HeatherN parses apart a metaphor comparing real-life social privilege with difficulty settings in a video game.
Recently, Julie Gillis sent me a link to this article about privilege. It compares privilege (social inequality) to the difficulty setting of a video game. It acknowledges that other factors (such as individual personalities and abilities) influence what affect privilege has on a person’s life. In this scenario, the other, personal factors are represented by ‘stats’ in video games. Basically the analogy is like this: difficulty setting (privilege) is about how the world perceives and interacts with your character, while the stats (personal circumstances) are about how well you are individually equipped to deal with the world.
Of course I posted the article to Facebook, and I was immediately told that comparing life to a video game is too simplistic. My answer to that was, yes, of course it is. Analogies and metaphors are (hopefully) useful tools used to help understand a complicated idea. Often that means the metaphor itself is much simpler than the reality of the complicated idea you’re trying to explain. In this case, the video game metaphor is meant to provide a very basic framework to help explain social privilege. I certainly do not think that a video game can really simulate real life, but hopefully video games can provide a useful (if simple) metaphor to help us understand life, specifically social privilege.
I was also hit with a comment about how economic status is far more important factor in how easy or difficult the “game of life” really is. After a bit of thought, I’d have to say I agree to some degree. The metaphor of difficulty setting for privilege is a bit off. If life were a video game, then economic class would be the difficulty setting. After all, in the West we have what are mostly capitalist economies, particularly true in the U.S. Everything is affected by what economic class you belong to. Also, economic class can theoretically be changed; albeit not as easily as hitting Esc and shifting through some options.
Anyway, I don’t think that’s quite the end of the video game metaphor for privilege. To my mind, privilege could be better compared to all the invisible systems in a video game that affect the game world but that you, the player, don’t even see. It’s like the random number generator (RNG) or the mob spawner. It’s like the bits of code that determine what a randomly generated dungeon will look like or which bits of dialog an NPC will say to your character. For the non-gamers out there: it’s the element of Tetris that determines which shape appears next. The player doesn’t see the calculations made that determine what will happen; the player just sees the results. Similarly, it’s often difficult to see privilege at work. We may see the results, but sometimes we don’t recognize that it’s privilege.
Mostly though, the reason I think my analogy works a bit better, is because having privilege (or not) doesn’t necessarily translate into having an easy or hard life. What having privilege does mean is that in many situations, a person who belongs to a privileged group will have certain advantages over someone who does not belong to that group. It’s as if your ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, etc. determined how often you landed a critical hit, or how often the simpler Tetris pieces appeared.
If you have more critical hits (or more simple Tetris pieces) does that make the game easier? It can, but it doesn’t necessarily make the game easy. The player can still end up coming up against an enemy that’s just too powerful (or end up with a mess of Tetris pieces that appeared in an unfortunate order). And whether a player is good at the video game or not matters, of course. A player’s individual abilities also determine how far in the game s/he gets.
How does this translate back into the real world? I’ll try to provide an example: a transwoman and a cis-woman both apply for a job. The fact that one is trans and the other is cis-gendered is known by the employer. The cis-woman, in this case has privilege based on the fact that she’s cis-gendered. Does this mean she will necessarily get the job? No. Does it mean that the cis-woman hasn’t had a hard time landing a job until that point? Nope. It doesn’t even mean that the cis-woman has had an easier life than the transwoman. What it means is that in this case, the cis-woman is more likely to land a ‘critical hit’ (and get the job), based on stereotypes and discrimination against transwomen.
Society (invisible systems) has been set up in such a way as to be biased against certain groups and then people often perceive that bias as a norm. That is what privilege is.
About HeatherN
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Is this how it works? Tally up the privilege each group has to show who is weaker in the game? Would a low income white straight male be lower in privilege than a middle-class straight black woman?
As a side note I dare someone to write the straight white female equivalent of the article, would make for an interesting set of comments and I am extremely curious to compare the reaction to both.
I agree that privilege exists, just not that it it’s some kind of binary thing. Personally I don’t think it’s all that useful to discussing civil rights issues. All too often it gets turned into some kind of original sin vs. state of grace kind of thing.
