White Male Privilege

Shenshen · 10-05-2015 09:02PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I didn't live in that time so I can't comment.

But again, the consistently ignored double standard has not been addressed.

Either one gender racing ahead of the other in terms of achievement is something to be concerned about and to be prevented, or is something to be celebrated.

It can't be celebrated when it's women who are racing ahead (in education) but condemned when it's men who are racing ahead (professionally). This is, very simply, a sexist double standard. Either one gender having an advantage over the other is a good thing or it isn't. It can't change from bad to good based on which gender is gaining an advantage - that's sexist discrimination.

I'm not celebrating it. I'm simply saying that the only thing we've changed about the education system is providing the education that previously was available only to boys to girls as well. we have not in the last 50 years changed anything at all about the way we teach. We still have the same teacher-in-front-of-classroom, one-way knowledge transfer situation we've had for pretty much the last century - well, without physical punishment now.

The fact that girls now outperform boys is nothing to celebrate, it means we need to find a way to make education relevant to boys and engage them more. In my home country, there are special school programs to help boys who are struggling, but what they find more and more is that school is considered "girly".
"Girly" is a dirty word for a young boy, they wouldn't want to be associated with it. It's derogative, it implies low social status.

Now, you tell me how we can get it into boys' and mens' heads that something that's feminine isn't something negative?
Because wherever I turn, that's what I see.

Shenshen · 10-05-2015 09:05PM

Erin Rommel wrote: »

Why does it need to be addressed? If women aren't interested in high paying industries why should they be encouraged to enter those industries?

Financial security and independence, better and safer life, better pension, it's a long list.

Yurt2 · 10-05-2015 09:10PM

Shenshen wrote: »

And you wouldn't for a moment stop and wonder why they choose humanities? I was actively discouraged at school from pursueing anything to do with physics or mathematics ("girls can't do that" were the words not one, but 3 physics and maths teachers), yet still ended up in IT.

You don't wonder if they choose to work part-time, when once they do have children they really have no other viable option?

You think simply stating that as women consistently pick the wrong subjects and then are dumb enough to have children and don't abandon them by the road side, that's a good way to counter-argue the pay gap?

I know WHY women earn less than men on average. There's no need to point that out. What I'm interested in is ways of addressing the problem and solving it.

In my circle of friends the majority of my female friends did humanities and are in commensurate stable careers. No one held a gun to their head or bullied them into their University subjects and it's patronizing to suggest they were. The one's that did STEM are doing very well for themselves.

I was also a graduate/victim of the humanities degree mill before I retrained. I did ok but I wasn't sitting around scratching my head wondering why I wasn't getting paid the same as an engineer or physicist.

There are loads of uplift programmes and schemes to get women into more technical sectors in Western Europe and N. America and have been for years. Why the poor uptake? Maybe, just maybe, on average we're wired differently and we are drawn to different things because of biological differences and evolutionary reasons. Such a suggestion is an anathema to feminism's theories on patriarchy and social conditioning, but I believe it's closer to the truth.

Here's a solid Norwegian documentary that speaks to just that...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70

hatrickpatrick · 10-05-2015 09:18PM

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm not celebrating it.

I'm not accusing you of celebrating it, I'm accusing the media of celebrating it, and accusing a lot of feminists of celebrating it.

I'm simply saying that the only thing we've changed about the education system is providing the education that previously was available only to boys to girls as well.

We've also put far less emphasis on competition, reduced amounts of time available for physical exercise, and as I've said we've begun to medicate boys for just being boys.

we have not in the last 50 years changed anything at all about the way we teach. We still have the same teacher-in-front-of-classroom, one-way knowledge transfer situation we've had for pretty much the last century - well, without physical punishment now.

Would you agree with any of what I said above?

The fact that girls now outperform boys is nothing to celebrate, it means we need to find a way to make education relevant to boys and engage them more. In my home country, there are special school programs to help boys who are struggling, but what they find more and more is that school is considered "girly".
"Girly" is a dirty word for a young boy, they wouldn't want to be associated with it. It's derogative, it implies low social status.

So again it's boys' fault for disengaging, but not the education system's fault for shaming masculinity?

Now, you tell me how we can get it into boys' and mens' heads that something that's feminine isn't something negative?
Because wherever I turn, that's what I see.

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that young boys are generally full of energy, boisterous, challenge authority more often and are competitive amongst eachother. Our current education system regards all of the above not as natural boy behaviour but as a disorder, such as ADHD, to be medicated away so that little boys behave more like little girls.

