Speaking of male privilege, I'm due to get my driver's license re-issued but with my male ID this time.

And for the privilege of having that little "M" instead of an "F" on the card, my insurance is going to cost more. For no actually good reason, ofc. I've never crashed a car or even scraped one, I haven't magically become more reckless or less proficient, or a different person. But that M is more expensive than that F. Ah, sweet, sweet male economic privilege.

Must be balanced out by all that extra money I earn in jobs because male, right? Oh, wait.

Quote from: Viktor on November 22, 2017, 11:21:41 AM
Speaking of male privilege, I'm due to get my driver's license re-issued but with my male ID this time.

And for the privilege of having that little "M" instead of an "F" on the card, my insurance is going to cost more. For no actually good reason, ofc. I've never crashed a car or even scraped one, I haven't magically become more reckless or less proficient, or a different person. But that M is more expensive than that F. Ah, sweet, sweet male economic privilege.

Must be balanced out by all that extra money I earn in jobs because male, right? Oh, wait.

Mine came yesterday with the new marker on it, and I'll be saving 15% on my car insurance by switching to female. 

You can have as much privilege as you can carry, regardless of gender. Women willing to be forceful and assertive get away with not cleaning the dishes

As old saying goes, in 2012 United States weren't ready yet for ether black president or a woman president, yet neither Barack nor Hillary were viewed as such.


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Quote from: elkie-t on November 22, 2017, 11:47:16 AM
You can have as much privilege as you can carry, regardless of gender. Women willing to be forceful and assertive get away with not cleaning the dishes

As old saying goes, in 2012 United States weren't ready yet for ether black president or a woman president, yet neither Barack nor Hillary were viewed as such.


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we definately weren't ready for an orange president either....

Privilege being compared to driver's licences and dishwashing is utterly ridiculous. There is a difference between an advantage and systemic, entrenched privilege. Men have always since the dawn of time had power over women. For entirely too long they have wielded that power to the detriment of women. I don't think that can be argued. Are things that bad anymore, no not at all. But you cannot deny that vestiges remain. This is the same for any group that has had historical power over another. And in these times we live in now I find it interesting that the groups whose power has been challenged and chipped away at deny and downplay the affects of it. But surprised i am not.

I also find it sad to see folks go from one demographic to another and gain privilege but dismiss how it affects the group they once belonged to! Willingly belonged to or not. Identified with or not. It's like the misfit kid at school who is constantly bullied, becoming a popular kid and do the bullying himself.

Quote from: CMD042414 on November 22, 2017, 04:14:21 PM
Privilege being compared to driver's licences and dishwashing is utterly ridiculous. There is a difference between an advantage and systemic, entrenched privilege. Men have always since the dawn of time had power over women. For entirely too long they have wielded that power to the detriment of women.

I agree with that statement 100%, in today's 21st century we may think that men and women are equal, but we are not, it's still very much a ''man's world''
And the greatest irony, I never knew that male privilege existed when I lived as a guy, maybe I just took it for granted as most guys do, I only discovered male privilege when I transition and became a woman, coming up with ideas I got listened to when I was a guy, but the same ideas coming from me now as a woman I get ignored, get called honey and basically get treat as an airhead bimbo.
I remember first experiencing this from men after I had just completed my transition and discussing it with female friends, and they just laughed it off ''ah men will be men, get use to it, welcome to womanhood'' I was shocked, but women just accepted it, I found it hard to accept because I lived as a guy in another life, but not all men are like that, after all, I'm now a woman married to a man. And another thing, I don't get away with not cleaning the dishes and hubby doesn't know how to cook, I do the cooking and the dishes because hubby says it's a wife duty, but then he does the guy stuff, mows the lawn and fixes things and does stuff that I don't particularly like doing, so it is handy having a man around the place to do things that a woman doesn't like doing, I say that with my tongue firmly in my cheek LOL

Quote from: CMD042414 on November 22, 2017, 04:14:21 PM
I also find it sad to see folks go from one demographic to another and gain privilege but dismiss how it affects the group they once belonged to! Willingly belonged to or not. Identified with or not. It's like the misfit kid at school who is constantly bullied, becoming a popular kid and do the bullying himself.

Here's the problems with that: My existence as a male was directly detrimental to me. And I'm not just talking about the trans issue, but everything. I was held to standards and shunned for not meeting those standards... for being a nerd(before it became cool), for not having sex (want to make a life a living hell of ridicule and insecurity? be a male virgin), for not liking football, you name it... basically, just for not being "one of the guys". Combined with natural tendency to major anxiety and compounded further by the gender issues, I was a shut in for over a decade. I never once saw any male privilege for myself, I just didn't. Now, granted I am a bit of an outlier in many ways, particularly being both trans and in that I spent most of my life as a shut in(and of course you sort of have to be out in the world to experience any sort of advantage in said world). But regardless, I prove it is not ubiquitous to being male (or those presenting male0, and that in turn any privilege is not incumbent upon being male (or presenting as male), but on a host of far, far more complicated factors playing off one another. To reduce the issue to a distinctly male privilege, and to imply that privilege is an overriding factor in society is a disservice (and creates a focus on the wrong problem, doing harm in the long run to solving bigger issues)--and I am not the same as the bullied becoming the bully in the slightest for believing that.