To take the analogy of the difficulty setting, some people are highly emotionally invested in the claim that they’ve been playing a harder game than anyone else, after all, if they’re unprivileged it makes their achievements all the greater. Sometimes this is true, other times it really isn’t and it becomes a barrier to actually discussing the issue.
Privilege shouldn’t be about points scoring, which is unfortunately what the video game comparison makes it.
I’m not sure super-complex systems like cultures can really be explained in an easy way, at best they can be guides? Intersectionality would make it quite complicated. Hell just the privilege of being a person with a health self-esteem, confidence, low boredom rate and lust for learning and working hard gives privilege and that is as much genetic luck as it is a controllable behaviour. It’s not hard to see shy people have a tougher time in business, dating, etc. How do we sum up all of these things?
Archy what you’re talking about when you refer to ‘high self-esteem, confidence, low boredom,’ etc…is not the same as privilege. Social privilege isn’t just simply what personality traits society values. Privilege is what social identities are treated as better than other social identities, basically. The point of social privilege is that it’s when your social identities outweigh your individual personality traits when society deals with you.
It’s not constant, and it’s not always going to result in the person who belongs to a privileged identity having an easier life…but it does mean that in certain situations the privileged identity will have an advantage. That advantage has nothing to do with their individual abilities, but rather is about how society views their social identities.
Can personality traits be considered privileges? Say you have an abuse victim with an anxiety disorder, fearful of being around other people. A “normal” person is free from such bindings, is that not a privilege of sorts? Certain things like extreme shyness if a person is born that way, wouldn’t that also affect it?
Privilege isn’t about how an individual reacts to the world. Privilege is about how the world reacts to an individual, based on what social groups that person identifies with.
So with personality traits, being extremely shy or having an anxiety disorder will affect how a person interacts with others. However, it does so on a very individual basis. If it’s extreme enough to be classified as a psychological issue, then that person gets put into a social group (mentally ill) and that group (the mentally ill) are treated differently by society.
Social privilege then comes into play….when someone who is diagnosed with a psychological problem has trouble finding work, or keeping an apartment, or even being considered a potential boy/girlfriend. Because then it stop being about individual interactions, and it becomes social discrimination based on a social group that person belongs to.
The term “privilege” is used very specifically when discussing social inequality. The Oxford Dictionary definition doesn’t work.
Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I wish they used a different word instead of privilege, it causes so much confusion.
I suppose it’s sort of what happens when an academic term ends up more commonly used. It started out as a common term, then academics gave it a separate meaning, and now it’s new meaning has shifted back into the vernacular.
@ HeatherN
“Privilege isn’t about how an individual reacts to the world. Privilege is about how the world reacts to an individual, based on what social groups that person identifies with.”
Then closeted homosexuals have privilege because it’s not the way they interact with the world, it’s the way the world interacts with them. That runs counter to almost everything I’ve been told.
Think about why closeted lgbt people are closeted in the first place. They are closeted because of “the way the world interacts with them.” They are closeted because of social pressure, fear of social stigma, etc. So no, they don’t have privilege.
Would that extend to men that don’t live up to social expectations of what a man should be? They too will hide a lot of their true feelings, desires, remain closeted because of social pressure, fear of social stigma etc? I do it myself quite a lot even, I hold back parts of myself over the fear of stigma.
I would say that is more complicated…also, the two examples are not directly comparable. The thing about a closeted lgbt person, is that they are hiding that they belong to an unprivileged social group. Whereas, someone who hides their emotions isn’t necessarily hiding their social identity, but rather hiding individual and personal characteristics.
Whereas, someone who hides their emotions isn’t necessarily hiding their social identity, but rather hiding individual and personal characteristics.
It may be a bit more broad than that. Men that try to hide their emotions are doing it because largely because we know that emotional expression that is not happiness, lust, or rage is not acceptable. Men that do go beyond those fall out of the narrow band of acceptable manhood.
This clashes with the constant declarations that “men are privielged!”.
Men as a class aren’t privileged, its a narrow subset of men that are privileged but its not like most feminists would let nuance get in the way ot casting all men as a monolith.
Oh for goodness…you’ll notice what I said was “that is more complicated.” I’m really not here to discuss which gender is privileged or not, or rather in which ways each gender is privileged. That’s a different conversation. This article isn’t about determining who has privilege.
