[jcnnghm]

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist? For example, while women may be asked to smile by random people (44), they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Or, while females spend more time grooming than men (27), they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by mothers who do not like the way they look.

There can be some things in society that do not appeal to women. There are certainly things that women find appealing that most men are not at all interested in.

I always kind of thought that young geeks used comic books to escape their reality. This is just a guess, but could it be that some geeks are awkward around women because females weren't nice to them during their adolescence? Sex hormone levels peak at around age 17 for men, senior year of high school. Is it really that unexpected that men that get no positive female attention during their sexual prime don't embrace women exploring geek hobbies?

Perhaps the focus of all these stupid gender articles should be on encouraging young women not to alienate a large subset of people. I would be willing to bet that if geeks were more accepted at an earlier age, many of the perceived gender issues would disappear.

[rayiner]

> Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist?

Sure. My girlfriend can randomly go up to random people and play with their babies, while my doing so is likely to get me arrested. A mother has the presumption of getting custody in a contentious divorce, etc. Nobody would take a sexual harassment complaint against a woman seriously.

But you know what? In pure economic terms, I'd take male privilege over female privilege any day of the week. I can't remember the last time a woman was sexually harassing me but nobody at work would take me seriously. Negotiating salaries, gunning for promotions, making trade-offs between career and family--these are things with huge economic impact that affects everyone and women have a disadvantage in these areas because of perceptions.

[gregholmberg]

Back when I had a boyish appearance (20s, early 30s), parents would smile when their kids tried to play with me. After the gray hair showed up, I could see them pull their kids away, no longer smiling.

In pure economic terms, what price do we put on "forced to feel like a moral leper"?

[jopt]

And then there's the draft

[philwelch]

> Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist?

Yes:

http://www.the-niceguy.com/articles/Checklist.html

http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2008/06/08/female-privil...

http://mensresistance.wordpress.com/female-privilege-checkli...

(Note: I don't necessarily agree with or endorse everything on every one of these lists, but the point is very much made.)

[wallflower]

Wow, read these lists.

It appears that I really never think about gender bias.

[wazoox]

> they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims.

Murder is an incredibly rare occurrence in most countries and social environments. On the other hand, women are a huge majority among rape victims, and this is not exceptional: 5 to 10% of all women are sexually abused at some point (depends upon the country, again).

> Perhaps the focus of all these stupid gender articles should be on encouraging young women not to alienate a large subset of people.

Perhaps the focus of people like you should be to think about your attitude, just like this article conveniently talked about? Your arrogance and close-mindedness are astounding. Oh, before you ask, I'm a white, straight male too.

[jcnnghm]

Murder is an incredibly rare occurrence in most countries and social environments. On the other hand, women are a huge majority among rape victims, and this is not exceptional: 5 to 10% of all women are sexually abused at some point (depends upon the country, again).

Rape makes up only 6% of violent crimes, and men are much more commonly the victim of violent crimes than women. In fact, excluding rape, as the severity of violent crimes increase, so does the probability that the victim is male.

And couldn't I also say that, while rape is relatively rare, men are over twice as likely to be the victim of severe physical domestic violence (the ratio of murder to rape and rape to severe physical domestic violence is the same). Or that perpetration rates for physical violence as a whole are significantly higher for women than men.

I personally think that these are all bogus arguments because they trivialize rape. At the same time, trivializing murder is no better than trivializing rape, unless you believe that men are expendable.

Perhaps the focus of people like you should be to think about your attitude, just like this article conveniently talked about? Your arrogance and close-mindedness are astounding. Oh, before you ask, I'm a white, straight male too.

Nice ad hominem.

[wazoox]

> Rape makes up only 6% of violent crimes, and men are much more commonly the victim of violent crimes than women.

Most victims of violent crimes are known offenders or their relatives. An overwhelming majority of offenders are male (see the proportion of male vs female in jail).

> Nice ad hominem.

It's ad personam if you want. You go straight to the usual tactic of pretending that it's the victim fault. Take some time to imagine yourself in the situations represented before being a judgemental jerk.

See this post for a good explanation: http://hugoboy.typepad.com/hugo_schwyzer/2004/09/guilty_unti...