Again though still nobody is addressing the double standard with regard to female achievement in school vs male achievement in the corporate world. One is celebrated as fair and just, the other is condemned as evidence of discrimination.

No matter how long this debate goes on, I find it highly unlikely that anyone will convince me that this is anything more than an extremely damaging sexist double standard wherein the feminist sympathetic media refuses to treat men and women equally. If a woman isn't doing well it's because she's oppressed and being discriminated against, if a man isn't doing well it's because he's chosen not to do well.

Yurt2 · 10-05-2015 09:25PM

Shenshen wrote: »

What I'm interested in is ways of addressing the problem and solving it.

Given my perspective on the 'gender pay gap' I actually don't see it as a problem. There aren't thousands of women being done out of wages in the West. If there was they should (rightly) be banging down the doors of the courts. What we can see is that women make radically different career choices. I'm not interested in spending millions of taxpayers money to raise an army of female scientists just for equality's sake. A simple solution is more equitable parental leave legislation, but even then I'd wager it would be the mother taking the majority of the leave anyway, and we'd be left in the same position.

the nikkei is rising · 10-05-2015 09:26PM

Shenshen wrote: »

And you wouldn't for a moment stop and wonder why they choose humanities? I was actively discouraged at school from pursueing anything to do with physics or mathematics ("girls can't do that" were the words not one, but 3 physics and maths teachers), yet still ended up in IT.

You don't wonder if they choose to work part-time, when once they do have children they really have no other viable option?

You think simply stating that as women consistently pick the wrong subjects and then are dumb enough to have children and don't abandon them by the road side, that's a good way to counter-argue the pay gap?

I know WHY women earn less than men on average. There's no need to point that out. What I'm interested in is ways of addressing the problem and solving it.

I was actively discouraged from taking physics for the same reasons, I was told I wouldn't be able for it by teachers, peers and career guidance counselors, I did it and got a B1 in the LC but if I hadn't I would have no right to turn around and blame the figures who told me not to, you're responsible for your own choices.

zeffabelli · 10-05-2015 09:38PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I'm not accusing you of celebrating it, I'm accusing the media of celebrating it, and accusing a lot of feminists of celebrating it.

We've also put far less emphasis on competition, reduced amounts of time available for physical exercise, and as I've said we've begun to medicate boys for just being boys.

Would you agree with any of what I said above?

So again it's boys' fault for disengaging, but not the education system's fault for shaming masculinity?

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that young boys are generally full of energy, boisterous, challenge authority more often and are competitive amongst eachother. Our current education system regards all of the above not as natural boy behaviour but as a disorder, such as ADHD, to be medicated away so that little boys behave more like little girls.

Again though still nobody is addressing the double standard with regard to female achievement in school vs male achievement in the corporate world. One is celebrated as fair and just, the other is condemned as evidence of discrimination.

No matter how long this debate goes on, I find it highly unlikely that anyone will convince me that this is anything more than an extremely damaging sexist double standard wherein the feminist sympathetic media refuses to treat men and women equally. If a woman isn't doing well it's because she's oppressed and being discriminated against, if a man isn't doing well it's because he's chosen not to do well.

Honestly, I think you are behind the times here....there is and has been growing recognition of the crisis in boys education and how education is leaving them behind....this is going to increase exponentially as school is still analogue.

You are about 20 years behind in your perceptions.

zeffabelli · 10-05-2015 09:47PM

Yurt! wrote: »

In my circle of friends the majority of my female friends did humanities and are in commensurate stable careers. No one held a gun to their head or bullied them into their University subjects and it's patronizing to suggest they were. The one's that did STEM are doing very well for themselves.

I was also a graduate/victim of the humanities degree mill before I retrained. I did ok but I wasn't sitting around scratching my head wondering why I wasn't getting paid the same as an engineer or physicist.

There are loads of uplift programmes and schemes to get women into more technical sectors in Western Europe and N. America and have been for years. Why the poor uptake? Maybe, just maybe, on average we're wired differently and we are drawn to different things because of biological differences and evolutionary reasons. Such a suggestion is an anathema to feminism's theories on patriarchy and social conditioning, but I believe it's closer to the truth.

Here's a solid Norwegian documentary that speaks to just that...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70

The gender facists would like us to believe we are all the same, but I think we can agree, on balance, that the vast majority of women have a uterus.