Archy was comparing hiding emotions to hiding sexual orientation, and I was just trying to point out the difference. If you argue that men being socially restricted with their emotions is indicative of a way men are unprivileged, then that’s still different to lgbt individuals hiding their lgbt identity. (Notice, please, that I am not saying less important, just different). One is hiding a socially undesired personality trait that is associated with a social identity. The other is hiding that you belong to a specific social identity.
As for your last comment, could we please stop with the anti-feminist stuff, please? I know, you said ‘most, so it’s not generalizing. But it is still really frustrating, especially when your view of ‘most’ feminists is so different to mine. Of all the feminists I know, worldwide, men and women and in-between…I know exactly one who would cast men as a monolith, and she casts women as a monolith too. It’s very 20th century to do so.
And I know you’ve had really bad experiences with feminists in the past. I bet you could find me a dozen articles online from women who take on the label of feminist and do cast men as monoliths. And I could find you a dozen articles from men who call themselves MRAs and cast women as monoliths. Right, so let’s not and say we did…
@ HeatherN
“Think about why closeted lgbt people are closeted in the first place. They are closeted because of “the way the world interacts with them.”
It’s not the way the world interacts with them. It’s the way the world would interact with them that keeps them in the closet. Being in the closet is how they interact with the world, one drawback to trying to take something complex and make it simple. Maybe in the game they have privilege, but their ability scores take a hit unless they come out, which causes them to lose privilege.
Wait what? What? No, closeted lgbt people don’t have privilege. Not in the video game metaphor nor in the real world. I thought you were saying a closeted person has privilege? Which is wrong.
Plus, as I pointed out, it’s not about the individual. It’s about the social identity. Closeted or not…it’s the lgbt identities that are unprivileged. Whether a person is closeted or not is an individual thing. And whether they’re closeted or not doesn’t affect privilege.
@ HeatherN
“According to Moss-Racusin, the applicants in the staged interviews were judged equally competent, but the “modest” males were less liked, a sign of social backlash. Modesty was viewed as a sign of weakness, a low-status character trait for males that could adversely affect their employability or earnings potential. Modesty in women, however, was not viewed negatively nor was it linked to status.”
http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/special-content/summer_2010/rutgers-study-finds-20100726
Archy has a point. When men act shy it affects the perception that society has of them and could materially impact them. Part of what I think the confusion comes from is whether someone believes that shyness is an integral part of someone like sexual orientation or is something that can be changed. In this example if a person’s social identity does not match their abilities, they don’t have privilege. They are in fact at a disadvantage.
Again, as I said to Danny…my point is that (even if you count Archy’s example as a lack of privilege), they are different. Not that one is less important than the other, but they are different.
Now, I’ll say that I don’t think what you’re describing is an example of privilege, exactly. Or rather, the privilege you’re talking about is with regards to gender conformity…it’s not about male privilege or female privilege; it’s about gender-conformity privilege. The lack of privilege comes from deviating from the accepted normative behaviour, and thus being identified as either belonging to an unprivileged group (in this case genderqueer or trans, etc) or at the very least with having been disassociated with the privileged group (in this case cis-men). The same thing can be said about women, and women who deviate from accepted normative behaviour for women, though accepted behaviour for women has expanded in recent decades.
So super shy guy, or guy that acts feminine is a gender-conformity privilege issue? The typical confident male would have more privilege than the modest or shy males? I’m trying to get more of an understanding of the terminology at play here.
Right, here’s the problem, you’re again taking it down to the individual and personality level…when what we’re talking about is larger social groups and norms. If a shy guy has a problem getting a job because he’s shy, maybe it’s because that job requires that he communicate a lot with people, or something. If a transwoman has a problem getting a job because she’s trans, it’s not because that job requires that she be cis-gendered. Because there is no job that a cis-woman could do that a transwoman couldn’t. See the difference there?
That’s why I’m having problems with the whole, shyness and privilege thing…that’s down to individual character traits. But in general, with men who are considered too feminine, i.e. feminine enough that they are no longer considered “real men,” then yeah, it’s an issue of gender-conformity privilege. Mind, I totally made that term up…I don’t know if social scientists have another term they use, maybe gender-normative privilege…or well, I suppose cis-gender privilege could work as a term for this too…
@Peter: No it’s not about points scoring…as I tried to point out in my article, analogies only go so far. Everything isn’t completely comparable, because life is just far more complicated than a video game.
