sarahmichigan | Privilege

Privilege

Discussions about privilege (White privilege, heterosexual privilege, male privilege) tend to infuriate me because they are generally filled with overgeneralizations and faulty reasoning, and they tend to divide people, rather than unite them in finding solutions to real problems.

The discussion of the "Male Privilege Checklist" (with 50-plus replies as of the time I'm posting this) over at

novapsyche's journal

http://novapsyche.livejournal.com/1301923.html

is a good example.

I think the replies are really thought provoking, but it devolves into personal slams at times, and accusations of men trying to "derail" discussion of women's perspectives. Well, I thought the list was ridiculously one-sided, biased, and over-generalized, and I'm a woman and a self-identified feminist. I thought the list was also heterosexist and largely blind to how class and race intersect with gender issues.

I don't think you can discuss privilege without context. Privilege doesn't occur in a vacuum. There's a huge web of biological and social factors that affect how women and men are treated in this society, and I think men often get a raw deal, just in ways that are less visible than many women's issues.

For every little girl who is discouraged from pursuing math and science, there is a little boy who is ridiculed for playing with dolls and wanting to be a nurse. For every woman who is raped, there is a man who puts himself in danger of being beaten to a pulp or killed because he’s living up to society’s ideals of "how to be a man."

For every woman who is objectified as a sexy piece of meat, there's a man who is objectified as being a mindless fuck-machine who isn't a real man if he can't get it up and keep it up. For every woman who is forced to "act like a man" and is dismissed as hysterical and soft for crying at work, there's a man who was a little boy who was called a fag and a sissy and was beaten as a child for expressing emotion.

Dismissing that reality by saying that men may have a hard time in interpersonal issues but women are dealt the rawest deal in "really important" areas like politics and business, to me, is being purposely blind to all the ways that men are suffering (early heart attacks? Male-on-male violence?) from trying so hard to live up to our culture's ideals of masculinity.

I'm not saying that the tide has turned and that women now have the upper hand in every area. I'm not saying that there aren't places were women still get the short end of the stick. I'm saying that making vast overgeneralizations, dismissing men's pain and bewilderment over gender issues, and accusing any man who raises an objection to these overgeneralzations of dismissing women's concerns is NOT the way to reach understanding or equality between the sexes.

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Thank you for this thoughtful and thought-provoking post.

Well said.

White privilege, heterosexual privilege, male privilege
I was under the impression that straight priviledge meant that bisexuals have the option to avoid the trouble that gays go through by just pretending to be straight. It's a valid point, too; I do it all the time.

Aside from that, you're right. It doesn't seem like people talk anymore about patriarchy and how its fixed roles are bad for everyone.

From the original list:
The odds of my encountering sexual harassment on the job are so low as to be negligible.
I've certainly encountered behaviour that could be called sexual harassment if I complained about it. It wasn't sexual harassment because I didn't really mind, but I wouldn't call that a priviledge over someone more uptight.

I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces.
It's probably impossible to make a direct comparison, but worrying about people being afraid of you when you're walking alone after dark is no picnic, either.

As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters.
Huh?

If I'm careless with my driving it won't be attributed to my sex.
Agressiveness will be.

If I have sex with a lot of people, it won't make me an object of contempt or derision.
I agree with this wholeheartedly, but it's almost always women who are the culprit.

There are value-neutral clothing choices available to me; it is possible for me to choose clothing that doesn't send any particular message to the world.
No.

I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.
The words may be different, but otherwise, no.

My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.
That's a valid complaint, but I think I hear women use it as an excuse more often than I hear men use it as a dismissal.

The decision to hire me will never be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.
This is a tricky one, and I'm very torn on it. On the one hand, it's not fair to hold it against someone preemptively. On the other hand, it's a real and very major concern. Women *do* disappear for weeks at a time for maternity, and frequently leave permanently or only come back part-time.

If I have a wife or girlfriend, chances are we'll divide up household chores so that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks.
"Chances are" doesn't constitute a priviledge for a person for whom this isn't true.

The odds of my encountering sexual harassment on the job are so low as to be negligible.

My female manager at my previous job would give me backrubs without asking. That would qualify as harassment if the genders were reversed. Depending on my mood, I either found them annoying or enjoyed them. :D

The way she could have avoided any possibility of sexually harassing you would have been to ask before touching you. It's a very simple thing to inquire as to whether you can invade someone's personal space, especially on the job.