Thanks to the ideological insanity in the ivory tower, the Humanities have committed har-kari with their utter nonsense and there is no recovery for them.

On the plus side, right brained stuff can't be outsourced so it has one advantage there.....that is short hand for the creative, language, psychology and cultural production side of things...not that I am a disciple of the right/brain left brain divide...just using the short hand...where as the more left brain logic stuff can be outsourced. Not only that but let's say you are 45 with 20 years experience and your knowledge is outdated, it's much cheaper to hire a 21 year old right out of college with more up to date knowledge. That's another disadvantage.

I was in school before all this encourage girls stuff. I was put in a gifted math program, only girl in it...but I felt like an imposter, like I didn't belong so I dropped out.

I think if I were not socialised to feel the need to connect...and to be fearful of social exclusion I would have been able to tough that out more. I also didn't appreciate math or science, even though I was more than capable.... an I think that's a big part of it.

tritium · 10-05-2015 09:59PM

Always amazes me how there's a segment of the 'progressive' wing whose only defence against any criticism of how they feel the world should be socially engineered is to describe those critics as losers/ pathetic/ morons etc. and an appeal to "but its soooo obvious......"

Its a shame really, like most topics that appear in AH we have a solid core of posters who consistently give thoughtful insights on both sides, and then we get this sort of nonsense

zeffabelli · 10-05-2015 10:02PM

tritium wrote: »

Always amazes me how there's a segment of the 'progressive' wing whose only defence against any criticism of how they feel the world should be socially engineered is to describe those critics as losers/ pathetic/ morons etc. and an appeal to "but its soooo obvious......"

Its a shame really, like most topics that appear in AH we have a solid core of posters who consistently give thoughtful insights on both sides, and then we get this sort of nonsense

Can you be more specific....what are you referring to?

suicide_circus · 10-05-2015 10:13PM

some people in here could do with a mandatory gender studies course!

nokia69 · 10-05-2015 10:20PM

suicide_circus wrote: »

some people in here could do with a mandatory gender studies course!

why

it doesn't seem to have a good effect on anyone

I know a few people with degrees in that kind of ****e

bitter unemployed losers, one and all

ancapailldorcha · 10-05-2015 10:21PM

suicide_circus wrote: »

some people in here could do with a mandatory gender studies course!

I honestly can't think of a more worthless subject someone could waste taxpayers' money studying.

tritium · 10-05-2015 10:49PM

zeffabelli wrote: »

Can you be more specific....what are you referring to?

this sort of stuff:

jobbridge4life wrote: »

This thread is pathetic. Instead of a worthwhile conversation on 'privilege' we have the same tired set of men virtually tripping up over themselves to demonstrate how bad men have it in society.

ngcxt6 wrote: »

Ah, raging white men ITC. Self aware levels and understanding of the term = zero.

as the most recent examples from the thread

zeffabelli · 10-05-2015 11:09PM

http://www.ted.com/talks/zimchallenge?language=en

Phillip Zombardo who rant he Stamford Experiments has a good talk here. ALso just published a book.

Arousal addictions, absent dads, no role models.....of course it's a disaster for them.

hatrickpatrick · 11-05-2015 12:06AM

Can't watch a TED talk at the moment as I'm mid-way through a gigantic monster of an essay, but "arousal addictions"? I'm going to assume this is probably attacking male sexuality in some way, but I could be wrong. Is this going to be about how guys should reign in their sexuality and suppress it more, or something along those lines…?

zeffabelli · 11-05-2015 12:26AM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Can't watch a TED talk at the moment as I'm mid-way through a gigantic monster of an essay, but "arousal addictions"? I'm going to assume this is probably attacking male sexuality in some way, but I could be wrong. Is this going to be about how guys should reign in their sexuality and suppress it more, or something along those lines…?

Nah. He just wrote a book about technology destroying masculinity... Video games, porn etc leading to isolation, amotivation, and addiction, making it harder to succeed and negotiate with real life or real women. There's no attacking sexuality, relax!

Writing an essay?
Are you in college? Ah yeah no wonder... Ivory tower has lost the plot....

Just ignore all of the nonsense.

hatrickpatrick · 11-05-2015 01:10AM

zeffabelli wrote: »

Nah. He just wrote a book about technology destroying masculinity... Video games, porn etc leading to isolation, amotivation, and addiction, making it harder to succeed and negotiate with real life or real women. There's no attacking sexuality, relax!

That sounds reasonable enough, I'll take a look and respond to some of your other points tomorrow when my word count is slightly higher.