@Arch: It isn’t binary, and it isn’t as simple as easy or difficult…which is why I changed the analogy in my article. It’s not stats like that either…you’ll notice my article didn’t compare privilege to stats. Instead I drew my metaphor from multiple invisible systems within a game (which aren’t binary either).
Also, nowhere in my article did I mention “straight white male” or “straight white female.” I wasn’t declaring who has the most privilege or who has the least…I was just trying to explain a couple aspects of privilege. Namely that it can be invisible, and that privilege is contextual.
I understand that it shouldn’t be, I also understand that some groups experience real obstacles on account of their membership (the transwoman was an excellent example) I’ve just seen way too much potential for those arguments to devolve into essentialist us vs. them stuff and attacks on people purely based on their supposed privilege.
I think these debates would be better served by leaving it out and focusing on the specific issue (employment for trans-people) rather than privilege labelling.
“I think these debates would be better served by leaving it out and focusing on the specific issue (employment for trans-people) rather than privilege labelling.”
Well I purposefully left out labelling who has privilege and who doesn’t…I chose that hypothetical example with a transwoman very carefully, and in part because it’s sadly so prevalent and ubiquitous.
I don’t think ‘privilege labelling’ should be used to attack anyone, but I do think that it’s necessary to understand society and try to make it better. I’m of the opinion that more knowledge is always a good thing…and that’s where I put this. Understanding how societies work, particularly the society you are part of, is important.
I imagine part of the reason that original article took the tone it did was out of frustration with people who deny that privilege exists. Personally, the only categories I can think of in the west where privilege cuts both ways is with cis-men and cis-women. Otherwise, it actually is pretty cut and dry, which groups have privilege and which don’t.
Which, as I’m sure you’re aware, it can be pretty tempting when you belong to a group that’s unprivileged to get a bit blamey, particularly when the privileged group fights so hard to keep their privilege and deny that it even exists. Not that it’s an excuse, but it is an explanation for why discussion of privilege can devolve into us vs. them. The interesting thing is, really the ‘us’ and ‘them’ categories are completely socially constructed anyway…and even having the different categories is itself feeding into privilege, in a sense.
Also, I think it was me who mentioned the binary thing. I’m not saying you do any of the things I’m talking about, I’ve just seen it way too much, like:
Male = Privileged
Female = Unprivileged
Life is more complicated by that. I’m sure you agree, I’ve just seen a lot of simplistic language surrounding privilege.
Again, I know you don’t do these things, maybe I should have made that clearer, but “Straight white male” gets slung around an awful lot.
Also, I think it was me who mentioned the binary thing. I’m not saying you do any of the things I’m talking about, I’ve just seen it way too much, like:
Male = Privileged
Female = Unprivileged
Life is more complicated by that. I’m sure you agree, I’ve just seen a lot of simplistic language surrounding privilege.
Again, I know you don’t do these things, maybe I should have made that clearer, but “Straight white male” gets slung around an awful lot.
Damn right they get slung around a lot.
The thing is how does this language not come off as saying, “I’m not saying your life is easy because you’re male I’m saying that because you are male your life is easier that a that of a female. How do I know this? Because you’re male.”
And that’s how it goes. A flat declaration that men are the privileged group and women have no privilege (in the realm of gender).
Its a bit difficult to have a conversation with someone when they start off with the presumption that you have some sort of advantage over an entire other group, especially when that presumption is based on nothing more than if they are male or female.
Now people can say that they’ve got stats and all that but stats only matter on the systematic scale and frankly when used improperly can serve to erase the individual scale.
That was more in reply of the article you linked, my bad I should have made it more clear.
I thought it was one of the better explanations of what privilege means. I’ve always seen it more like, who is the default model and who doesn’t have to worry about additional things-as a white woman I don’t have to worry about my race speaking for me (in general), it’s the assumed (or has been the assumed) default-magazines are filled with white people (and there are speciality mags for African Americans). TV shows are filled with white people (and there are specialty shows etcetc)….instead of things being mixed and diverse all along.
