the eye of Nova&#39;s mind

Not overmuch, for me, though that may be because even though I am male, I see the world through a non-heterosexual lens... **shrug**

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*nod*

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xterminal.livejournal.com

For those who thought that the author of the article was a woman, does your reading of the article change now that you know otherwise?

In ways that do not change my conclusions. I look at it rather in the same way I look at Heinlein's Friday; I'm impressed that he nailed down the psychology that well. That said, with Heinlein, I have feminine backup (I know a few women who insist no male could get it that right, and thus Friday must have been ghostwritten), and with this, it could just be me looking through male eyes and seeing what I think is the correct psychology.

I could also be making assumptions because you, being female, posted it-- that you thus agreed with it, at least in part, and thus validated my view of the psychology of the writer as feminine in some essential way. But I'm reaching with that.

As I recall, there was one particular passage that said to me "this is a female author," rather than assuming it from the subject matter-- I'll have to go back and re-read to see if I can pick it out.

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xterminal.livejournal.com

Eh, now I can't find it...

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netmouse.livejournal.com

do those of us who thought the author was a man get to do a little victory dance now?

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Not if you don't want to.

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*smile* That is, only if you want to.

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netmouse.livejournal.com

I asked is we get to, not if we have to.

Me, I live to dance...

*dances around you, shaking her hips into you and being silly*

As a woman, I am privileged to have dancing considered a pretty natural thing for me to do...

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brendand.livejournal.com

This is an unfair privilege! I'm'a revolt!

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dionysus1999.livejournal.com

You can do anything you want, you're a white male. ;)

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brendand.livejournal.com

That's a fair point. Except it's not true, 'cause I'm still a minority.

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dionysus1999.livejournal.com

On my friends list white men of all orientations are minorities.

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*grin* I like being silly with you.

By the way, when is the next time we get to do that in person?

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netmouse.livejournal.com

By the way, when is the next time we get to do that in person?

I think if you check your email, you'll see I wrote you earlier today, asking just that. :)

you busy Sunday evening? Monday?

like the new icon, btw.

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Busy Sunday afternoon into evening. Monday might be better.

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Incidentally, it did make me come up with a companion list for women. It needs more work before becoming a common list, but I think it points up some mirrors to the priviliges men get:

Privileges of Women in American Society:

I can hit a man and reasonably expect not to be hit back.
I can leave my career to raise my children and not be called a lazy bum.
If I wish, I can spend hours in front of a mirror playing with my appearance & experimenting with makeup, and not have my gender identity questioned.
I have a much wider selection of clothing options available to me. It doesn't matter to the vast majority of people whether I choose to wear a dress or slacks.
I can go on a date with someone of the opposite sex and not be surprised if he pays for everything. Conversely, people will think it's exceptionally nice of me to "go dutch" without being asked first.
If I learn to do tasks that are non-stereotypical for my gender, such as changing the oil in my car, I am being independent and self-sufficient.
Being a homemaker is considered an acceptable career option.
People do not consider it strange if I don't know the rules of football or baseball.
I am more likely to graduate from college.
I am less likely to be a victim of violent crime. [1] Also, if I commit a violent crime, I am less likely to be found guilty and more likely to have a shorter jail sentence.
If I divorce my spouse, and I want custody of our children, I will probably get it.
If I abuse my male partner, people will assume that he is the actual abuser and I am just defending myself.
I can consciously choose not to advance in my career and not be considered "wimpy", an underachiever, or non-competitive.

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I am thinking of making my own privilege lists (female/woman, black, and the combination thereof), but I think, and this is my point, that the reason privilege lists are important tools is because they are written by those who are in those shoes. The person who wrote about the invisible knapsack was white. The person who wrote the male privilege checklist was male. I think it's important that each person examine his or her own privilege and acknowledge what he or she has received. The whys attend naturally.

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*nod*

Well, feel free to use any of the stuff I posted, if you feel it's relevant.

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*smile* I probably will. Thank you.

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guttaperk.livejournal.com

Absolutely so.

This is actually why I have resisted the urge to draw up a list of female privileges- I think it really would just be counterproductive.

I would actually be very interested in seeing your list of privileges.

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sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com

I would actually be very interested in seeing your list of privileges.

Ditto that,

novapsyche.

I think i'll try to come up with a list of transsexual privilege. It could be a very interesting exercise...

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This is a similar objection rate to the first list, but:

If I learn to do tasks that are non-stereotypical for my gender, such as changing the oil in my car, I am being independent and self-sufficient.
I get the same thing all the time for cooking, though.

Being a homemaker is considered an acceptable career option.
That's a duplicate.

I can consciously choose not to advance in my career and not be considered "wimpy", an underachiever, or non-competitive.
No.

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The duplicate? Maybe, if you consider "primary caregiver of children" and "primary caretaker of household" to be the same thing. I'd argue that they are not. You can be a childless couple with one spouse at home; you can care for children and hire staff to clean the house.

As for the non-stereotypical stuff -- well, I wasn't actually thinking of cooking. I was thinking of sewing, home decorating, house-cleaning, doing the household laundry, and/or certain "crafty" hobbies such as knitting.

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You can be a childless couple with one spouse at home
I suppose you could, but I don't think that would normally be considered an acceptable career option for either gender.

I was thinking of sewing, home decorating, house-cleaning, doing the household laundry, and/or certain "crafty" hobbies such as knitting.
Are you sure? Those *are* stereotypical women's tasks.

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Yes -- my point is what do most people think when a *man* does those things?

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You were talking about women's priviledge, and how women would get praised for doing stereotypical men's tasks. My response was that men get the same sort of response for doing stereotypical women's tasks, with my cooking as an example.