One question. Would you accept that there's something at least slightly suspicious about the vast majority of ADHD diagnosees in young children being boys, and the suggestion that it's at least possible that part of this is because boisterous, hyperactive masculinity is looked down upon, while girls are held up as a gold standard?

I can find you plenty of references of others who have proposed this same hypothesis, it's not just something I conjured up on my own. There's a growing body of theory suggesting that since young girls are more likely to be able to sit still and concentrate for longer, they are seen as the gold standard while boys are seen as "defective" versions of girls.

Writing an essay?
Are you in college? Ah yeah no wonder... Ivory tower has lost the plot….

Heh no question. What I find interesting is that among women my own age, the extreme aspects of feminism which a lot of feminists are trying to make 'mainstream' are so wholeheartedly rejected by those my age, that they feel reluctant to apply the label to themselves at all.

Just ignore all of the nonsense.

It's difficult to ignore it when it's all around you though.

Look, I know there's no love for anecdotes in debates about gender equality, but try for a moment to imagine growing up surrounded by ad campaigns specifically calling out men for being violent, news stories about how girls are soooo much better than boys at exams, cultural memes such as "it's automatically worse for a boy to hit a girl, if a girl hits a boy it doesn't matter that much", demonisation of male sexuality, and even stuff like you've linked to which attacks traditionally male pastimes and hobbies such as video gaming.

Regardless of the intention, and I accept that sexism is probably not the intention of all of those things, boys grow up at the moment in a world surrounded by vilification of their gender. And crucially, they are exposed to all this at an age when they are too young to understand why. For instance, while some might argue that the violence against women thing is justified since men are generally physically stronger, this doesn't tend to kick in until puberty hits and muscles develop. To a three or four year old boy, without that context, the message is simply "girls matter more, if you get hurt people don't care as much because you're not a girl".

Growing up in such an environment, and later in life encountering real, genuine examples of sexism (such as Ireland's absolutely disgraceful and outrageous underage sex law) while at the same time being asked to believe that men are privileged, have it better, and that it's women we should focus on helping, is what leads so many as evidenced by this thread to become very, very resentful and bitter. And the issue is, most of these social double standards which affect men are the only ones which affect children and young teenagers. Double standards against women with regard to corporate culture for example will not be appreciated or understood by people who are years and years away from even having an office job on their horizon, and double standards with regard to childcare again won't apply to the vast majority of young people. So boys encounter a set of double standards which predominantly go against them and give girls the upper hand, and are then asked to accept that they have it easier and girls are the true victims of inequality.

Regardless of what they might learn about other double standards later in life, for many boys the damage has already been done and they have been instilled with a deep feeling of resentment and injustice, one which can be extremely difficult to shake.

It is in this context that I so fundamentally reject the concept of male privilege. As a young person, the majority of the double standards I've seen in operation give women more freedom than they give men, and while once I enter the corporate world and start thinking about starting a family this may swing around, for the majority of my life (and other guys here who are arguing from the same angle I am) I've had to put up with the above examples of misandry, while being shamed every time I speak up about them for basically being a privileged male who should accept that he's the oppressor, not the oppressed.

jobbridge4life · 11-05-2015 10:03AM

tritium wrote: »

Always amazes me how there's a segment of the 'progressive' wing whose only defence against any criticism of how they feel the world should be socially engineered is to describe those critics as losers/ pathetic/ morons etc. and an appeal to "but its soooo obvious......"

Its a shame really, like most topics that appear in AH we have a solid core of posters who consistently give thoughtful insights on both sides, and then we get this sort of nonsense

I'd be more inclined to accept your criticism if you didn't also like a comment that described any attempt to study gender as the greatest waste of tax payers money conceivable, which when you consider the creative ways Irish governments have found to waste money is a fairly audacious claim.

The radical feminist is only as stupid as the male who cannot handle or accept any legitimate criticism of patriarchy without scrambling to find an area of life where women enjoy advantage.

zeffabelli · 11-05-2015 11:04AM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

That sounds reasonable enough, I'll take a look and respond to some of your other points tomorrow when my word count is slightly higher.

One question. Would you accept that there's something at least slightly suspicious about the vast majority of ADHD diagnosees in young children being boys, and the suggestion that it's at least possible that part of this is because boisterous, hyperactive masculinity is looked down upon, while girls are held up as a gold standard?