[jcnnghm]

You say that I am blaming the victim, then in your link, the related story is as follows:

First of all, the obvious point is that women's intuition, while not entirely the stuff of myth, is not so powerful that it can automatically separate "good guys" from the bad. No woman can walk down the street and as she passes a man, know with certainty that he isn't a threat. Given the high incidence of rape and assault and harassment and other forms of mistreatment, a woman would be a fool to leave herself continually vulnerable. The old adage "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" seems to apply here. When a simple smile is so frequently misunderstood and construed as a sexual invitation, American women generally do have to operate on the assumption that men are guilty until proven innocent.

Is this really an acceptable story that somehow illustrates your point? It seems like it could trivially be rewritten into something incredibly racist. If that is the case, than isn't this actually very sexist. But really, why would anyone expect random women to smile at them?

And how are women the victim? Because some products are not designed for them, but are instead designed to appeal to teenage boys? What if I feel bad because the quizzes in Seventeen magazine do not appeal to me, and instead give teenage girls ideas about the way men should be that I disagree with. Do you think this quiz (http://www.seventeen.com/fun/quizzes/celebrity/summer-movie-...) is sexist?

[wazoox]

OK, I give up. I won't convince you from across the oceans and through the internets that white patriarchy is a reality; you apparently live in the nice world where oppression of the poor, the black and women doesn't exist or at least doesn't matter, and I must live on a different planet than you. That won't be much more than a sociological experience I guess.

[philwelch]

> On the other hand, women are a huge majority among rape victims

No one is even going to listen to a man complaining he has been raped, so I very highly doubt the validity of those numbers.

[wazoox]

Men are a significant minority of rape victims (5 to 10%). However more than 99% of perpetrators are males.

[philwelch]

And my contention is that rapes against men, and woman-on-man rape in particular, are incredibly underreported and hence your numbers are invalid.

[wazoox]

How do you know? What allows you to believe that?

[zasz]

Eh, just because females have advantages in some domains doesn't mean that their overall advantages in life are outweighed by the overall male advantages in life. Stuff like the salary gap, stereotype threat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat), and being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids affect most adult women for most of their lives. Murder is a pretty rare event, and men, as the traditionally more risk-taking sex, could be bringing quite a bit of it down on themselves. I'd take the increased chance of murder, personally.

[makomk]

On the other hand, stuff like the causes of the salary gap, stereotype threat, and being expected to give up contact with your kids to be the one raising money to bring them up affect most adult men for most of their lives. (There's support out there for heterosexual men giving up their careers to raise kids but only so long as this decision is made by the kids' mother based on what benefits her personally.)

The wage gap is also curious because these days it results mostly from men and women doing different kinds of work, and campaigners demand totally different solutions for high-status jobs than they do for low-status ones. For stuff like tech industry startups there are lots of campaigns to include more women. On the other hand, if you take street-side trash collection (another job which is also largely male) instead there are campaigns for women to get the same pay for doing "equivalent" jobs like office cleaning.

Now, trash collection of this kind is an awful lot more dangerous than cleaning offices and this is both why it's better paid and why there are few women doing it; for various reasons people get more upset about a woman dying in a horrific industrial accident than a man so employers have an incentive to discourage women, and there's not so much social pressure for them to get dangerous jobs. Equality would require making people care more about men dying or less about women, both of which benefit men rather than women, so feminists go for the unequal option of paying women for doing less than men instead.

Edit: For example, if you play video games take a close look at the gender of the mooks that you kill en-masse. That's just one of the subtle messages saying that men are disposable in mass media.

[kstenerud]

Actually, men in crappy, dangerous jobs is an evolutionary trait. It's also why they're (traditionally) the ones to go to war and why everyone thinks women and children are to be protected above all else.

If 90% of the males in a population die, it takes 1 generation to recover. If 90% of the females in a population die, it takes 5 generations to recover. Meanwhile, they are easy pickings for other competing populations.

[makomk]

Well, that's probably kind of true and it matters a lot if you're doing something like constructing a fictional matriarchal society. It's not exactly relevant in modern times though; we don't (or at least shouldn't) stop women from working because having other options might discourage them from having kids anymore, why should we allow other kinds of horrible gender-based discrimination in the name of population increase?

