[ll123]

OK, I was confused because it seems to make the most sense to me to eliminate race and class as factors. So if you were to take into account race and class, what conclusions could you make considering that overall men are less likely to be college graduates than women? If say upper class white men are equally likely to be graduates compared to upper class white women, then that would mean, for example, lower class black men would be egregiously disadvantaged compared to lower class black women. So your point would be that male privilege only applies to rich white men and that privilege is reversed for poor black people and for that group women are privileged over men?

Let's look at the gender wage gap. Assume someone looks at the statistics that say that overall women earn less than men and says, why aren't race and class considered as factors? Why would someone say that, and what possible conclusions could they reach if they were to slice up the data for those demographics? They could say that some demographics are equal or in favor of women, but overall it would still be in favor of men, so what sort of point could they make there?

[sliverstorm]

So your point would be that male privilege only applies to rich white men and that privilege is reversed for poor black people and for that group women are privileged over men?

Sort of. At least, that's the net result. But it isn't because gender privilige is truly reversed- it is because they are weighted down by things like incarceration, which impacts men more than women, and gang violence, which also impacts men more as more men join gangs!

[ll123]

If incarceration and gang violence impact black men moreso than black women then it sounds like they are disadvantaged because of their gender. It sounds like you're trying to point to their race or class as the source of their problems but it doesn't make sense when you are directly comparing them with people of the same race and class but different gender.

[deciplex]

Wouldn't they be disadvantaged by the combination of both? If you have to be both male and black to be impacted by this, it doesn't make any sense to me to say it's only due to gender.

That is, suppose white men and women (for the sake of argument I'm excluding other races) are on a completely level playing field. But, black men are going to college far less than black women, because of incarceration or gang violence and whatever other factors. How can that be purely an issue of gender and not race?