. In fact she reiterated this point (comment 124):
Notice the contradiction here. Julie’s explicit position was that all things being equal male privilege prevails - and I never once disagreed with this. But at the same time she chose examples where male privilege can be seen to prevail against any amount of wealth disparity. She didn’t say (and it would have been easy enough to do so, wouldn’t it?) that two millionaires, one female and one male, go into a shop, and he gets served before her. She said that a well-presented but homeless man goes into a shop at the same time as a millionairess and he gets served before her. So that the explicit opinion and the examples (twice, so it couldn’t be a mere verbal mishap!) she gave were clearly at odds, and this is why I queried the latter.
Julie continually defended the notion that the well-dressed poor man has privilege over the millionairess. When I put the matter thus, in comment 133:
she contested it (comment 137)
Julie’s official position was unexceptionable: that all things being equal male privilege triumphs. But all the while she implied another one: that male privilege triumphs against any amount of wealth privilege (unless, that is, the man in question smells of piss and is dressed in rags). If she was really restricting herself to the “all else being equal” argument, why the devil didn’t she just agree with what I wrote in 133?
hf, if my explicit position were “all things being equal wealth privilege prevails” but then I furnished examples of wealth privilege prevailing against any amount of race, class or sex privilege, you’d suspect that my explicit belief and the belief I wanted to promulgate were not one and the same. If you queried me about it, asked me to concede a particular case where race privilege outweighed wealth privilege, and I steadfastly refused to do so, your suspicion would (rightly, I think) be confirmed.
I’m sorry, hf, but your suggestion that I had no real bone of contention with Julie is without merit.
Now to your other points:
No, of course she doesn’t. But I was under the impression that Julie was using the “all else being equal” argument as a justification for concentrating on male privilege above wealth privilege. At least that was how I interpreted what she said in comment 142:
I gave one good reason for concentrating on male privilege above other kinds: that one cannot fight all evils at once. And one can think of others just as valid. But the “all else being equal” argument is not one of them. As I pointed out: it can be used to prioritize the struggle against any given privilege.
Finally, hf
the only mention of Heart in this thread was as a counter-example to Julie’s contention in comment 142 that
whereupon I made the perfectly reasonable remark that it depends on what feminism one is talking about (comment 143)
It’s true I don’t think much of Heart. On the other hand I cannot, as Julie can, boast of having been engaged in a long-running feud with her. If I’d wanted to get at Heart through a proxy, Julie is the last person I would have chosen.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 8:09 am
“Maybe, but maybe not. Sure, people believe that P.H. is a slut, and that sluts lie about being raped; but they also believe that homeless men are dangerous psychotics who are eager to rape pretty young white women. So perhaps the bigotries would balance out in that case, or work in Paris’ favor.”
The fact that her credibility would be in question because of her sex life, or clothing choice or the mere fact she’s female are the things that prevent her from having access to that power. His lack of wealth lowers his power, not his plumbing. His sex life wouldnt even come into question.The only thing that might work in her favor is his class status, not his gender. It would take the word of more than 1 woman against his to eliminate any doubt against her.
This comment was written by pheeno.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 8:57 am
Tom:
Julie, in the quote that calls your* comparison an idiotic or pointless distraction:
*Technically ballgame started it and a lot of people were harping on it before you joined in.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Don’t know what happened with the bolding there. Anyway, I just answered your substantive (!) criticism: Julie used somewhat vague or confusing language once while mocking what she considers a pointless distraction — one that Amp’d told us to stop discussing — and apparently she thought you knew what she meant because it seems blindingly obvious if you try to give her the benefit of the doubt.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Thanks to Amp or the Net Gods for removing that odd bolding.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Tom,
The “all other things being equal” doesn’t include a homeless man who is well dressed walking into a store and loudly proclaiming “I’m a poor homeless man who has no money. I live under at $10,000,000 bridge, not in a $10,000,000 house!”
That’s not “all other things being equal”. If PH is dressed well, so is HG. If PH smells nice, so does HG. If PH has a manicure, so does HG. That’s “all other things being equal”. Not secret mind-reading powers that only exist for the sake of pointless arguments designed to mock and ridicule feminists. Which I said upthread.
Over in that other sandbox you occupy, you make a much bigger deal out of the intersections between class and gender. Which is fine — I hold to some pretty socialist / leftist views and think “class” is a big problem. But right here, right now, the topic seems to be about the oppression of men and the oppression of women. That, to me, sounds like gender-based oppression, not class-based, race-based, religion-based, sexual-orientation-based, or whatever. Gender, as a class constructing characteristic of people. Are men oppressed on the basis of class? Yup. Race? Yup. Religion? Yup. Sexual orientation? Yup. But for all those things, so are women. Homeless Guy, who is oppressed on the basis of CLASS, is in the same boat as Homeless Woman. Both are oppressed on the basis of CLASS. And working to end class-based, race-based, religion-based, sexual-orientation-based, e-i-e-i-o-based oppression will benefit both.
In my opinion intersectionalities cloud the issue of “oppression” precisely because of the PH v. HG comparision — because no one ever seems to go back and do a BG v. HW comparision. Right? Bill Gates v. Homeless Woman smack-down, Bill Gates wins. Right? Therefore, no, men never are oppressed? Yeah, da feminists dey rulez! Except that’s not useful in “pity the poor menz” discussions, no?
If “class” is the commonality between who wins in PH v. HG and BG v. HW, “class”, not ‘gender’ is the cause. HG’s oppression has the same roots as HW’s. Why? Because holding “class” constant, and varying the other attributes, reveals the biases that people have based on “class” which are independent of those other things which are varied.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Urph.
Holding those OTHER things constant and varying CLASS.
I think.