Unless you really intended to counter by providing more examples for my side, I think you lost track of what discussion this was. It has been a while.

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Actually, I think most men get belittled for admitting to doing stereotypical women's tasks, and that your experience is atypical. Think about it: how would a typical 'football jock' respond to the idea that I knit? The likeliest knee-jerk response would be to assume that I'm gay "because the only guys who knit are all gay".

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Perhaps, but that same person would assume a woman repairing her car was gay.

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I agree with your list of female priviledges except for the "victim of a violent crime" one. I consider rape a violent crime, whether it be date rape, or gun at head rape, etc.

So, that one I disagree with.

The rest are very good. I may think of more...both lists.

Thank you.

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Well, statistically, adult women are more likely to be raped. But, even including rape, men are more likely to be victims of "violent crime" as a class of criminal acts.

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Interesting. Where did you get your stats?

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there's a link to Federal stats in the list I compiled.

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addendum: The link I cited above (here again, for reference) includes "rape" as part of the category of "violent crime".

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simianpower.livejournal.com

It doesn't change my opinion at all. Men can write articles with a bias toward women just fine. The sex of the author has nothing to do with the content of the article.

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I'm not sure if it's a bias toward women so much as it is acknowledging bias toward himself.

That is, if I write something that acknowledges how I benefit in American society as a black female, I wouldn't be writing it with a bias toward whites or males.

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simianpower.livejournal.com

Even if it was, as you say, acknowledging societal bias toward himself, the tone of the article was biased toward women. Possibly as an overcompensation, possibly intentional, but it was there.

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sarahmichigan.livejournal.com

I think it is ironic that in a discussion of the *Male* privilege checklist written *by a man* that a man was accused of derailing discussion of *women's concerns*.

The thing about the checklist: what is it's purpose?

If it was for Mr. Deutsch to examine his own privilege, well bully for him. But, it seems to me the purpose of making it public is to point out the privileges that men, collectively have.

The reaction of men is going to fall into three main categories:

1. Sexist pig. He's going to dismiss it as not reflecting reality or he's going to say, "So what? This is just life."

2. The sensitive feminist man. He's already going to be aware of most of these privileges. He's going to feel terrible about them. He's going to be doing everything in his power to address the areas that he can. Other issues are institutional, and not something the individual man can *do* anything about.

3. The average guy. He's already got some feminist awareness and generally agrees with the idea of equality. Maybe he feels that women were given a raw deal in the past, but he thinks we've come a long way and things are a lot closer to equal than they've ever been. He's going to see this huge list as an attack against him. He's going to look at every item that doesn't apply to him (say, if he's gay) or every item that's overstated or overgeneralized, and he's going to want to pick the list apart.

In none of those cases have you started a meaningful dialogue with men that is going to create change, either internally or societally.

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When did feminism change to being about women's concerns, anyway? That's not what I signed up for when I started calling myself a feminist -- I believe in equal treatment and equal socialization. To me, women's priviledges are exactly the same problem as men's privileges. Patriarchy is supposed to be bad for everyone.

I think a big part of the problem these days is that the remaining problems are mainly at a family level, with women expected (by both sides) to be the ones sacrificing career for family, and it's difficult to fight that without seeming to attack stay-at-home-moms.

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sarahmichigan.livejournal.com

I've been thinking about what you said about bringing up the idea that "women have privileges too" is off the topic, and that picking apart and deconstructing the list point by point is more on topic.

I understand where you're coming from, and I think your objection makes sense.

However, I don't think that bringing up female privilege is so much a derailment of the discussion as a different way of looking at privilege.

The man who brings up "Well, women have privileges too!" is looking at "privilege" in terms of "which sex has the advantage in society"?

From that viewpoint, it's like comparing the chances of two people in a car race.

If you say, "Well, obviously person A is going to win the race, because he has a slightly bigger engine, and he's young and has fast reflexes."

If the other person disagrees, he has two tactics: he can pick apart the so-called advantages of person A, explaining why his engine isn't really that much better or explaining why his reflexes aren't that great.

Or, he can explain that while, yes, Person A has these advantages, Person B also has advantages in the race. Person B has more experience in racing, and she's lighter, and so the car will go faster even with a slightly under-powered engine.

The second tactic is what I see going on when men point out women's privileges.

Furthermore, I think that a lot of women in the discussion started out with pre-conceived ideas of why men would object to the list. I recall the phrase "howls of protest" and women saying they see this kind of reaction all the time in feminist venues.

Either you and I can assume that every man who replied with objections (either on your posts or on my related ones) is a sexist pig who doesn't want to examine his own privilege, or at the least is not very evolved and self-reflective. Or, you can make the assumption that something is not quite right about the presentation or the content of the list.

A lot of women in the discussion leaped to the "Sexist Pig" conclusion without even allowing that some of the items were even arguable.

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sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com

For those who thought that the author of the article was a woman, does your reading of the article change now that you know otherwise?

No. People born male are perfectly capable of achieving feminist awareness.

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sarahmichigan.livejournal.com

A couple other random things:

1. A big positive out of the discussion, for me, is that I found some really interesting people to add to my Friends List.

2. Have you read anything by Andrea Dworkin's partner, John Stoltenberg? If you're interested in men who are feminists, he's a facinating read. I've read at least one of his books, maybe two, though it's been years now.

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/LivingWithAndrea.html

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Yes me too. I am about to add you if you are a "yes". I have really enjoyed reading you on topics like this. Refreshing..very.

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change my opinion of the article? No. I see no reason why it should.

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Not your opinion. Your reading of the article as a whole.

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