And let's go back to the trans issue on the demographic switch point... So if the effects of being (seemingly) part of a group are dramatically negative to an individual, on balance obliterating any (for the sake of argument, assumed) advantage conveyed to that group (suicide stats alone...), that's... a pretty crappy privilege. So why is it any surprise that some trans women claim they didn't see evidence of male privilege presenting as male? And how does that translate into the Stockholm syndrome-like metaphor you described? If some of us didn't feel particularly privileged, then why not simply take us at our word instead of implying we are in denial? Because, frankly, only I have lived my life. How can anyone else say what privilege I have or have not experienced?

And I should say, I don't mean to sound overly argumentative or anything with this post, I'm not sure how to phrase it in a more neutral manner while referencing personal experience. I feel like it's a bit harsher tone than I intended.

Quote from: Roll on November 22, 2017, 05:11:40 PM
Here's the problems with that: My existence as a male was directly detrimental to me. And I'm not just talking about the trans issue, but everything. I was held to standards and shunned for not meeting those standards... for being a nerd(before it became cool), for not having sex (want to make a life a living hell of ridicule and insecurity? be a male virgin), for not liking football, you name it... basically, just for not being "one of the guys". Combined with natural tendency to major anxiety and compounded further by the gender issues, I was a shut in for over a decade. I never once saw any male privilege for myself, I just didn't. Now, granted I am a bit of an outlier in many ways, particularly being both trans and in that I spent most of my life as a shut in(and of course you sort of have to be out in the world to experience any sort of advantage in said world). But regardless, I prove it is not ubiquitous to being male (or those presenting male0, and that in turn any privilege is not incumbent upon being male (or presenting as male), but on a host of far, far more complicated factors playing off one another. To reduce the issue to a distinctly male privilege, and to imply that privilege is an overriding factor in society is a disservice (and creates a focus on the wrong problem, doing harm in the long run to solving bigger issues)--and I am not the same as the bullied becoming the bully in the slightest for believing that.

And let's go back to the trans issue on the demographic switch point... So if the effects of being (seemingly) part of a group are dramatically negative to an individual, on balance obliterating any (for the sake of argument, assumed) advantage conveyed to that group (suicide stats alone...), that's... a pretty crappy privilege. So why is it any surprise that some trans women claim they didn't see evidence of male privilege presenting as male? And how does that translate into the Stockholm syndrome-like metaphor you described? If some of us didn't feel particularly privileged, then why not simply take us at our word instead of implying we are in denial? Because, frankly, only I have lived my life. How can anyone else say what privilege I have or have not experienced?

And I should say, I don't mean to sound overly argumentative or anything with this post, I'm not sure how to phrase it in a more neutral manner while referencing personal experience. I feel like it's a bit harsher tone than I intended.

To be part of a privileged group does not mean that each and every individual in that group has benefited from it directly. Those things are not mutually exclusive. So yes male privilege exists. Yes you were technically part of that privileged group. No that does not automatically mean as an individual benefited from that privilege. There are an endless amount of variables. But it does not diminish or negate the existence of privilege.

Quote from: Brandon on November 22, 2017, 02:55:45 AM
Really because here in my country women are always trying to fight men, I have had it happen. A girl was trying to fight me but we all know if I hit her one good time I would be in the wrong, she was all in my face and everything. I don where you from but women are always provoking men here thinking we just don't hit back.

You talk about hitting. I talk about murder and rape.

Quote from: Lady Lisandra on November 22, 2017, 08:59:15 PM
You talk about hitting. I talk about murder and rape.

Men get murdered and raped as well. It's just not talked about.

"To be part of a privileged group" - this really needs to be cleared up. Either we are saying that both males and females are privileged in different ways but BOTH have a degree of privilege over the other, or we are dealing with the "men just have power over women and women have no power over men and never had" spiel.

It is a fact that women have power over men too. It is usually SOFT POWER, rather than "hard power" and a little more covert but it is power. If you don't know the difference between soft and hard power go look it up. It is real. Men might be bigger on the whole than women but women can and do use men to do their fighting for them, for example, and that is also power a person may wield.