Sorry — distracted by personal drama …
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
hf
I’ve laid out - with references and quotations - the nature of the dispute between Julie and myself. I have rebutted every one of the accusations you made in comment 240.
Your only response is, apparently, to quote Julie’s affirmation that
which is besides the point: my argument was with Julie herself, not with the “scenario that feminists like to talk about”. I’ve shown that she - repeatedly - implied that male privilege outweighs any amount of wealth privilege. Please check the quotes in comment 243, there are enough of them, goodness knows. If the comparison of the privilege enjoyed by a homeless man and a very wealthy woman was such “an idiotic or pointless distraction” why on earth did she reiterate it, with the implication that the man’s male privilege (provided he doesn’t stink of piss etc) outweighs the millionairess’s wealth privilege?
I think that this is most unfair to Julie: she didn’t make the comparison once, she made it repeatedly and emphatically. If it had been a mere slip of the keyboard, then she could have corrected her position at any time and instantly shut me up.
That is a totally illogical statement. Julie knew full well that her repeated suggestion that a homeless man’s male privilege prevails over a millionairess’s wealth privilege was a stumbling block to our reaching an understanding. She knew it because I kept telling her it was the crux of our disagreement.
As it was, Ampersand - who was no doubt yearning for the quiet life - made the adjustment that she herself was unwilling to make. I was not altogether convinced that his interpretation of the matter was correct (Julie herself never authorized it), but, as you can see from comment 169, I effectively allowed him to put the matter to bed. It was as much a courtesy to him as anything else.
hf, is the irony of the situation altogether lost on you? You suggest that I am somehow culpable for bringing up a question Amp would prefer left undiscussed. But I wouldn’t now be discussing the episode at all if you hadn’t insisted - against my reservations - that I justify my behaviour in it.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Julie
And I said upthread
This is what I meant by a merry-go-round. Do we all really want to get back on?
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
Tom,
Yes, and at which point it would CEASE to be “all other things being equal”.
I said that in my most recent response to you (HG doesn’t get to yell “I live under a $10M bridge, not in a $10M house!”), and to various other responses.
Your example is based on people somehow (who knows how …) having knowledge that I’ve done my best to conceal. You keep wanting to drag PH’s wealth into the picture so that you can say “Ah-ha! PH’s wealth privileges her!” But how do people know PH (or RRW — Random Rich Woman) has that wealth?
What you doggedly persist in doing is forcing an intersection between wealth and gender. That’s something YOU want to do, and you appear to want to do it solely for the sake of disproving the existence of male privilege. In a comparision between BG and HW, does HW somehow “win” because in PH v. HG, PH “wins”? Yes? Right? So it simply isn’t a matter than HG is oppressed AS A MAN. He, and HW, are oppressed based on their CLASS. Meaning, that to me, the entire premise you persist in advancing is just plain irrelevant to a discussion about men being oppressed AS MEN. Is HW oppressed? Yes. Duh. But not AS A MAN, so dragging him through the gutter as “proof” that men are oppressed, is just plain wrong.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Tom,
The OTHER thing you want to do is claim that because “male privilege” isn’t completely, totally, and utterly overwhelmingly powerful, that it doesn’t exist, or that feminist claims are somehow invalid.
Someone else you’ve argued with (pick Heart — she seems to believe that) might have taken that stance, but not me. Take your issues up with them because I don’t give a flip.
This comment was written by Julie, Herder of Cats.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Julie
This too has been covered.
me
I think your problem, Julie, is that (despite Amp’s and hf’s protestations) you are unwilliing to articulate your view of the matter in a way which would obviate all my objections. You could say:
but you are anxious not to present your case like that. Why? Is it - and this is my suspicion, by the way - because you want to hypothesize a man who is both poor and simultaneously enjoys a preponderance of privilege over a millionairess?
As for the this
No. I do it because the intersection of wealth and gender is a reality. I insist that both wealth and gender need to be taken into consideration when we discuss the balance of privilege between two individuals because both play a role.
I don’t believe that, I’ve never said that, nothing that I have written can be read as implying that; and I have corrected you in this regard on numerous occasions.
I think I’m going to bow out now. You’ve as good as called ma liar on no evidence at all. Some level of mutual respect is necessary to debate. It’s missing here.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I don’t know who’s winning this argument, but I do know that it’s boring the piss out of me.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I don’t agree, for reasons unrelated to gender.
If you gave a homeless woman as much money as the millionairess, the latter will still get served before the former, because the latter will act the part, while the former will still be a poor homeless women in terms of her behaviour.
The signs of poverty fade over time, but they are unlikely to be completely erased.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Robert,
Me too. Didn’t Amp ask that if people were going to argue about PH, they had to make it interesting?
[moderator hat on]
Tom and Julie, you have failed to make the discussion of PH and HM interesting. Stop discussing it here. No further mention of PH or HM is allowed in this thread.
Actually, cut the “No, you are” crap as well. It is really, really boring.
Actually, you know what, this thread is closed until Amp says otherwise.
This comment was written by Charles.[/moderator hat off]
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April 6th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Robert
Gee thanks, Robert. It’s appreciative interjections like this that make commenting worthwhile. Really cheered me up, you have.
This comment was written by Tom Nolan.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Tom,
I assume we cross posted.
Closed until further notice. Take it elsewhere if you really want to continue this.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Kittens are cute.
This comment was written by Flamethorn.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2007 at 12:19 am
Flamethorn writes:
Banned
just kidding…
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
June 5th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
[...] Would Mythago come back? [...]
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[...] a bit from Caroline New’s discussion; see previous “Alas” discussions here and here. (back)Credit where credit’s due: I think Daran of “feminist critics” may have [...]
This comment was written by Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » “Oppression” and “Privilege” Defined As Direct Opposites.Report this comment to the moderators