[kstenerud]

I'm not saying it's a justification for continuance of the status quo. I'm saying that it's our evolutionary heritage, and as such it has to be recognized as a problem for everybody, rather than saying "it's the white man's fault so the white man is responsible for fixing it".

Changing thinking requires someone to show that things CAN be different. Only then can the majority follower population even consider the possibility. This is why the constant complaints about how "things aren't the way they should be" result in no action, and we end up right back here with accusations flying and nothing getting done.

[wpietri]

I think an immense amount has gotten done in the past 100 years, and quite a lot of it through complaining.

Most privilege comes from unconscious bias. Pointing out unfair situations and calling out biases drive hidden assumptions and reactions into the open, allowing us to consider and change them.

Of course, a lot of people would like to go right back to sleep: change is uncomfortable, especially when you realize that the change will remove an advantage you have.

[zasz]

Sure, it's sad men don't get to spend as much time with the kids, but the point is, they can have their career, and have at least some time with their children. Women very often just don't have that choice, and are forced to take just the kids. That sounds worse to me. (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/18616558/ns/today-books/t/why-...)

Also, women are actively punished for asking for more money, or being aggressive: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07... That has nothing to do with dangerous jobs, and that's a legitimate form of sexism that feminism has every right to address.

Do you have any figures for the "men are paid more because they take on more dangerous jobs" assertion? From the AMAs I've seen on Reddit, trash collection is not dangerous--just a low-status job, albeit a high-paying one with short hours.

Also, yes, I play vido games. I have not played Assassin's Creed, but my understanding is that historically, monks were men, so if you're going to assassinate the pope, he's going to be surrounded by men. I have, though, slaughtered a lot of male and female citizens of Vault City while playing Fallout 2.

The vibe I'm getting from your post is, "feminism isn't doing enough to eliminate the negative implications of gender roles for men, and it is therefore invalid." Or maybe it's something more like, "hey, men suffer a lot too, why are you spending so much time paying attention to women?" In which case, the simple reply is that while gender roles can negatively affect both genders, women seem to have the worst of it.

I mean, black men have this reputation for having gigantic dicks and being able to dance, which reflects badly on white men in comparison, but you'd have to be insane to prefer being a black man to a white man in America. I hear Eminem has a hard time being a white rapper in a black man's world, but it would be silly to feel sorry for him. And in a similar vein, I don't feel nearly as sorry for men as I do for women.

[makomk]

"From the AMAs I've seen on Reddit, trash collection is not dangerous--just a low-status job, albeit a high-paying one with short hours."

A quick Google turns up information like this: http://earth911.com/news/2011/08/26/dangerous-jobs-garbage-c...

It involves working amongst traffic on a regular basis and operating dangerous machinery with very little in the way of safeguards, so the danger level shouldn't be terribly surprising.

[philwelch]

> they can have their career, and have at least some time with their children

Unless mommy divorces them and takes their kids away, at which point they can have their career, and they can pay for the kids, but they can't actually spend much time with them.

[zasz]

Yes, that's true, and that sucks. I won't deny that, and I feel terrible for any man that happens too, and I wish the courts were truly gender-equal in this respect. But the flipside of always granting women custody of children is immense social pressure for women to give up their careers to raise children, or to at least face huge energy expenditures in balancing both that men don't, and on balance, I think women are still getting the shorter end of the stick. It's within your control to avoid marrying a bitch or to maintain your marriage; it's harder to dodge societal expectations that because you're female, you'll be a poorer employee. Given the choice between two problems, I'll pick tackling the one where I have more control over the outcome. Wouldn't you?

Most feminists don't focus explicitly on making it easier for men to intrude into traditional female-dominated activities like childrearing, but hopefully, as it becomes more normal for women to enter the same spheres as men, the reverse will hold true too, and the courts will be more likely to see men as equal and not inferior caregivers. So even if feminism isn't explicitly about helping men, I think it's still on their side.

[da_dude4242]

>Sure, it's sad men don't get to spend as much time with the kids, but the point is, they can have their career, and have at least some time with their children. Women very often just don't have that choice, and are forced to take just the kids.

That's false.

A) It is a woman's choice to have children.