If woman A and her boyfriend are in a bar and man B walks up, hits on her while her boyfriend's at the bar and gets rejected, and then follows this up by pushing her to the ground, that's hard power - the woman isn't likely to pose much of a physical threat to him. However, if woman A then goes to her boyfriend, tells all and suggests he knock man B's teeth out, and he does, that is soft power. She isn't as strong as man B but it doesn't matter. She used her position and her influence to get the job done. In fact, I would argue a person who can get others to do their dirty work for them without lifting a finger have a lot MORE power than those who have to do their own. They are less likely to be injured or blamed for starters. Woman A might even have her boyfriend's pals pitch in too. Soft power can offer a lot of interesting options.

I know damn well women exert soft power, and women are perfectly aware of it - whether it's getting men to defend them, help them get something off the top shelf they can't reach, to utilizing the male tendency to want to protect and take care of a female who is close to them. Men are absolute suckers for it, and women know it. And they have to be, because biologically women always needed men's help in the natural world when we were building tribes and civilizations. Women needed men's utility. There is absolutely no getting away from this - the human female is unfortunately vulnerable while carrying children and survives much better when women help women and men help women too. We evolved that way.

Women are very good at getting men to do what they want. I'm sure they evolved that way too, because pregnancy always foisted some degree of dependency on a human female - she needed to be influential to survive. That soft power is less visible than a "big strong man" but it is there and anyone downplaying it likely either has an agenda or is in some sort of denial, choosing deliberately to focus on the most visually prominent rather than the most potent.

And as for this idea "male privilege" "exists for all men - but actually no, only for some" is ridiculous. Either male privilege is by definition a privilege one has by virtue of being male or it isn't. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

Yes, sexual dimorphism sucks if you think being made to make use of soft power rather than hard power sucks (actually small men are typically made to make strategic use of it over hard power, they can't always compete with a 6'4" opponent - but not being women they don't have all the various strategies and lures available only to females at their disposal), but it is absolutely not the case that men have all the power or influence in the world at all. If you think that then you are purposefully denying the power of women, and the general willingness of men as a gender to defend them, provide for them, please them, and avoid treating them with the severity they treat other men. Women not only have the advantage that men tend to like women more than other men, whom they are more likely to see as potential rivals, but that women tend to side with women too. Just about the whole of society including men cares more about the safety, wellbeing and provisioning of women. Human society itself is woman-centric at the core, not man-centric - the basis of the family is the mother and child and men are the "helpers" of it. I don't know how many times I have to lay out the obvious, that which is there for everyone to see if they get their heads out of current dogma, and stick them out of the front door and have a look at the real world.

Quote from: Viktor on November 22, 2017, 09:46:12 PM
"To be part of a privileged group" - this really needs to be cleared up. Either we are saying that both males and females are privileged in different ways but BOTH have a degree of privilege over the other, or we are dealing with the "men just have power over women and women have no power over men and never had" spiel.

It is a fact that women have power over men too. It is usually SOFT POWER, rather than "hard power" and a little more covert but it is power. If you don't know the difference between soft and hard power go look it up. It is real. Men might be bigger on the whole than women but women can and do use men to do their fighting for them, for example, and that is also power a person may wield.

If woman A and her boyfriend are in a bar and man B walks up, hits on her while her boyfriend's at the bar and gets rejected, and then follows this up by pushing her to the ground, that's hard power - the woman isn't likely to pose much of a physical threat to him. However, if woman A then goes to her boyfriend, tells all and suggests he knock man B's teeth out, and he does, that is soft power. She isn't as strong as man B but it doesn't matter. She used her position and her influence to get the job done. In fact, I would argue a person who can get others to do their dirty work for them without lifting a finger have a lot MORE power than those who have to do their own. They are less likely to be injured or blamed for starters. Woman A might even have her boyfriend's pals pitch in too. Soft power can offer a lot of interesting options.

I know damn well women exert soft power, and women are perfectly aware of it - whether it's getting men to defend them, help them get something off the top shelf they can't reach, to utilizing the male tendency to want to protect and take care of a female who is close to them. Men are absolute suckers for it, and women know it. And they have to be, because biologically women always needed men's help in the natural world when we were building tribes and civilizations. Women needed men's utility. There is absolutely no getting away from this - the human female is unfortunately vulnerable while carrying children and survives much better when women help women and men help women too. We evolved that way.

Women are very good at getting men to do what they want. I'm sure they evolved that way too, because pregnancy always foisted some degree of dependency on a human female - she needed to be influential to survive. That soft power is less visible than a "big strong man" but it is there and anyone downplaying it likely either has an agenda or is in some sort of denial, choosing deliberately to focus on the obvious.