I can find you plenty of references of others who have proposed this same hypothesis, it's not just something I conjured up on my own. There's a growing body of theory suggesting that since young girls are more likely to be able to sit still and concentrate for longer, they are seen as the gold standard while boys are seen as "defective" versions of girls.

Heh no question. What I find interesting is that among women my own age, the extreme aspects of feminism which a lot of feminists are trying to make 'mainstream' are so wholeheartedly rejected by those my age, that they feel reluctant to apply the label to themselves at all.

It's difficult to ignore it when it's all around you though.

Look, I know there's no love for anecdotes in debates about gender equality, but try for a moment to imagine growing up surrounded by ad campaigns specifically calling out men for being violent, news stories about how girls are soooo much better than boys at exams, cultural memes such as "it's automatically worse for a boy to hit a girl, if a girl hits a boy it doesn't matter that much", demonisation of male sexuality, and even stuff like you've linked to which attacks traditionally male pastimes and hobbies such as video gaming.

Regardless of the intention, and I accept that sexism is probably not the intention of all of those things, boys grow up at the moment in a world surrounded by vilification of their gender. And crucially, they are exposed to all this at an age when they are too young to understand why. For instance, while some might argue that the violence against women thing is justified since men are generally physically stronger, this doesn't tend to kick in until puberty hits and muscles develop. To a three or four year old boy, without that context, the message is simply "girls matter more, if you get hurt people don't care as much because you're not a girl".

Growing up in such an environment, and later in life encountering real, genuine examples of sexism (such as Ireland's absolutely disgraceful and outrageous underage sex law) while at the same time being asked to believe that men are privileged, have it better, and that it's women we should focus on helping, is what leads so many as evidenced by this thread to become very, very resentful and bitter. And the issue is, most of these social double standards which affect men are the only ones which affect children and young teenagers. Double standards against women with regard to corporate culture for example will not be appreciated or understood by people who are years and years away from even having an office job on their horizon, and double standards with regard to childcare again won't apply to the vast majority of young people. So boys encounter a set of double standards which predominantly go against them and give girls the upper hand, and are then asked to accept that they have it easier and girls are the true victims of inequality.

Regardless of what they might learn about other double standards later in life, for many boys the damage has already been done and they have been instilled with a deep feeling of resentment and injustice, one which can be extremely difficult to shake.

It is in this context that I so fundamentally reject the concept of male privilege. As a young person, the majority of the double standards I've seen in operation give women more freedom than they give men, and while once I enter the corporate world and start thinking about starting a family this may swing around, for the majority of my life (and other guys here who are arguing from the same angle I am) I've had to put up with the above examples of misandry, while being shamed every time I speak up about them for basically being a privileged male who should accept that he's the oppressor, not the oppressed.

I agree with you about ADHD, but the psych industry is riddled with these gender biases for both men and women. There are countless examples. Is this not more a symptom of the psych/pharma industry? Far more women are diagnosed with borderline.... peomiscuity is one of its cataloguing identifiers.... seeking validation...but when a man practises this it's simply being a Casanova...although the pscyh industry is looking at how different disorders present differently in the genders..this is not filtering through to the general public'sperceptions. Aspergers is another example, female aspergers manifest differently so many girls and women are not getting the supports. Im not saying this to have a victim competition with you, but to remind you of a wider context of diagnosis as a whole.

Education is mostly sedentary and theoretical, I don't know how most boys don't go nuts locked up in there for 6 hours a day. If they don't have ADHD they probably just cut out. It needs massive reform.

What I linked doesn't attack video graming, what it suggests is that too much of it leads to isolation and in a world of mastery and this is what is leading to the demise of men. He also sights biases in legislation...so it's not an attack it's an assessment and of course is up for debate, like any other assessment.

What will happen when you get out of college and the ivory tower is tables will turn and there will still be double standards, but you will know you can't change the world and you jsut have to work within them and use them to your advantage. Real politik.

orubiru · 11-05-2015 11:37AM

zeffabelli wrote: »

I agree with you about ADHD, but the psych industry is riddled with these gender biases for both men and women. There are countless examples. Is this not more a symptom of the psych/pharma industry? Far more women are diagnosed with borderline.... peomiscuity is one of its cataloguing identifiers.... seeking validation...but when a man practises this it's simply being a Casanova...although the pscyh industry is looking at how different disorders present differently in the genders..this is not filtering through to the general public'sperceptions. Aspergers is another example, female aspergers manifest differently so many girls and women are not getting the supports. Im not saying this to have a victim competition with you, but to remind you of a wider context of diagnosis as a whole.

