male privilege?

[magpie]

I agree, I think one of the greatest dangers of privilege is that it becomes invisible to the people who have it. This was especially true for me as a teenager when I assumed that I couldn't have male privilege because I wasn't a cis guy. I didn't realize that my interaction with male privilege was to subconsciously assume I had it, and my presentation was masculine enough that many people treated me like I was a guy despite knowing intellectually that I wasn't. I did all the obnoxious microaggressions against women--talking over women, taking up physical space, assuming that everyone ought to follow my plan, staring a little too long at attractive women on the street--and somehow came to the conclusion that because I was doing it as not-a-guy, it didn't count. Once I started realizing all the ways I was acting with the privilege I didn't realize I had, I started working pretty hard to dismantle all the misogyny I've internalized, but I still have a ways to go.

These days, as my presentation has become more and more masculine, the main difference I've noticed is how more and more people are giving me male privilege in group settings, listening to my ideas more and being less likely to interrupt, but it's subtle enough that I could attribute it to personality differences if I wasn't paying attention and looking at it as part of a broader pattern.

Misogyny is at the heart of male privilege and serves to keep people in line with masculinity.

So true. I think a lot of guys don't feel like they have male privilege because they don't feel like they have power, and that's because masculinity is constructed as something you can lose, something that can be taken away from you. Individual men feel the pressure to conform to standards of masculinity or be called sissies, etc, and because we then don't feel like we individually access the collective power that we hear people saying men have, it becomes hard for us to see where we individually and collectively do have male privilege. (And the pressure men feel to not be a sissy, etc, is deeply rooted in a misogyny that says that to be a woman or to be feminine is somehow lesser.)

[magpie]

Yes. Yes it is.
Misogyny is not a female issue... it has as profound and damaging effect on men as on women. Privilege is seated firmly in discrimination... it doesn't just come from nowhere.


And yes... there are female, cis, and even trans privileges.

Can you clarify what you mean on this one? I'm completely with you on cis privilege being a thing, and I can guess a few of the things you might mean by female privilege, but you lost me with trans privilege.

[KabitTarah]

Can you clarify what you mean on this one? I'm completely with you on cis privilege being a thing, and I can guess a few of the things you might mean by female privilege, but you lost me with trans privilege.

I'm certainly not saying there's much... we can have respect from other trans people. The smaller the minority, the more disperse the group, the less privilege the group has among its constituents. One example is the innate privilege (vice a granted privilege provided by its members) of knowing intimately about both male and female society.

There are also privileges (whether we want them or not) granted us by cis people. One common one is the approved use of family / handicap bathrooms. (This example is fleeting, though - if we were called out for doing it, responding why we're valid users would out us).

Yes, there are good things granted us for being transgender... they're just few and far between -- and usually related directly to gender studies issues.

[Oriah]

male privelage isn't freely offered to, or granted all men.  If it is something you want, you must demand it, and command it, by male presence.  Though not all men need or have use for male privelage

[KabitTarah]

male privelage isn't freely offered to, or granted all men.  If it is something you want, you must demand it, and command it, by male presence.  Though not all men need or have use for male privelage

I'd prefer to say there were different levels of male privilege, some of which all (or most) men can benefit from, depending on the circumstances. Math teachers (both male and female) have been shown to prefer a male's answers and support a male's mistakes, while offering less praise to a female's answer and belittling them further for incorrect answers. The article (which I can't find - this was a number of years ago) was describing how female only math classes removed this misogyny from the teachers.

A feminine man will receive these privileges to a lesser degree, but they will still be provided (at least until you enter The Androgynous Zone).

[sneakersjay]

I have lived it.  For 40+ years, esp in my 40s, I was invisible as a 40+ something not-beautiful woman. I was invisible.  Nobody helped me in stores, even when I needed help.  I was treated as incompetent, despite being intelligent, educated, and well-employed.

Now that I'm male, salesclerks fall over themselves to help me, random strangers strike up conversations with me, and I am treated as intelligent and competent.  And I love it, I will admit it. 

Yes, it does annoy me that women are expected to be submissive and invisible, and it pains me to watch competent women fall into that trap as well.  We should all be worthy because we are all people, and it shouldn't be based on gender.

[Saison Marguerite]

Well Caleb, I can remember the time when you were not on hormones yet and we were a couple. I remember walking to get lunch after your exam and how we got a lot of dirty looks for appearing as a lesbian couple. Perhaps the looks you no longer get are a privilege in themself.

[Declan.]

I've had a different experience. Maybe it's because we live in a very liberal area. I was generally treated better when I looked female.

[ThePhoenix]

During my experience living as male, I never quite managed to totally pass.  I would routinely have people say to me, "there's something about you I can't put my finger on, something very female."  I never mastered male body language.  That whole spreading out and taking lots of space thing that someone mentioned just seems really uncomfortable to me.  Even my voice never fully changed (though I did manage to sound like a guy to most people).  So I was one gender nonconforming guy.

Male privilege?  I never experienced it.  I was ignored and invisible during meetings.  My boss (in a profound gesture of male privilege) even fired my secretary without even telling me.  If word had not reached me fairly quickly, I would have just walked in and wondered what happened.  I got smaller raises and bonuses than many of the men and women I worked with.  I could go on. 

Now I'm living female.  And I can just relax.  When I do that I am a highly gender conforming girly girl.  I find people are *much* nicer to me now and I am treated a zillion times better.  I still have to deal with having lost my job for being a trans* spectrum individual.  But other than that, it is safer for me to walk down the street, I am ignored a lot less, and people are much kinder. 

One thing I've read in the literature about male privilege is that it is a misnomer.  Not all males get it.  The ones who get it are the ones who best conform to the narrow social expectations of being a man.  To me it seems like my experience confirms that. 

[Declan.]

Interesting experience, thanks for sharing. I'm glad you're getting to relax now.

However, I do conform to the social expectations - I'm a very "stereotypical" guy. Not deliberately, it's just my personality. I still don't feel like I'm privileged. I've really had the opposite experience. Strange. Anyone else in New England want to chime in and see if it's a regional thing or if my mind is playing tricks on me?

[ThePhoenix]

For what it's worth, I think there are different privileges and different expectations on both sides of the binary.  I never got to experience male privilege during my time trying to live as one.  But I do experience female privileges all the time.