And as for this idea "male privilege" "exists for all men - but actually no, only for some" is ridiculous. Either male privilege is by definition a privilege one has by virtue of being male or it isn't. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

Yes, sexual dimorphism sucks is you think male or female privilege sucks, but it is absolutely not the case that men have all the power or influence in the world at all. If you think that then you are purposefully denying the power of women, and the general willingness of men as a gender to defend them, provide for them, please them, and avoid treating them with the severity they treat other men. Women not only have the advantage that men tend to like women more than other men, whom they are more likely to see as potential rivals, but that women tend to side with women too. Just about the whole of society including men cares more about the safety, wellbeing and provisioning of women. Human society itself is woman-centric at the core, not man-centric - the basis of the family is the mother and child and men are the "helpers" of it. I don't know how many times I have to lay out the obvious, that which is there for everyone to see if they get their heads out of current dogma, and stick them out of the front door and have a look at the real world.

I agree with everything you just said.

Maybe it is time for a deep breath and a pause.

People will always seek privilege over others, either by creed, colour, gender, wealth or strength. It matters not.

What is important is that decent human beings and includes all of you, take time and effort to look after their fellow humans, to treat others as you would wish to be treated and to lend a hand and succour to those who are struggling.

That is what real privilege is.

Quote from: Viktor on November 22, 2017, 09:46:12 PMIt is a fact that women have power over men too. It is usually SOFT POWER, rather than "hard power" and a little more covert but it is power. If you don't know the difference between soft and hard power go look it up. It is real.

Viktor, I like what you wrote. I've avoided reading this thread until today because I thought it would be more of what I recently see around the web. It's refreshing to see something objective.

Just to add something from another culture, women where I live are often viewed in the West as being very subservient to their husbands. However, the truth is more complicated. As a child staying at my friend's house in the summer I was a silent observer as his mother gave advice to her daughter in law to be. Here's a partial summary of what she said.

My son is very much like his father. Like dry sand, the harder you try to grip him the faster he will flow away from between your fingers. Held gently in the cup of your hand he will stay.

Let him decide things without argument. If you disagree, come back the next day and say, "Darling, I need your advice. I was thinking of what you said, and realized [something]. With that in mind, wouldn't it be best to [do this]? Can you help me think this through?" You will get what you want and he will get to know he made the decision.

Let him roll freely on your palm like a marble. As long as he feels free, he will be content.

Women here tend to control all the family finances. The men get an allowance, and the wives take care of all the rest. In that sense they can be said to be the custodians of the entire family fortune.

As for work, the husband's salary used to be quite sufficient to support the household comfortably. Now taxes have gone up and land prices increased to the point that loans can span two generations, so many women—who would have otherwise stayed at home—do find employment, even if it is just part time. In this sense they've lost some of the freedom and "privilege" they had—but I do feel that is another story.

And Dena, I completely agree. What you say is also an absolutely essential perquisite for my friend's mother's advice to hold true.

Quote from: pretty pauline on November 23, 2017, 09:00:10 AM
We are privileged in this thread that we have lived in both genders, it would be ideal if some female to male, having lived as female would learn from experience and maybe transition to caring men and not some male chauvinist misogynistic men who have no respect for women.

Are you aware that what you are saying, is equally hurtful to (trans)men as a saying that includes a reference to female genitals? I find it rather disdainful, that you would say you hope "some" transmen don´t turn into chauvinistic, disrespectful misogynists. All transmen I have met are quite friendly guys who put themselves second. Mainly because of their previous experience.

Isn´t it also indicative of cynicism and negative stereotyping, when it is just assumed that all men have chance of becoming chauvinistic misogynists, just because they´re men? That makes no sense. As I said before, respect for fellow human beings isn´t gendered. It depends on the level of maturity you have. And I say this about women as well.

Other than that, I really see no point in endless argument. There have been quite a few great posts here and I enjoyed reading them. But to continue battling each other over this feels like an exercise in frustration, to be honest. Maybe I´m wrong.

Quote from: Cindy on November 22, 2017, 11:55:23 PM
Maybe it is time for a deep breath and a pause.

People will always seek privilege over others, either by creed, colour, gender, wealth or strength. It matters not.

What is important is that decent human beings and includes all of you, take time and effort to look after their fellow humans, to treat others as you would wish to be treated and to lend a hand and succour to those who are struggling.

That is what real privilege is.

Cindy makes an excellent point. Do I have a need to fell privileged? I would rather be known as a good person that respected and loved all in life as having some sort of privilege.

So maybe it is time to think about the whole term of "privilege".

Quote from: Jenntrans on November 23, 2017, 02:27:54 PM
Cindy makes an excellent point. Do I have a need to fell privileged? I would rather be known as a good person that respected and loved all in life as having some sort of privilege.

So maybe it is time to think about the whole term of "privilege".

Absolutely agree 100%, Cindy always has a positive outlook, a person I would never mind being with on a desert Island, always been a great inspiration.

 

Enough of the gutter language.



Cindy