Also, generally speaking, the first instance of inappropriate contact is not considered sexual harassment (unless the interaction is egregious). The recipient has the responsibility to tell the offender that he or she has done something inappropriate. If he or she continues in that same vein, then his or her actions clearly constitute harassment and the recipient can go up the chain of command to see that something is done.

I feel there's a definite gender disparity as to what qualifies as "egregious."

Wow. Please forgive the colloquial language, but you f**king rock.

Seriously.

...and I'm not just saying that as a "white het guy". I'm saying that as a person who is very often frustrated by how people are so ready to take sides and end up losing nearly all sense of perspective, compassion, and cooperation -- which are the things we truly need to make things better around here.

A-frickin'-men. (And A-women, too!)

Congrats, you now know why I have serious reservations about anyone who identifies as a feminist. Both feminism and Black rights have mutated to the point of no longer being about equality but more a discussion of why the subgroup deserves special privileges at the expense of the "oppressor".

We can't ever get to parity that way and parity was supposed to be what we were trying to achieve in the first place.

Well said.

I agree with

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I agree with <ljuser=lefthand>. I also consider myself a feminist and a person who thinks everyone should have equal rights under the law. But that means *EQUAL* rights!

2nd-ed on the "well said".

My point wasn't so much that women want special privileges (and I'm not touching what you said about race with a 10-foot pole) but that these sorts of lists set up women as victims and men as oppressors in a way that's divisive and isn't conducive to discussions about where these gender roles and differences come from, and what, if anything, can be done to address the problems that arise from gender issues.

The complication is that that some women DO want special privileges and they expect men to roll over and dispense them because men should feel guilt for their crimes (read: gender privileges). That isn't a conversation, it is a demand made on the basis of emotional extortion. The underpinnings of this argument is that men and women are, in fact, unequal and it becomes an obligation on men to concede allowances to these differences in the women's favor, because it will make them less beastly.

You are correct in that stating in such a position will not get us anywhere near equality but then again, equality was never the point.

I don't think that equality was NEVER the point, but I think that point has become diluted over time.

fair enough.

Both feminism and Black rights have mutated to the point of no longer being about equality but more a discussion of why the subgroup deserves special privileges at the expense of the "oppressor".

I could go into this, but since this is

sarahmichigan's journal and not mine, I will not say something that could be considered incendiary. I will, however, ask how you have come to such a cynical outlook.

And forgive me for assuming that you are white and male, but if you are, then I will say it's very easy for you to make such a pronouncement.

While I'm not a fan of how lefthand expressed himself and don't even agree with the comment about "special privileges"-- you're coming close to a personal attack here by focusing on the commenter's identity and not what he said.

I felt you did the same thing to P. by telling him he was "anti-feminist" over on your discussion. What good does that label do? It dismisses him, doesn't engage him in debate. For what it's worth, I think he's sexist, but I don't think he's "anti-feminist."

You see what I say here as a personal attack, but not P.'s comments in my journal?

I asked about

lefthand's identity because it was implied but not clearly stated by his comment about blacks and feminists. It could have been inferred that he was not part of those groups, but I wanted to be clear, so I asked. Especially since there are male feminists in the world.

I do think that P. is anti-feminist. He has yet to say anything, in all the time I've known him, that would indicate a support for the basic tenets of feminism, and in fact has made fun of feminism in what would otherwise be jovial conversation. I usually let these comments slide, because I do consider him a friend and because getting into a discussion/argument with him would leave us still unconvinced of the other's standpoint. But he came to my journal and stated what he did, essentially flaming another poster, so I stepped in. (Just as you have the right to call bullshit on me here in your journal, I have the same right in my own.)

I cannot reconcile how someone who is sexist could not be anti-feminist. (By the way, had I called him sexist instead of anti-feminist, would that have been seen as less of an attack? I think calling someone sexist is more dismissive than what I did.)

Yes, he made personal attacks. Turning around and doing it back doesn't make what you did right, either. Two wrongs don't make a right, and it's a logical fallacy, yet again.

P. believes in equal rights for both genders. That's the essence of feminism. He's happy when women are scientists and engineers and encourages the women in his department, notices when his advisor treats women in the department different from the men.

I make fun of the feminist movement because I hate uptight, priggish anti-sex attitudes I see there. Does that make me anti-feminist?

I know I have racist and sexist attitudes; I think most of us do because they're often subconcious. That doesn't mean that I'm not in favor of equality of the races and the sexes.

P. has some sexist attitudes, but he believes in equality in principle. Not contradictory in my book.

J. is sexist; he actively prefers women and cuts them more slack than he does men. And yet, I think he's deeply committed to feminism.