I am aware I have privilege due to my race. Nothing I chose, but something I feel good about being conscious of.
THose things have changed markedly since I was in grade school and it’s a good thing. In 50 years white will not be the default, more than likely.
I’d encourage people to read the entire article and it’s follow up on Scalzi’s blog. Not because anyone discussing privilege is using this to say “WHITE MEN HAVE EVERYTHING.” cause that is not, not, not I say, what’s going on. I personally hate it when I see people throwing “But he/she/zie has privilege and wouldn’t understand.
It’s to note an actual sociological and systems phenomenon in a way that may be more accessible to read and understand.
True. I actually liked the original article too…I just thought that the details of the video game metaphor could use a little tweeking. But then, I am a gamer so.
Also, I felt like the original article might not have stressed enough how other factors can come into play. I know it mentioned it, but considering this is such a touchy subject, I wonder if it could have stressed that more? I dunno.
What you’re saying about being the ‘default’ is yeah another good way of thinking about it, I think. When I use the term ‘heteronormativity’ and when I make up all my other blank-normative terms, in essence what I’m talking about is privilege.
“I’d encourage people to read the entire article and it’s follow up on Scalzi’s blog. Not because anyone discussing privilege is using this to say “WHITE MEN HAVE EVERYTHING.” cause that is not, not, not I say, what’s going on. I personally hate it when I see people throwing “But he/she/zie has privilege and wouldn’t understand.”
Yeah, that’s the thing though, when it comes to discussions of gender or access in society that’s mostly what I see. It’s the unhelpful binary I mentioned above where people are judged to be privileged/unprivileged depending which group they are assigned. I’m not really convinced that it’s actually helpful for discussing the issues involved.
I suspect that this isn’t going to change anything.
Most of us who reject the theory of privilege really have always understood the theory and did not need it explained again.
If anything, this explanation once again lays bare all of the issues surrounding privilege.
The assumption here is that the “difficulty level” of the game changes so dramatically that some individual players may make up the difference, but the number of players in this category is so small that the differential outcomes we observe in society can be explained mostly through the initial difficulty setting.
Put differently, the individual strategies pursued by the players are not being considered.
Last week, Jezebel reported on an academic paper that considered this sort of question. The paper was based on the premise that becoming a teen-mom doesn’t actually cause you to be poor, so much as being poor leads to you making the bad choice to become a teen mother. The Jezebel piece is here:
http://jezebel.com/5910379/why-neither-liberals-nor-conservatives-can-crack-the-teen-pregnancy-problem
This is a good example of the fundamental problem with privilege: it assumes that a significant chunk (if not all) of the observed outcome in life is attributable to privilege without ever examining the actual strategies pursued by disparate groups. If one group pursues an absolutely terrible strategy (i.e. teenage motherhood), this may well explain more of the discrepancy between groups than privilege.
But the people worshiping at the church of the holy privilege don’t want to admit this possibility. If it turns out that strategy pursued during life makes a bigger difference than status at birth, then privilege is a basically useless concept for making public policy decisions. We would be better focused on understanding why groups may pursue a losing strategy (e.g. why are you getting pregnant at 15?) instead of on defining an ever-more-questionable explanation for observed outcomes.
Some quality comments from Jezebel once again….Interesting article though.
Would you believe I got banned for saying that the GOP was anti-sex, rather than simply anti-woman? No foul language or anything, just a calm an rational point. I’ve lost the little respect I ever had for that website.
I don’t like Jezebel either, but I’ve learned the hard way that if I link directly to a paper in The Journal of Economic Perspectives, then I won’t be taken seriously, and may get called racist (true story, one of The GMPs contributors went on several tirades against me, even after I posted sources).
Yet magically, if I link to a Jezebel article that itself cites The Journal of Economic Perspectives, then suddenly it gets considered and I don’t get called names.
Great world, right?
I thought the metaphor was good to describe privilege, but I don’t feel that the author made his case that straight, white, male privilege is the lowest difficulty setting. At the very least, he should have noted that being male could weaken you in certain campaigns as men are still at a disadvantage in family and criminal court. How women can press the undo button if pregnant, but men can’t. A single mistake early could end the game for men.