B) The "Best Interest Clause" creates a power differential over the children. If she wants to work full-time she can, If she wants to be a house-wife she can. So what choice does the father have in this situation? If this works its way to family court the father will be legally bound to the "provider" role due to the "best interest".

C) Women in general are still seeking out men that have the potential to be providers. They have the choice to seek out men that will be house-dads and that is not happening.

Women by law and cultural norms have the choice to balance home life and career in ways that a man does not.

All the evidence points that women in general seek out a balanced lifestyle in ways that men do not have the freedom to.

[wpietri]

To the extent which you are correct (which I personally think is modest), the problem is still a sexist system. Historically, most of the sexism has been blatantly anti-female. If we are getting to the point when it is now arguable that women don't have the short end of the stick, then that's great news.

However, if you would like the elimination of sexism to continue and solve some of the things that bug you personally, I think your tactics are poor. Right now you look like yet another guy clinging on to his male privilege. If you are interested in eliminating sexism on both sides, then I think you'll get better results jumping on the bandwagon of the last century or so.

[makomk]

The trouble is that the "bandwagon of the last century or so" has no interest in doing anything about this particular form of sexism. Pretty much everyone supports children being automatically treated as their mother's property - including feminists - to the point that if you stand up to this you'll almost certainly be accused of wanting kids to be their father's property. The accusation usually sticks too - it's such a deep-rooted assumption that everyone just talks about doing what's in the "best interests" of the kids without even stopping to think whether it is.

Not even if it involves an underage rape victim paying child support to his rapist to raise their kids. Not even if it means keeping the father of some kids away from them long enough for their mother to brutally murder them, ignoring the warning signs she was showing and just choosing the "safe" option of assuming their father is dangerous based on his gender. (Not hypothetical examples by the way.)

[zasz]

Let's spell this out.

A woman can either have just kids, or just a career.

A man can have just kids, just a career, or a career and kids.

Who has more options?

Your assumption that women "choose" to always be the stay at home parent is questionable, too. As if the husband, and society in general, have no expectations that women are the best caretakers and should therefore be the ones to stay at home, and no additional influence on her choice.

[spindritf]

> the salary gap

Men don't earn more money for being men (not any more at least, if it was ever true):

> according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00....

[wpietri]

Amazing what happens when you read the whole article: you discover that a) this is a market research survey guy, and b) his theory is due to the fact that the women are better educated, and therefore better qualified.

Which means that this is definitely not evidence that evidence that women get paid the same as men when all else is equal.

[knucker3]

It's not just this one guy though:

http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20...

http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_detai...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E6DD1531F...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190345450457648...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvaQ0xxni8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwogDPh-Sow

[wpietri]

Thanks. That's helpful. However, that first link, the only one from a neutral source, suggests that sexism and male privilege are indeed still problems.

They say that they couldn't account for 24-35% of the wage gap. And the portions they could account for were due to:

* more women work part time * more women take time off to care for children and the elderly * women value 'family-friendly' workplaces more

The first one isn't really an explanation; it says nothing about why that's the case. The second is at least partly due to societal policing of gender roles: talk to any couple where the guy stays home with the kid and you'll hear both partners complain about how they're treated. The man is unmanly; the woman, unwomanly. It's also self-reinforcing; the wage gap means that guys make more, so there's economic incentive for women to stay home. The third could be similar: ceteris paribus, it should be parents who value family-friendly workplaces more.

So I think this study confirms that there is a salary gap, and that a good portion of the reason for it is exactly what Zasz says: women "being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids".

The study also suggests that what gap-closing has happened is due to changes in human capital. That is, women being more educated and more experienced in jobs typically held by men. That demonstrates to me that sexism was indeed a major problem in the past, that historical "women are just different" arguments are bunk, and that there's no particular reason to think that December 2011 is the month where we've solved the problems that come from millennia of oppression of women.

[rmc]

they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by fathers who do not like the way they look.

Female genital mutilation happens as well in some countries. And the majority of cases it's much worse than the male equivalent. FGM often results in all or part of the clitoris being removed. That would be like all or part of the glans of a penis being removed. (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Class...)