And I am racist, in the sense that I identify more with mainstream American culture (which historically has reflected middle-class Caucasian values) and also in the sense that I date exclusively outside of my race.

Tu quoque fallacy:
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#tuquoque

If you're so concerned about defending people who are being personally attacked, why didn't you step in when lady b. made a personal attack on Simianpower?

Because I didn't see her comment as particularly venomous? In retrospect, to be seen as impartial, I should have said something. However, I saw

simianpower's comment playing right into the topic, where he was asserting himself over

lady_babalon in a blatantly sexist way and doing so because he could--because he had that privilege. "Women like you"--I don't see how anyone could defend a statement that begins like that.

Dismissing someone as "blind to reality" is a case of making a personal attack but doing it in a way that hides that it's a personal attack.

You can say, "Fuck off, loser!" or "In view of the lack of thought in your previous comments, your viewpoint doesn't interest me." both are personal attacks-- one's just more sneaky and disguised.

Wait, I didn't ask. But I made it clear that I was assuming, which gave him the opening to affirm or correct me (which he did, and for which I thanked him).

his comment about blacks and feminists. It could have been inferred that he was not part of those groups

Based on other comments, I don't think you mean to imply that feminist==female, but that's the most obvious interpretation of this snippet. (Just a rhetorical comment. :) )

I feel like you're simplifying the notion of feminism. There are generally acknowledged to be at least three "waves" of feminism, each with its own profile, and with differences in tenets. I try to distinguish the first two with case (feminism vs. Feminism), even though I think that's inadequate (I'll also refer to "old school feminism" and "new school feminism" or "big F Feminism," especially when speaking out loud).

To me, feminism (osf) is about equal rights for both genders, and would be better served today if it were called egalitarianism, or something that isn't sexist in its label. I think the label "feminism" lead to Feminism, where the emphasis is nearly exclusively on the hurdles that women face, with no attention paid to the admittedly smaller hurdles that men do because of their gender. I think when people (Sarah and myself, for example) mock "feminism," we're generally mocking big-F Feminism, in large part (in my case, at least) because of the militant component, such as those running

feminist.

I don't really know enough about the so-called Third Wave to comment about it.

I'm not lefthand, but I agree with the statement, for the most part.

Is it universal? No. But it's definitely the case that there are sizable, vocal, and public faces that use rhetoric like "oppressor" and treat white men as if we have all the power and cannot be effectively maligned. Finding evidence of this is a trivial enough matter. For instance, the

feminist community's user info is openly dismissive of the concept that women can be sexist: "We do not recognize 'reverse' sexism, ie the idea that women are capable of acting thinking in a sexist manner toward men." or that blacks can be racist: "Those who do not wield institutional power cannot be racist," and speaks of oppression: "This community is an affirmative space dedicated to the examination of both oppression and privilege and the intersections thereof."

The "special rights" portion of lefthand's comment is a bit harder to demonstrate, but then, I agree less with that anyway. I think the only significant manifestation of "special rights" is in (these particular) female and black activists wanting their own cultural hurdles removed without being willing to even accept the notion of male, white hurdles.

Those who do not wield institutional power cannot be racist
This argument seems to me to lose track of the distinction between individuals and groups. I'll buy that black people as a group cannot be racist against white people as a group to any significant degree. That doesn't apply to individuals, though. *I* do not wield any institutional power, but it would certainly be possibly for me to be racist.

I'll buy that black people as a group cannot be racist against white people as a group to any significant degree.

I won't. For one thing, blacks DO weild some degree of institutional power; if not, there wouldn't be "Affirmative Action" in the first place (people with power do not yield that power unless there is another power compelling them to). Further, blacks certainly hold institutional power within subgroups; Eminem succeeded when he managed to move out of the "rap music underground" dominated by blacks and into the "commercial music" realm dominated by whites, but he has said several times (as in "White America") that he needed a black mentor (Dr. Dre) to establish himself in the first place.

That aside, racism doesn't need power at all -- EFFECTIVE racism needs power, but that's true of any coercive phenomenon. A totally powerless black person who says that blacks are superior in every way to whites is still racist, it just doesn't mean anything to anyone. Twenty totally powerless black people who say that blacks are superior in every way to whites are still racist.

Yes, I am white male, highly educated, married and moneyed.... feel free to ignore everything I have to say from here on out. Of course, do so at your own detriment because I am the one you are trying to convince.