He also didn’t make any point. If the object of the game is to win and we can’t pick our difficulty level, what is the point of the piece? He could have said that we could contribute our health points to heal others or use our cash to assist others. This would have made sense.
Now I don’t want to burst your bubble, but if you read update 2 on the piece. It shows you precisely were the author is biased.
” let me just say that I think it’s delightful that these straight white males are now engaged on issues of racism and sexism. It would be additionally delightful if they were engaged on issues of racism and sexism even when they did not feel it was being applied to them”
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/17/lowest-difficulty-setting-follow-up/
What makes him think that they weren’t engaged with issues of racism and sexism when it didn’t apply to them? He even had the gall to categorize it under the criticism your piece is racist and sexist.
“He even had the gall to categorize it under the criticism your piece is racist and sexist.”
Say what? Nowhere in his update did I see anything suggesting my article was racist and sexist…
@ HeatherN
I should have been more clear. I was referring to John Scalzi original article and his subsequent defense.
Also, I’d like to point out that both the original article and I were taking very specific aspects of video games and using those as a metaphor for privilege. (My title is a bit misleading in that way, and I apologize for that). The original article is saying difficulty settings are like privilege, and I’m saying the invisible gameplay systems are like privilege. Neither one of us compared scoring or ‘stats’ to privilege. In fact, the original article does use ‘stats’ as a metaphor, but he compares them to individual attributes (like intelligence, charisma, etc).
Just wanted to clarify.
I think the reason people are having a hard time with this article, others like it that have come before and likely others that will come after, and with the privilege conversation itself is not because of what analogies are being used or what is being said. I think its because of how its being used.
Its as simple as this. We have this article about using video game settings as a way to explain male privilege (just to take the gender portion for a moment). And that’s all fine well and good and all right?
For all the people that are cheering on and are so happy for this article and everything, how many of those same people would react the same way if a similar comparison was made…but about female privilege?
I wager that with the exception of a very small portion (like some of the feminists here that seem to like the article) most of the same people that think this comparison to male privilege is so “spot on” would Flip The Fuck Out over it if it were written about female privilege (in fact just look at the last article that was done here about female privilege).
And that is the problem. In the realm of gender privilege is most treated like a one way street that flows towards males and against females. I personally think the concept of gender privielge is a good way to get a tally of what effects are happening (how can you fix something if you don’t know what’s broken?). But its too often used as a weapon to shut people out of the conversation.
The concept of privilege is ultimately useless if you use it incorrectly.
To borrow your example of the odds of landing a critical hit when two people apply for a job. If we were comparing a man and a woman most people (the ones that are talking about how “spot on” this is) will flatly declare that that man has a higher critical hit chance than the woman hands down in all cases. I don’t think that is the case.
There is discrimination against men and there is discrimination against women. How do we know which one will have the higher critical hit chance? When looking at a situation of which one would have the higher critical hit chance one cannot just say men will have the higher chance than women because depending on the circumstances he won’t.
I think this may go back to trying to judge individual instances by systemic standards.
How can we deal with all the imbalances when the discussion is usually starting with the flat declaration that men always have a higher critical hit chance than women. Or even those that do acknowledge that there are situations where women do have a higher chance they do their best to call it anything other than having a higher critical chance (where higher critical hit chance = privilege and since supposedly female privilege does not exist there are supposedly no situations in which women would have a higher chance than men).
Danny…this article isn’t about gender privilege. It’s about privilege, full stop. It is about all types of privilege. The original article does use SWM as a short-hand for groups of privileged individuals. Is that problematic? Certainly. For one thing it ignores other types of social privilege (being able-bodied, speaking English in the U.S., having your nationality match up to the country you’re living in, etc). And yes it also ignores female privilege. But to a certain extent that doesn’t matter…well it matters, but rather it’s not what the topic of my article is really about. Heck, it’s not even really what the topic of the original article is about.
It’s just trying to explain privilege…to explain what it is. The details of which social groups have it and how is a side discussion to this one. I very purposefully left out discussing who does and who does not have privilege (with the exception of the very obvious example I used).
The original article does use SWM as a short-hand for groups of privileged individuals. Is that problematic? Certainly.