I think this is a really important point.

Homo Sapiens are a sexually dimorphic species. There are both physiological and psychological differences between the genders.

I wonder to what extent the general public understands this and what it means for our species and for our society.

I think we can agree that many people in society are privileged though I am not sure what percentage of that group are white males. I am sure that the group is not exclusively white or male.

It seems like we are exposed to soundbites and snappy one liners such as "white male privilege" rather than being encouraged to read up and have a rational conversation.

bodice ripper · 11-05-2015 11:57AM

Of course it exists, i have seen it. I have also been involved in fist fights in the street and have the cops show no interest in me, just the guy i was fighting with. Sexism is bad for everyone.

Eugene Norman · 11-05-2015 12:00PM

orubiru wrote: »

I think this is a really important point.

Homo Sapiens are a sexually dimorphic species. There are both physiological and psychological differences between the genders.

I wonder to what extent the general public understands this and what it means for our species and for our society.

I think we can agree that many people in society are privileged though I am not sure what percentage of that group are white males. I am sure that the group is not exclusively white or male.

It seems like we are exposed to soundbites and snappy one liners such as "white male privilege" rather than being encouraged to read up and have a rational conversation.

Here's the thing. These two sentences sound the same.

1)The capitalist runs all corporations and is privileged compared to the worker.
2)The male runs all corporations and is privileged compared to the female.

Let's assume that 2 is true ( rather than most)

The problem is that
1) is saying that all capitalists are running corporations and implying all corporations are run by capitalists, and both are in fact true
2) sounds the same but it's designed to make the reader infer a logical fallacy. If all corporations are run by men it doesn't follow that all men run corporations. That's true for capitalists, not men.

If you were to write these as sets or mathematical based formal sentences they would be written differently.

The ideology of patriarchy falls at this hurdle and many others. It's easy to defend the ideas of capitalist privilege ( and even a pro capitalist would accept that any capitalist is privileged but defend the privilege ) but the ideas of patriarchy, all men gaining privilege because some do is just nonsense.

orubiru · 11-05-2015 12:32PM

Shenshen wrote: »

I know WHY women earn less than men on average. There's no need to point that out. What I'm interested in is ways of addressing the problem and solving it.

Can the problem be solved though? Is it even a problem?

Pretty much every major corporation on the planet will have some kind of criteria or calculation determining how much an employee gets paid. The determining factors have nothing to do with gender. If there are companies that consider gender when deciding how much to pay an employee then those companies are acting illegally and they should be taken to court.

For the majority of the population the "pay gap" is not really an issue. Some guy working for Corporation X and some lady also working for Corporation X have the same potential, the same prospects, and the same opportunities going in at the ground level.

So what happens if a male employee and a female employee from Corporation X get married and decide to have children. The woman decides she wants to stay home and look after the kids. The man wants to try to climb the ladder as high as possible so he can provide for his family. In this situation would the "pay gap" be a problem for this particular woman? Surely its in her interest for her husband to earn more than the other Corporation X drones? Maybe she is "driving" her husband to go out there and work harder and try harder and earn more. How many more woman like her are there in the world? How many wives are pushing their husbands to reach higher and be more competitive in the work place?

Is it fair to rein those men in because WE look at statistics and say "this is a problem that needs to be solved"? Is it fair to deny those families the income the man has earned because WE see the amount he stands to earn as a problem?

Surely seeing men in higher paid positions is a "trend" rather than a "problem"? We need to understand what causes the trend and then decide if we need to act to influence the trend, or not.

We seem pretty determined to jump in with both feet shouting "we need to fix this problem" without even attempting to understand how the problem arose, how the problem continues to exist and if it's even a problem is the first place.

If Man A earns 10% more than Woman B then it's clearly not a problem for Man A or his partner or his children. If it's a problem for Woman B then there are many paths she could go down in an effort to get equal pay. Simply giving Man A more money because he is a man is against the law AND against most companies codes of conduct.

We, the outsiders, are the ones deciding it's a problem. We are the ones saying "women need to be paid more". We are saying this in a society that has laws against discrimination and laws that enforce the idea of equal pay for equal work.

English football clubs pay out almost 2 billion pounds in player salaries every year. The workforce is exclusively male. This is an obvious case of gender inequality. One of the genders is not even represented at all. Is it a problem?

whats newxt · 11-05-2015 12:34PM

It does exist to some degree but what about white female privilege aswell.

smash · 11-05-2015 12:36PM

Apparently you can only be racist if you're a white male. Is that a privilege?