That statement is an opinion based on my experience. You are free to have your own. What generally happens in these conversations is the discussions starts, the oppressed assert that I have no right to speak because I am a member of the oppressor class. The conversation ends there and I walk away with the impression that people don't want to talk about it, they simply want to assert special rights and expect me to concede simply because I don't want the onus of being a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a sizist or whatever they want to throw at me. Name calling isn't an argument, extortion isn't rational discourse and neither of these methods do anything to change my opinion.

I believe that people have a right impersonal treatment under the law and under economics. Claiming special privilege due to class membership violates that right.

*Sarah, sorry about replying to this. I just don't like having my perspective discounted due to my race and gender. Someday I will learn this is not a conversation for me.*

You know, I frequently dislike what you have to say, but in my opinion, this comment absolutely rocks. :)

Your perspective is not discounted based on your race or sex/gender, not by me, anyway. I didn't call you any names, I didn't say you were racist or sexist or any of those things. I asked if you could clarify your status, and you did. So I thank you for doing so.

I think people here are assuming a lot about my own stance about race and gender issues. I am an atypical feminist in many ways; I'm certainly not a radical feminist. I don't have kneejerk reactions about "the patriarchy" (and in fact I refrain from using that phrase precisely because it tends to put people on the defensive). I recognize that boys are specifically socialized into roles that make it more difficult for them to fully express themselves (for example, many men feel it's all right to cry only when a family member or close friend passes away). I am a huge supporter of people attentively inspecting and dissecting gender roles (particularly American/Western gender roles, primarily because that's where I've focused my research), because it is only by doing so that one can see where and why hyper-heterosexuality is damaging to every and all segments of society.

I was just curious about your implied difference between equal rights and "special rights." I am still curious, as you haven't talked about them, yet your outlook does seem particularly cynical. I am an idealist, so you'll have to keep that in mind (count that against me?) if you choose to respond.

Equal rights: Impartial treatment, a single standard against which all are judged.

Special rights: Treatment that takes into account one's sex, race, religion, sexual preferences etc.

What I have seen is people claiming special rights and calling it equal rights. The second sex, race or pretty much any subgroup becomes a qualification, we have left equality in the dust. With that in mind, the discussion of genders roles actually becomes a continuation of sexism because we are creating a distinction between the people where logically none should exist if they are equal. Everytime this distinction is made, it actually pushes the argument backwards. I think we need to chuck the whole gender discussion and simply focus on making better people.

It is not cynicism to see a failing in a system. It is cynicism to presuppose a failing prior to investigation. I have due my due diligence on this matter.

What I have seen, in contrast, is people calling for equal rights in certain avenues only, which can looks like special rights, but isn't. Is demanding equal treatment in the boardroom while failing to support equal treatment in the nursery a case of special rights or reduced-vision equality? (That is, can you give a specific example of what you mean by "special rights," that is, a right that women are insisting they be treated impartially.)

Having written that, the most blatant example is Affirmative Action, which is a special right.

Not quite sure of the question but lets look at the boardroom for a second. My argument is that since there is no sex involved in the boardroom, gender shouldn't make a difference. To get to the boardroom, you have to work harder, smarter and longer than everybody else and there is no leeway for failure.
That's the standard.

Now have someone show up and demand they be placed there without the sacrifice everyone else there made . That is special privilege.

While it seems to be fair that everyone be equally represented everywhere, it isn't actually the case that they should be. It is only recently that women started competing within a lot of these arenas. Given time, it is likely that there were be a different composition of boardrooms. Women are currently outpacing men in education, avoiding prison and not getting shot. These changes will eventually be impacted overtime and will be accepted because the women involved made the sacrifices, did the work, shed the blood and won by the single standard.

Affirmative Action may have been the worst thing that every happened to the blacks as a group. Now people can assume when they see a black professional, that person didn't get position by merit but by their skin color (Note: Since affirmative action generally means black, the same isn't true of asian people.). A competent black professional now has to work much harder to prove they can meet the single standard that was avoided by Affirmative Action. We are all accountable to one measure of performance, can you do the job better than anyone else? If you can't, you will neither get nor deserve any respect.

What generally happens in these conversations is the discussions starts, the oppressed assert that I have no right to speak because I am a member of the oppressor class.

Yeah, that's pretty much my experience as well, and not just in this recent case.