(As an aside, I think male genital mutilation happens more in the USA. Men in Europe of christian ethnicity don't usually get this done. Tis an odd the cultural practices)

[jcnnghm]

And the majority of cases it's much worse than the male equivalent. FGM often results in all or part of the clitoris being removed.

As a circumcised male, I generally believe that FGM is much worse than the male equivalent, even though it is much more rare in developed countries. At the same time, I wonder if the facts that most circumcised men have no basis for comparison, and that the procedure is so common, colors that bias. The foreskin has over 20,000 nerve endings whereas the clitoris only has about 8,000. Men that have undergone foreskin restorations sometimes report vastly improved sexual sensitivity and much more intense orgasms.

As I said, I believe the female variant is much worse, but it does cause me to pause and consider that this may be caused by female privilege. I cannot help but wonder if my belief that there would be outrage if roles were reversed is valid.

[wpietri]

Could you help me better understand the theory that circumcision results from female privilege?

Female genital mutilation is pretty explicitly about controlling female sexuality in a way that makes women more obedient male property.

Circumcision, though, seems to be a religious thing from a very patriarchal culture. The modern justification for which is hygiene and/or health, and sometimes it's definitely medically necessary.

So I'm not seeing how circumcision is evidence of a gender power differential.

[jcnnghm]

Could you help me better understand the theory that circumcision results from female privilege?

It doesn't result from female privilege, it is considered a non-issue and discounted because of female privilege. There is plenty of evidence to support that, including the fact that FGM is considered a larger issue although it has effectively been eliminated in the west.

Consider this, if a father wanted to have his newborn daughters' clitoral hood removed because he didn't like the way it looked, he would be rightly ignored. If a mother wants to have her newborn son circumcised because she doesn't like the way uncut penises look, he will be circumcised. No matter how you want to slice it, both are genital mutilations. The difference is, one is ridiculous, uncommon and illegal, and the other is ridiculous, common, legal, and widespread.

Female genital mutilation is pretty explicitly about controlling female sexuality in a way that makes women more obedient male property.

It does happen almost exclusively in Islamic areas, and some religious leaders do mandate it, so I'm not too sure about that. In any case, religion is a poor reason to justify mutilation. Circumcision was performed on male slaves to make them "less likely to rape white women", so I also am not too sure about the underlying reason for male circumcision. Both practices seem kind of barbaric.

Circumcision, though, seems to be a religious thing from a very patriarchal culture. The modern justification for which is hygiene and/or health, and sometimes it's definitely medically necessary.

The hygiene and health arguments are bogus, and have been proven to be bogus. If women were having parts of sexual organs removed for "hygiene" reasons, it would not continue for a moment.

So I'm not seeing how circumcision is evidence of a gender power differential.

The fact that nobody questions male circumcision which is forced on over 50% of males born in the United States today, while FGM, which is much less widespread largely occurring only in Africa and the middle east, garners considerable attention provides evidence of a power differential. It clearly shows that male health issues are undervalued, even in relation to obscure female issues, reinforcing the matriarchal view that men are inherently less valuable than women.

[wpietri]

I agree with you that ritual circumcision is dubious and I'd be happy to see everybody give it up (except when medically necessary, which happens sometimes), but am not persuaded that it's relevant to this discussion.

[...] it is considered a non-issue and discounted because of female privilege.

That is a statement you have not supported. For it to be true, there'd have to be some evidence that women generally were forcing it on men. Historically women couldn't force anything on men, and the people performing the operation were mohels and doctors, almost exclusively male.

I guess it's possible that there could have been some recent reversal in power, with women picking up pressure for circumcision and men slacking off. But I've seen not the slightest bit of evidence for this.

Given that, this seems like a typical "but what about meeeee" male response to a discussion of male privilege.

[jcnnghm]

For it to be true, there'd have to be some evidence that women generally were forcing it on men.

So in order for something to be privilege it must be forced on the other gender? So lets examine some items on the male privilege checklist against that standard:

2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true.

Did men force women to accept affirmative action which in some cases does give women jobs that they would have not gotten if they were competing on merits alone? Take a look at this, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/science/17comp.html?_r=1&#.... It appears that Carnegie Mellon lowered entrance standards to admit more women into the computer science program. Is a man that isn't admitted obligated to believe that sex has nothing to do with it? Why is it acceptable to reject more-qualified men in favor of less-qualified women? That does not seem very fair.

9. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question.

And men force this onto women? It's not other women? Is it not acceptable to point out that women who don't have children will be the first women in a line of women going back to the dawn of humanity not to have children, or that only about 40% of men ever procreated, versus a significantly hire percentage of women.

10. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be called into question.

Men force women to call other women's femininity into question?

14. My elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more this is true.

Men force women to vote for men, and to not run for office? Women are the majority of the population. Is there some invisible man-field that is preventing them from voting every single elected man out of office within the next 6 years?

15. When I ask to see “the person in charge,” odds are I will face a person of my own sex. The higher-up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be.

Men force women not to form organizations too?

17. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for it; male protagonists were (and are) the default.

Men must also force women not to produce their own media.

18. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often.

The vast majority of teachers are female. Please explain how men force female teachers to pay more attention to male students.

24. Even if I sleep with a lot of women, there is no chance that I will be seriously labeled a “slut,” nor is there any male counterpart to “slut-bashing.”

Men force women to tolerate promiscuous men?

27. The grooming regimen expected of me is relatively cheap and consumes little time.

This is fantastic. I had no idea that I was partly responsible for making women spend a lot of time and money grooming.

31. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)

Isn't this phenomenon actually a female creation? All that stuff was illegal, then feminists demanded extra-special protection, so a whole slew of legislation was passed. Now that protection is because of male privilege?

33. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.

Wow, men force women to have periods. I had no idea. I'll try harder to not do that. Or did men just make up PMS to have an excuse to denigrate women? That doesn't seem as likely since it's been scientifically proven to exist.

36. Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex. Even God, in most major religions, is pictured as male.

Men also forced women to be the only gender capable of producing children?

41. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer.

Did those evil men also force women to have less response to visual sexual stimuli? Could that be why romance novels exist, and men don't read them.

43. If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover.

What a farce. Women commit the majority of domestic violence, and are more likely to use weapons. Twice as many men as women are the victims of severe physical domestic abuse.

It seems that most of the list is an artifact of feminism itself, or has very clear biological or evolutionary origins. Exactly the same could be said of the female privilege associated with not being expendable.

[wpietri]

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist?

Sure. And if you do that in the spirit of saying, "gosh, these are also nice problems to fix one day", that's great. But mostly people bring that argument up in the sense of "Gosh, your life is not 100% shitty, so I'm going to go back to pretending everything is fair now."

This argument is so common that it appears on the "Derailing for Dummies" guide: http://derailingfordummies.com/#butbut (Note that they include as an example your false equivalence between circumcision and female genital mutilation.)

Also, that there are reasons somebody might be a sexist jerk does not excuse them being sexist jerks. Suppose there's a correlation between sex hormone levels, lack of female attention, and rape. Do we say, "Gosh, that's not unexpected" and tell women to be more accommodating?

Honestly, your attempt at victim-blaming here is kinda repulsive. There's no particular reason to believe that the sort of sexism described by the article is experienced by the people who failed to be nice enough to (by which you mean: have sex with) the guys who are being jerks. And if they were the same people, then I'm still not seeing any justification: your theory appears to be that guys are somehow entitled to sexual attention just for being guys. Which, hello, is exactly the sort of sexism driven by male privilege the article's author is calling out.

[jcnnghm]

This argument is so common that it appears on the "Derailing for Dummies" guide: http://derailingfordummies.com/#butbut (Note that they include as an example your false equivalence between circumcision and female genital mutilation.)

This is really incredible, "Because the removal of a tiny flap of skin is entirely comparable to the crippling mutilation many young girls are subjected to.." Seriously? Why is the removal of a "tiny flap of skin" from a vulva a crippling mutilation, whereas the removal of the foreskin, which has over 2.5 times the number of nerve endings, no big deal? And also, it's not a false equivalency since I did not bring up FGM since it is irrelevant to a discussion that is not centered around third world issues, whereas male genital mutilation is, seeing as how over 50% of males born in the US are still altered. Or are you actually suggesting that any discussion of male genital mutilation is irrelevant because males are not important, or at least not as important as females? Or perhaps that female genital mutilation is so much more important that it is unthinkable to address male genital mutilation at all so long as it is happening to a female somewhere on earth?