DoYouEvenLift · 11-05-2015 12:38PM

Proud to be white, feels good mane

orubiru · 11-05-2015 12:49PM

smash wrote: »

Apparently you can only be racist if you're a white male. Is that a privilege?

I think that can be a more complicated issue.

In a predominantly "white" country, such as Ireland, I would have to say that mocking or abusing or dismissing other people based on their race is really only something that can be done by the majority. An attempt to be "racist" towards the obvious majority just looks weak and ineffectual. An attempt to be "racist" towards a member of a minority group looks like a demonstration of dominance or power, bullying really.

If someone called me a "white c***" in the middle of a busy bar in Dublin it kind of feels like they'd just be laughed at. If it were the other way round and I were to use race as part of an insult towards a member of a minority group, in the same social setting, then that would be more serious.

In Ireland, it's difficult to be racist towards white males because white males are the majority and have plenty of wealth, comfort, and privilege. A racist remark or insult towards that group just seems laughably feeble and completely pointless.

Being openly racist towards groups who are clearly a minority, maybe immigrants, trying to build up some wealth comfort and privilege for themselves seems like a completely different thing.

NI24 · 12-05-2015 09:01AM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

...be able to sit still and concentrate for longer, they are seen as the gold standard while boys are seen as "defective" versions of girls.

Are you sure this is true? I thought focus was more of a masculine trait, not a feminine one. I always hear how women are better multitaskers, while men have better tunnel vision.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It's difficult to ignore it when it's all around you though.

Look, I know there's no love for anecdotes in debates about gender equality, but try for a moment to imagine growing up surrounded by ad campaigns specifically calling out men for being violent, news stories about how girls are soooo much better than boys at exams, cultural memes such as "it's automatically worse for a boy to hit a girl, if a girl hits a boy it doesn't matter that much", demonisation of male sexuality, and even stuff like you've linked to which attacks traditionally male pastimes and hobbies such as video gaming.

Regardless of the intention, and I accept that sexism is probably not the intention of all of those things, boys grow up at the moment in a world surrounded by vilification of their gender. And crucially, they are exposed to all this at an age when they are too young to understand why. For instance, while some might argue that the violence against women thing is justified since men are generally physically stronger, this doesn't tend to kick in until puberty hits and muscles develop. To a three or four year old boy, without that context, the message is simply "girls matter more, if you get hurt people don't care as much because you're not a girl".

Growing up in such an environment, and later in life encountering real, genuine examples of sexism (such as Ireland's absolutely disgraceful and outrageous underage sex law) while at the same time being asked to believe that men are privileged, have it better, and that it's women we should focus on helping, is what leads so many as evidenced by this thread to become very, very resentful and bitter. And the issue is, most of these social double standards which affect men are the only ones which affect children and young teenagers. Double standards against women with regard to corporate culture for example will not be appreciated or understood by people who are years and years away from even having an office job on their horizon, and double standards with regard to childcare again won't apply to the vast majority of young people. So boys encounter a set of double standards which predominantly go against them and give girls the upper hand, and are then asked to accept that they have it easier and girls are the true victims of inequality.

Regardless of what they might learn about other double standards later in life, for many boys the damage has already been done and they have been instilled with a deep feeling of resentment and injustice, one which can be extremely difficult to shake.

It is in this context that I so fundamentally reject the concept of male privilege. As a young person, the majority of the double standards I've seen in operation give women more freedom than they give men, and while once I enter the corporate world and start thinking about starting a family this may swing around, for the majority of my life (and other guys here who are arguing from the same angle I am) I've had to put up with the above examples of misandry, while being shamed every time I speak up about them for basically being a privileged male who should accept that he's the oppressor, not the oppressed.

And yet, despite all this, men still occupy the highest places of power. In this context, do you not understand why young girls and women would promote the idea of male privilege? Girls don't exist in a vacuum, so when they look up to all the role models and see that women still occupy the same one-dimensional role models of caregiver or sex symbol and see that men occupy the vast majority of careers outside of those two things, can you not understand why they come to the logical conclusion that men are born with privilege and that men have many more opportunities?