When a list like that one came up on a community recently, I found myself asking something I dare not ask aloud, do to the mood of the conversation. That is this: One of the pieces of "white privilege" (over blacks) is that they're not instantly viewed as potential violent criminals. One of the pieses of "male privilege" (over women) is that they don't need to be worried constantly about being raped by the opposite gender.

So why is "not having to be instantly viewed as a violent criminal" thus a piece of "female privilge"?

Those lists are indeed divisive. They're generally "here's a bunch of things I, as a member of X, feel are wrong about being an X that I don't think people who aren't X don't experience."

I'd just like you to consider that perhaps the point of the "privilege lists" is not to bridge understanding between the genders/sexes but rather to make the reader confront his or her own privilege(s). In that sense, it is only after the reader does so--unpacks that invisible knapsack--that he or she can come back to the opposite sex/gender and say, "Okay, I can see where you're coming from on X, Y, and Z."

As for the intersections of race, sex/gender, class, etc.: I agree with you that these issues are often overlapping. Yet I would liken this to the issue of addiction, where the person seeking help often is cross-addicted: he or she may have problems with cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol. He or she would be encouraged to go to both Cocaine Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous, because each deals with the particulars of their respective substances. Similarly, these privilege lists must break down to only one axis of social power, because to combine them would be to muddy the issue at hand.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said here. However, I would just say that there are times and places for different discussions, and it should be appropriate to demarcate that, okay, here we're only going to talk about how privilege affects this segment of the population, and then here we're going to talk about how this other segment has privileges, too.

there are times and places for different discussions, and it should be appropriate to demarcate that, okay, here we're only going to talk about how privilege affects this segment of the population, and then here we're going to talk about how this other segment has privileges, too.

Don't get me wrong-- I thought the debate on your LJ was fascinating.

But I don't think you CAN discuss male privilege without allowing people to point out instances where the generalizations about privilege are incorrect or are overstated. Accusing someone who is pointing out flawed arguments and overgeneralizations of dismissing women's concerns or "derailing the conversation" is BULLSHIT.

If you and sophia had gone to a men's forum and pointed out that their arguments about gender and child custody were flawed because men who actually ask for custody often get it granted, you wouldn't be "derailing" the conversation or poo-poohing men's concerns, you'd merely be pointing out a flaw in the argument, which is what p., I, and a couple other people were trying to do.

For the record:

If

simianpower had taken examples from the list and deconstructed them (as other people, such as

pgdudda, had), I would have been fine with his response. Instead, he went immediately to, "Well, women benefit this way!" which did not enrich the conversation about male privilege but rather detracted from it.

Notice that I didn't call him on this until well into the conversation as well--it was only after he had done so several times that I stepped in.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this.

I'm always one to agree to disagree.

To your first paragraph: Have you had the experience, though, of a male reading a "male privilege list" and saying, "Wow, before that, I didn't get it, but now I do, and I'd like to talk"? My experience, both first person and third person, has been one of already having some degree of understanding, as much as it's possible for someone not in X position to understand what it's like to be X, before seeing such a list, and finding those lists to be insulting and whiny. The intent of the list is irrelevant if it doesn't accomplish that intent, and has a counterproductive effect. Given that such lists generally show up on feminist discussions by women, and if they show up when men discuss gender amongst themselves (which, frankly and sadly, we rarely do anyway), it's to make fun of the list, I think the lists are generally more often counterproductive than productive.

To your last paragraph: Some of us, and perhaps this applies to lefthand, are getting tired of waiting for this other place where we're going to talk about something other than white male privilege. Even when we try to discuss it in a semi-public space demarcated for the topic, there's an influx of people insisting it doesn't exist. Some women want a "safe space" where they can discuss Feminist issues: That's fine. But many of those women don't want to offer the same respect to men. It's all fine and good to suggest that men's issue should be discussed "over there, not here," but everywhere is "here" to someone.

This was the first time I'd ever seen that list, so I don't have an answer for your first question. However, I had seen Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack before, and I have seen Caucasian people acknowledging what privileges they had, and in the wake of that have seen people engaged in thoughtful intellectual commerce. (This primarily happened in gender studies classes at college, but it still occurred.)

Some of us, and perhaps this applies to lefthand, are getting tired of waiting for this other place where we're going to talk about something other than white male privilege.

This is the Internet. This is LiveJournal. You can eke out this space any time you wish.

I don't mind talking about other types of privilege. Hell, I could perhaps make a list about how I, as a black female, have certain privileges. But, and perhaps I'm jumping the gun, I think my list would be much shorter than the two lists I recently profiled in my journal. I also think a lot of my privileges would be negative ones--that is, made after reading and citing the other privilege lists and noting where the opposite situation is true for me. Then again, the list would be primarily based on my life and experiences, and the sociologist in me would want to quiz other black females to get their perspectives, too.