Actually the fact that it focused on just those privileges isn’t that much of a problem to me in and of itself. I can let that go under the premise of using something specific for the example.
For one thing it ignores other types of social privilege (being able-bodied, speaking English in the U.S., having your nationality match up to the country you’re living in, etc). And yes it also ignores female privilege.
In the example yes those other things are left out but for the sake of the example again I’ll say I can let that go under the premise of using a specific privilege for the example. (But I do wonder if the people that are gushing over the article would be doing all this same gushing if it had included female privielge.)
It’s just trying to explain privilege…to explain what it is.
Which is fine. Like I said you have to know what’s going on before you can fix it.
The details of which social groups have it and how is a side discussion to this one.
I can agree with that. But bear in mind I started off with, “I think the reason people are having a hard time with this article….”. There seems to be a lot of people who have problems with this discussion (the original article got over 800 comments). It might be a side discussion but how can any progress be made without going over why people have problems with it? We obviously can’t just ignore everyone (okay well some of them can probably be ignored since they are just trolling or are actualy privilege deniers) that has a problem with it or just write them off as privileged whiners.
I very purposefully left out discussing who does and who does not have privilege (with the exception of the very obvious example I used).
Fair enough but again, how useful is a tool when its being used in an improper manner.
I was talking about how the concept of privileged is used. I don’t think its so much a problem with leaving out certain examples of privilege but how the concept is used. I’m sure a lot of people would have no problem with recognizing that while the original article talked only on “straight white male” privilege it could be applied to other privileges. The problem is when people actively refuse to apply it to certain privileges. (For example people who deny the existence of female privilege turning around and screaming the bloodiest of murder over male privilege deniers.)
I only used gender privilege as a specific example of how the concept of privilege is misused or selectively used.
It is about all types of privilege.
But that’s the thing, it won’t be applied to all types of privilege. We’ll just end up with the usual conversation where people will go on about how great the original article is to describe the privileges they choose to acknowledge.
How useful is a tool when you actively refuse to use it properly?
The problem with what you’re saying, is that you’re assuming an awful lot about the original author and the commenters.
It reminds me when I used to have arguments with my mother all the time, and finally I just said something like – maybe we wouldn’t fight so much if you weren’t like, waiting for me to say something to argue with. I was a teenager, and my Mom expected teenagers to fight with their parents, so she was waiting for it to happen. Now, I was also a pretty angry kid so I’m not saying I wasn’t being argumentative a lot of the time…but it didn’t help when she was constantly expecting it. It meant that a good number of times when I wasn’t being argumentative, and I wasn’t trying to start a fight, she assumed I was…and we ended up fighting anyway.
Which, my point is that making a lot of assumptions creates animosity where there might not otherwise be any.
The problem with what you’re saying, is that you’re assuming an awful lot about the original author and the commenters.
The only assumption would be the number of people that would feel this way I think. Actually I’m not sure about the original author himself since all he did was simply not talk about other privileges rather than denying certain ones.
On the other hand HeatherN one of the most adamant of declarations of a lot of feminists (and a good number of them seem to be throwning their hats in with the original article) that female privilege* does not exist. No I would not say that its a defining pillar of feminism, however it comes up very often (and even appears on the heavily linked FinallyFeminism101 page).
With that in mind:
Which, my point is that making a lot of assumptions creates animosity where there might not otherwise be any.
We know that female privilege deniers exist (and in large number) so I don’t think its an assumption that to say that people would actively refuse to apply this new tool for explaining privielge to female privielge.
It would be one thing is the adamant denial of female privilege wasn’t so prevalent but its quite prevelant.
I don’t recall what the early comments at the original article were like but if they were about anticipating presense of trolls and privilege deniers would it be said they were making assumptions? No because its known that when talking about privilege trolls and privilege deniers do in fact appear.
I’m doing the same thing. Its pretty widely known that there is a lot of denial of female privilege, so it stands to reason that such people would refuse to apply this new explanation of privilege to female privilege.
The animosity is already there.
* – Or any privilege that is heavily denied. Female privilege was just the one that came to mind first.