Young girls may be told by feminist idealogy that they can do anything a boy can do, but life and all manner of media and art and people tells them differently. You say that for the majority of your life you've experienced misandry, but I'm going to take a wild guess that you're a relatively young man, and with all due respect, your living your life with blinders on if you think that women aren't subject to misogyny at much deeper levels than men are to misandry. So just wait and watch the tables turn with a vengeance against women, and it certainly reaches far outside corporate culture or whether or not you want to start a family and goes on for alot longer than it does for men. Just look at old age threads and see how many women talk about dressing a certain way after a certain age because they don't want to disappear. And it's not as though they disappear because of their personality or lack of personal accomplishments, it's because they simply had the temerity to age. For the majority of women's life, starting in childhood, they are surrounded by a barrage of comments, insults,television shows, movies, books, and advertisements regarding their looks and age, and by the time girls reach young adulthood, the damage has already been done. And it's not just from boys or young men, either. I've heard men in their 30s openly admit that the reason they don't date women their own age is because they don't want to look at a woman their own age, I've heard grown men refer to physically unattractive women as "boilermakers". And yet at the same time, young girls (and women, for that matter), are shamed every time they speak up for not wanting to be valued/judged on their physical appearance. They're told that holding young pretty girls in high esteem for their physical appearance is natural, which is basically telling girls that if they aren't pretty, they aren't as valuable, and that even if they are pretty, that their time is limited, and that if they don't like it, well, tough, cause it speaks to boys "instincts".

And I truly don't understand where you get the idea that male sexuality is demonized. Even in a supposedly "egalitarian" society, the vast majority of strip clubs, nude magazines and websites, and porn is catered to and consumed by men; men brag about "stag" weekends, about "scoring", and every other manner of sexual activity. And when women do express their sexuality, and they don't express it in the way men desire, they are subject to a barrage of derogatory names, most of which are completely gender specific and some of which have been invented in the last 20 years, at the height of this "misandry". Just because women are more free to express their sexuality (usually in the form of baring their bodies for the pleasure of men) doesn't mean male sexuality is "demonized". I mean, come on, prostitution is actually legal now in some countries, and that passed after feminism. If anything, male sexuality has never been more open and accepted.

As for your comments about physical strength, well, once again, girls don't exist in a vacuum. Being told you "throw like a girl" (usually from boys) on the playground isn't exactly a compliment-- it's an insult to girls. They are constantly reminded they are physically inferior to boys (and its absolutely true), so would it not make sense that girls come to the conclusion that men are born into privilege? Privilege that no matter how hard a girl tries, she can never be born with? I would like to know what privileges girls are born into that boys are not? This is a serious question and not at all rhetorical.

So while the idea of white privilege in Ireland is ridiculous, I have failed to see the argument against the idea of male privilege, I really have. The only privileges women seems to possess are the ones that are written into law and those can be stricken like that.

One eyed Jack · 12-05-2015 10:02AM

Between Patrick's post, and NI24's post, and from many posts in this thread, from a couple of different perspectives, it seems to me like this idea of "privilege" is some sort of competition for 'victim status' - either you're a victim because you feel you're being discriminated against, and now there's this new idea of "privilege" which seems to me like people suggesting they're victims of their own... "success"? (there's probably a word, but it's such a bizarre concept the word eludes me), almost like they need to feel guilty for something, doesn't matter what it is, they're "responsible".

That's not what responsibility means. Acknowledging that you are indeed, well, in my case I'm a straight white male... so what? That doesn't actually mean anything. I'm never going to be able to identify with a lesbian black female, and I don't feel guilty for that. Someone else has their experiences and their perspective, and I have mine. I made my own opportunities in the same way as a black female makes opportunities for herself. I simply don't get where this idea of "privilege" helps anyone? Is it the "know your place" nonsense? Because to me that's alienating people, that's carving people up into their nice little demographics and it allows people to fester in their victim complexes.

I don't think the idea of "acknowledging privilege" is any way to tackle discrimination, because the idea to me simply comes across as - "I feel like I'm less than you, and in order for us to be equal, you have to give up what you have in order to come down to my level". That's simply not going to happen. It's unrealistic idealism. It's theoretical. It has no real world application. I don't care about equality, never did, because to me it says "uniformity", and I don't want everyone to be "the same". I see everyone as unique, I want everyone to be able to fulfill their potential, and to that end I help people to create opportunities for themselves, rather than this effort of spoon-feeding them. This idea of "privilege" seems to me at least to be an ideology used by people who want to be spoon-fed. It's like looking at someone else and saying "I want what they have, but I don't want to work for it". That's not the way the world works. Society can never function like that, and it never will function like that.

Bizarre and meaningless concept.

White Male Privilege

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