And I actually fully believe that the female variant is worse (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3364906), but this language is incredibly inflammatory.

[wpietri]

Yes, the language of the whole piece is intentionally inflammatory. Satire: it's a recognized literary form.

Note that you entirely ignore my actual point, which is that you have taken a discussion about sexism and male privilege and tried to make it about you and your concerns as a guy. And that your behavior is common enough that somebody took the time to include it in a guide of lame responses to discussions of privilege. Do you see what's wrong with that?

[makomk]

It's more than a little inflammatory. For example, did you know the law against FGC in the US is so strict that if you so much as symbolically prick any part of a girl's genitals with a pin to draw blood (an often-proposed symbolic replacement) you're committing a crime punishable by 5 years in jail. This isn't just an accident; attempts to make this kind of symbolic prick legal have been roundly attacked and are not politically viable.

Comparing that to male circumcision is an insult to men.

[jcnnghm]

Note that you entirely ignore my actual point, which is that you have taken a discussion about sexism and male privilege and tried to make it about you and your concerns as a guy. And that your behavior is common enough that somebody took the time to include it in a guide of lame responses to discussions of privilege. Do you see what's wrong with that?

I don't subscribe to the view that bringing female privilege into a discussion about male privilege is somehow off limits. It's the reverse side of the same coin. If women are victims because of male privilege, than men are victims because of female privilege. You cannot examine one without the other. I too can publish a guide saying that anyone that makes obvious arguments against my reasoning is "lame", but that does not make it so. It is simply a tactic to steer the discussion and prevent the other side from ever being explored.

Refusing to examine both sides of an issue is narrow. Shouting down anyone that dares examine the flip side with soft-minded reasoning is pathetic. It is evidence of a weak argument, which is characteristic of feminism. This faulty logic is how we have arrived at female-only health clubs while women were suing and legislating male-only golf clubs out of existence.

[wpietri]

It's not off limits. However, if one does it without at all acknowledging the massive problem that feminism has been addressing then it looks a lot like a tactic to prevent any serious discussion of male privilege. Which is something feminists have had to deal with for more than a hundred years, so it's not surprising they react poorly to it.

For all your bold talk of "both sides of the coin" I haven't seen you give the slightest hint that you even admit the problem or have considered its nature, let alone devoted any energy to solving things.

[jcnnghm]

It's not off limits. However, if one does it without at all acknowledging the massive problem that feminism has been addressing then it looks a lot like a tactic to prevent any serious discussion of male privilege.

In the context of sexy females in comic books. Give me a fucking break.

Which is something feminists have had to deal with for more than a hundred years, so it's not surprising they react poorly to it.

If this is the topic feminism must now address, the war is over. It's time to pack up your shit and go home. Feminists are starting to look like Genghis Khan, riding around slaughtering everything. Especially when there are massive actual gender inequalities caused by feminism like the huge advantages that women have in the legal system, the fact that women are given preferential treatment in college admission and hiring processes, and the fact that women earn more money for equal work. Or for example, that female owned businesses are given price preferences, or that women now vastly outnumber men as college graduates, while dominating the education system that is failing men.

For all your bold talk of "both sides of the coin" I haven't seen you give the slightest hint that you even admit the problem or have considered its nature, let alone devoted any energy to solving things.

That's probably because I don't see this as a problem. It is pathetic. I have never read a comic book and have never been in a comic book store, but I see no fundamental difference between comic books and magazines for teenage girls. They are both full of fantasy-land bullshit designed to appeal to young people going through puberty.

What can I do to solve things? I don't know. Perhaps start fighting for men to be able to have financial abortions before a child is born. Or maybe make it a felony to commit paternity fraud. But probably just start calling feminists on their bullshit when they start pontificating.

If you feel there is a market for female-centric comic books, why not develop them, tap a huge market, make something women want, and get rich? If you won't do that, is it because we both know there is not a market for it?

[burgerbrain]

I must say that that trivialization of male genital mutilation is particularly sickening. The author very clearly has no actual knowledge on the subject.