Part of my issue with the original article was the tone he took with regards to the expectation that that majority of people who would deny privilege were SWM. Now it turns out that, in my experience, the most people who deny the existence of privilege are SWM, so why did I have a problem with his tone? Because it set the stage for snark. It set the stage for continued animosity and tension.
We’re talking about what I think is an important and often very misunderstood issue. So I think it’s important to start out not assuming that we know how people are going to react.
I get what you’re saying. Its just that while the snark is counter productive you have to be able to recognize these things and there needs to be some way to talk them out. Now I can see there being something said about how such things are spoken (as was it what he said about SWMs being privielge deniers that was the problem or how he talked about SWMs being privilege deniers.?
We’re talking about what I think is an important and often very misunderstood issue. So I think it’s important to start out not assuming that we know how people are going to react.
I can dig that but how can you address such things if they are never spoken of out some fear that it will generate animosity? Obviously we can’t just never talk about privilege deniers so hopefully you’re talking about coming up with some other way to bring it up?
The original article wasn’t an isolated incident, in fact its the product of an ongoing discussion about privilege. History shows that there are deniers and the animosity is there. This is anticipation, not assumption.
I’m not saying don’t bring it up…I’m saying it’s important to consider the space and in and the audience. With the original article, he was trying to explain privilege to people who either didn’t understand it, or denied it. In that case, starting out with snark is unhelpful.
Here, with your comments, you’re talking on a men’s site about an article that didn’t address male or female privilege…written by an author who you know has acknowledged that female privilege exists (that’s me.
). Also, none of the other comments denied the existence of female privilege. So that’s why I’m saying, brining it up here as a point of contention is perhaps not the most helpful thing. Get what I mean?
I’m not saying don’t bring it up…I’m saying it’s important to consider the space and in and the audience. With the original article, he was trying to explain privilege to people who either didn’t understand it, or denied it. In that case, starting out with snark is unhelpful.
Okay that I can give you that.
Here, with your comments, you’re talking on a men’s site about an article that didn’t address male or female privilege…written by an author who you know has acknowledged that female privilege exists (that’s me. ). Also, none of the other comments denied the existence of female privilege. So that’s why I’m saying, brining it up here as a point of contention is perhaps not the most helpful thing. Get what I mean?
I’ve already clearly said that the only reason I used female privilege was because it was the first example of a privilege that is heavily denied and I used it as an example to ask how much good is a tool if its not used properly. And I’m fully aware that you don’t deny female privilege, if you’ll notice I mentioned you and others like you here (remember when I said, “I wager that with the exception of a very small portion (like some of the feminists here that seem to like the article) most of the same people…”?).
Now if you want to say this isn’t the place cool but please this was not a specific railing against female privilege.
I think I just figured out what my next post is going to be (I think I may name it like Privilege, the Video Game: Version 1.1: DLC Pack 1…)
Oh for goodness…you’ll notice what I said was “that is more complicated.” I’m really not here to discuss which gender is privileged or not, or rather in which ways each gender is privileged. That’s a different conversation. This article isn’t about determining who has privilege.
Archy was comparing hiding emotions to hiding sexual orientation, and I was just trying to point out the difference. If you argue that men being socially restricted with their emotions is indicative of a way men are unprivileged, then that’s still different to lgbt individuals hiding their lgbt identity. (Notice, please, that I am not saying less important, just different). One is hiding a socially undesired personality trait that is associated with a social identity. The other is hiding that you belong to a specific social identity.
That’s fine, I was just throwing in the “more complicated” part, or at least what I thought it was. By no means was I trying to say that they were the same. They are indeed two different things.
As for your last comment, could we please stop with the anti-feminist stuff, please? I know, you said ‘most, so it’s not generalizing. But it is still really frustrating, especially when your view of ‘most’ feminists is so different to mine. Of all the feminists I know, worldwide, men and women and in-between…I know exactly one who would cast men as a monolith, and she casts women as a monolith too. It’s very 20th century to do so.
And I know you’ve had really bad experiences with feminists in the past. I bet you could find me a dozen articles online from women who take on the label of feminist and do cast men as monoliths. And I could find you a dozen articles from men who call themselves MRAs and cast women as monoliths. Right, so let’s not and say we did…
Against my desire to argue something in this comment I’ll just let it go…