I have seen Caucasian people acknowledging what privileges they had, and in the wake of that have seen people engaged in thoughtful intellectual commerce.

Sure. I'm not criticizing the concept, I'm criticizing the specific methodology of "lists of privilege." It should be obvious to any intellectually honest resident of the United States that, all other things being equal, it is far more advantageous to be white and male than either non-white or female* -- any limits that white males might encouter, such as (at least a perception of) increased difficulty finding entry-level jobs in an Affirmative Action context, are outweighed by advantages, such as a higher likelihood of speedy promotion once hired into the system.

There's also, I feel, a subtle but important difference between having a dialogue where individual privileges are discussed one-by-one and confronting someone with a laundry list like the ones we're discussing. The former is an invitation to talk, the latter is more likely to put someone on the defensive and shut down conversation.

I'm impressed that you acknowledge the probable existence of "black privilege," and agree with you that it pales compared to "white privilege." (For instance, I live in a metropolitan area that's perhaps 20% black -- I don't know, offhand -- but I've never worked in an office with that level of representation; my current office has 1 black of 30 or so employees. All the NIGHT janitors are black, while the DAY maintenance workers are all white. That's pretty glaring, and sadly not atypical of suburban Detroit.)

* As to those who identify as a gender other than male or female, they generally have very high cultural obstacles.

I have to agree with a lot of what you've said here. Privilege lists, as posted, don't seem to do a lot more than rile people up beyond the point of rational conversation. Sometimes, I think they have a purpose as such. . . sometimes arguments can cause some people to think about the issues at hand, but more often they seem to close more doors than they open. Especially because I think it would really be a challenge to ever find a single person, regardless of class, race, or sex, for which *every* statement on that list was true.

On the other hand, I think it's probably a good exercise for everyone to consider what privileges they have, and things they haven't had to worry about over the course of their life.

But it's like couples therapy – if you want to really open conversation with people, it's better to make "I" statements than "you" statements. Unless, of course, you want to trigger a defensive response (eventually from both sides)….

Yes, you've said what I was trying to say much more succinctly. :)

We're all more willing to talk about how we feel discrimated against than to make an honest appraisal of our privileges.

I still consider myself a radical feminist. But I use the term radical to seperate myself with the mainstream liberal feminists who seem to have an anti-male agenda. They can't bother to seperate the idea that the patriarchy, a system of beliefs reinforcing male privilege, is quite different than the collection of folks called men.

You can identify these so-called feminists quite easily. They will use the word "men" in a pejorative sense. They will be unwilling to acknowledge that the oppression of women is a societal issue that is as perpetuated by women as much as by men.

They will also be anti-sex, even making outlandish claims like all heterosexual activity is rape. They will focus on rape to the exclusion of all other issues. They don't like to be reminded that pioneering research on battering was done with lesbian couples; it disturbs their notion that only men are violent.

Again, we've had this discussion before, but what you describe here is what is generally referred to as "radical feminism." Catharine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin typify that stance. And while they are highly visible, they could hardly be called "mainstream."

Being a feminist does not mean that one is an misandrist. It's unfortunate that people confuse these terms.

I agree with you here. I hate it when academic/radical feminists who happen to publish a book are referred to as the mainstream or the leaders of feminism. As far as I'm concerned, the average feminist on the street trying to fight sexual harrassment in her work place and trying to get her husband to share the housework is the "mainstream" of feminism, and they're generally pro-sex and are not man-haters.

"There's a huge web of biological and social factors that affect how women and men are treated in this society, and I think men often get a raw deal, just in ways that are less visible than many women's issues."

Excellent point. I am a self-identified feminist and I totally agree with this. In my mind, my mandate is to help promote equality (or equitable treatment) between the sexes...not to help the pendulum swing from one extreme to the other.

I've seen first-hand some of the issues that men and boys deal with, and they're just as serious as the ones girls and women suffer with. We all deserve to be heard on this stuff.

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Why oh why do I bother to talk about these things?

Re: Why oh why do I bother to talk about these things?

Re: Why oh why do I bother to talk about these things?

Re: Why oh why do I bother to talk about these things?

Re: Why oh why do I bother to talk about these things?

Re: Why oh why do I bother to talk about these things?

Re: Why oh why do I bother to talk about these things?

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cheers