The Disconnect
One of the disconnects that many men feel when they listen to feminist arguments is that while they may have sympathy for the fact that women as a group are oppressed, they do not perceive themselves to be oppressive towards women. Indeed, those men may feel their position in society is highly vulnerable due to being unemployed, low paid, having mental or physical health problems, or any number of other experiences that make claims about their “male privilege” and seem altogether unrealistic. We experienced a good deal of this in the 2016 presidential elections: while misogyny may well have played a significant part in Hillary Clinton’s defeat, so, too did the fact that many men found it hard to muster sympathy for an incredibly wealthy and privileged woman wanting to break through America’s highest glass ceiling when their own lives felt equally thwarted.
Individual and Systemic Experience
Explaining how this disconnect happens does not require proving one party right and the other party wrong. Instead, it involves understanding the difference between individual and systemic experience. When feminists talk about male privilege they are mostly referring to the privilege men enjoy as a group via patriarchy (which, for the sake of this discussion, is assumed to be real): this is men’s systemic experience. When men refer to their powerlessness due to unemployment or some other misfortune, they are referring to individual experience. It is not just possible but actually common for men to experience low individual privilege while still benefitting from systemic privilege. The problem is both parties have a habit of conflating individual and systemic experience, which results in both parties misunderstanding and having little empathy for each other.
The Privilege Spectrum
Let’s look at the graphic below which offers a rudimentary visual representation of what’s happening in regard to men and women’s individual and systemic privilege.
On the left hand side we have low privilege, on the right hand side, high privilege. There are separate lines for men and women. On the left side of the men’s line are those who experience low individual privilege but nevertheless enjoy the benefits of patriarchy: let’s call these “lower class men.” On the right side of the men’s line are those who experience high individual privilege alongside the benefits of patriarchy: let’s call these “upper class men.” On the left side of the women’s line are those who experience low individual privilege and are subject to patriarchy: let’s call these “lower class women.” On the right side of the women’s line are those who experience high individual privilege and are subject to patriarchy: let’s call these “upper class women.”
Now the broad-strokes conclusions from this are easy to see. First, men as a group experience greater overall privilege. Second, the biggest winners are upper class men, while the biggest losers are lower class women. Where it gets more complicated is in the middle. What the graphic suggests is that there are plenty of women with high individual privilege who are subject to the systemic oppression of patriarchy who nevertheless have a greater overall privilege than men with low individual privilege who enjoy the benefits of patriarchy. Of course, this is a thinking experiment, not evidence-based, so the exact nature of the lines is contestable. A more subtle examination of the issue would also show multiple lines for men and women representing race, sexuality, physical ability, age, and any number of other variables.
Revolution
There are lessons for everyone here. Men who dismiss the feminist critique of patriarchy because they do not individually oppress women need to understand the way patriarchy actually works: this is hardly a new suggestion, and has been voiced by feminists for many years. Perhaps more controversial is the lesson for feminists. Given that this model suggests that plenty of women enjoy greater overall privilege than some men (even if men enjoy greater privilege in total), it is necessary to acknowledge that those arguments which confidently speak of male privilege at the expense of women are in need of some finessing in order to be compelling. This is particularly important to recognize given that those women with a platform to make this argument in the media, government, academia and other positions of influence are even more likely to be speaking from positions of privilege relative to many (or perhaps even most) men.
This model also speaks to the issue of new alliances between women and men. At the moment, the new culture wars of the Trump era are increasingly pushing people into groups divided by sex and gender. However, the more natural division is between the haves and have-nots. If both women and men with low individual privilege were to create an alliance against the women and men with high individual privilege, things might start to look interesting, particularly given that the former is statistically far more significant than the latter. For years, we have been hearing about a gender revolution: such an alliance would take this to an altogether different level.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
Unemployment: not a systemic issue
TIL
*facepalm*
Philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, and various other great thinkers have for millennia tried to quantify / measure / assess levels of pain, happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction etc, mostly to no avail – what is more tolerable, the death of a sibling or the death of a parent? What makes one more fulfilled, the love of a partner or the accomplishment of a difficult task? What can be better endured, a broken leg or a migraine headache? Suffering, happiness, fulfillment, contentment – very difficult items to stack up and compare against one another. But along come the social scientists. They have managed to… Read more »
Amen to that! I have feminist ideas, but there is one I just can’t stand: that dehumanizing compartimentalization and dissection of human suffering symbolized by the expression ” Check your privilege”… It acts as if buzzwords and trendy books read in the safety of college campuses are more important than the words of that flesh and bone person in front of you that tells you he’s been raped, or beaten, or bullied. It sounds like you can ask someone’s gender or ethicity before deciding if you compassion for them….and yet, just the fact that it “sounds” like it is enough… Read more »
Here’s a article that illustrates how the criminal justice system (granted it’s the UK, but aren’t they supposedly a “patriarchy” too?) oppresses men and is favorable to women. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4130060/More-women-men-jailed-TV-licenses.html “Some 20 women in England and Wales went to prison in 2015 over their TV licence, up from 11 the year before, revealed figures released by the Ministry of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act.” “Overall, the number jailed after dodging the TV licence fell from 39 to 38 but women evaders now account for more than half of these. ” In 2015 39 people were imprisoned 11 were women… Read more »
Let’s put the truth to the lie. Women are extremely advantaged in the criminal court system. That is a systemic advantage. Now men who have criminal records will often find themselves at the lower end of the economic spectrum because their criminal records, which women by virtue of their sec, tend to avoid. So men’s poverty is to an extent due to the systemic oppression of their gender. We could look at the family court system where women have a systemic advantage in getting custody. Ask Walter Scott how that can impact a life. Miss a payment or have it… Read more »
The problem is that we don’t live in a patriarchy and I’m not sure that we ever had. I think we did at one time but I think the problem is that over time as the patriarchal ways have been chipped away the definition has been broadened in order to maintain its existence. That’s why we now see the word get tossed around so lightly. Man disagreed with a woman? Patriarchy. Man raises his voice at a woman? Patriarchy. Woman abuses man and gets 0 punishment? Patriarchy. If the definition of patriarchy is so broad and nebulous its no wonder… Read more »
There are so many different privilege scales that you almost need a huge analytic model to calculate how much privilege people have. Gender, Age, Race, Religion, Education, Economic Class, and a whole bunch of other items have their own privilege scale to them and each person will have their own score on each scale. Then you have situations that can change someone’s score on the privilege scale. For instance, there isn’t much male privilege when in family court and a divorce involving kids is in progress. Or, you have the differing racial privileges in the NFL depending on the position… Read more »
When feminists talk about male privilege they are mostly referring to the privilege men enjoy as a group via patriarchy (which, for the sake of this discussion, is assumed to be real): this is men’s systemic experience. When men refer to their powerlessness due to unemployment or some other misfortune, they are referring to individual experience. Which seems to translate to, “when its an advantage its systemic but when its a disadvantage its individual”. Let’s take something like the justice system. Women as a class benefit from the fact that they are sentenced less harshly than men for the same… Read more »