your least favourite shakespeare play ?

[MorpheusSandman]

I don't agree at all. What we've determined from statistics does not support your conclusions and you still haven't given my satisfactory answers to the following simple questions.

I'll address this post and your last in more detail when I have time. My point, however, was that I think you can agree that the arguments I've presented are not as irrational as Beck and Trump. It's entirely possible that after we flesh out the statistics that we might come to different interpretations since reasonable people can disagree and, frankly, I didn't save every study I was linked to when learning on the subject. I was just trying to establish a mutual agreement between us that the discussion isn't an intellectual titan (you) VS a pea-brained parrot (me), but rather two adequately intelligent, critical thinking people that may have different levels of experience/knowledge on this subject, have come to different conclusions, and are now trying to parse how that happened by rational argument. You entered this discussion very hostile with the seeming assumption that I was an idiot that was mindlessly parroting buzzwords, when in actuality I was someone who was previously resistant to such terms myself and only came to accept them once statistics and rational arguments were presented. If you're actually after a constructive discussion it's generally not a good idea to start with such hostility and an air of superiority.

[Clopin]

You entered this discussion very hostile with the seeming assumption that I was an idiot that was mindlessly parroting buzzwords, when in actuality I was someone who was previously resistant to such terms myself and only came to accept them once statistics and rational arguments were presented. If you're actually after a constructive discussion it's generally not a good idea to start with such hostility and an air of superiority.

Bolded: And I haven't changed my mind there.

Anyway when you're talking to a social justice warrior it's not important that they feel comfortable or that you convince them of anything. Hardly anybody will change their mind on this sort of thing despite overwhelming evidence that "privilege" (especially make privilege) is total nonsense (not the word, the concept as understood by modern social justice warriors). Once you let loose that you honestly believe Western society is a "rape culture" you became as impossible to take seriously as Beck and Trump.

[MorpheusSandman]

Anyway when you're talking to a social justice warrior it's not important that they feel comfortable or that you convince them of anything. Hardly anybody will change their mind on this sort of thing despite overwhelming evidence that "privilege" (especially make privilege) is total nonsense (not the word, the concept as understood by modern social justice warriors). Once you let loose that you honestly believe Western society is a "rape culture" you became as impossible to take seriously as Beck and Trump.

Then I'm honestly not even sure what the point of continuing this discussion is. You seem completely intent on stereotyping me, dismissing every bit of evidence I offer, while simultaneously insisting you have "overwhelming evidence" (while offering none) that these terms are nonsense, and then displaying a gross ignorance of what the terms you vigorously object to even mean or describe. Your actions are not indicative of anyone I've ever met with a high IQ and critical thinking ability; they're indicative of people suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[Clopin]

Offering none? Well when you stop replying to my arguments it can seem like that I guess

You can leave whenever you want though; why would I care?

[MorpheusSandman]

I haven't "stopped replying to your arguments," I said I don't have time to type a full reply to your last post right now; but up until the last one I've read the only "evidence" you've offered is laughably irrelevant to the topic and only displays you don't understand the terms to begin with. In light of this, your hostile, reactionary responses make sense as they bespeak a combination of ignorance and insecurity, which makes your ridiculing of my intelligence all the more ironic.

[Clopin]

Uh huh.

[MorpheusSandman]

Yes, and it's extremely easy to demonstrate, like when you brought up the fact of women living longer. This demonstrates your ignorance on two levels:

1. Privilege is about social equality, not biological equality.
2. The existence of certain female privileges, even if you could conclusively demonstrate them, would not disprove male privilege. This ignorantly assumes that the two are mutually exclusive.

You arguing nonsense like giant conspiracies where everyone is racist/sexist is an example too, as it is not a requirement for everyone to be racist/sexist for white and male privilege to exist on a statistical level. Hell, even knowing the first thing about statistics would tell you that.

So you have literally and repeatedly argued points that have nothing to do with what privilege even means or is and wouldn't disprove it even if you were right.

[Clopin]

So if men and women are privileged in different ways and you can't conclusively show that men generally have a higher quality of life as a result of being male then what exactly is male privilege? Couldn't you just say that men and women enjoy different perquisites and pitfalls due to a huge number of reasons, some biological and some sociological? Where is this huge advantage in being male really being felt in the lives of average men? And if there is no huge advantage what is male privilege?

And why can we easily accept that women live longer due to biological factors, but it's impossible for men to actually be biologically hard wired to excell in certain areas where women may be deficient? Maybe I'll take a page from the SJW handbook and argue that men live shorter lives because "society" places more stress on men, I mean it's the exact same as arguing that women don't succeed in chess because "society" is holding them back.

[Ecurb]

So if men and women are privileged in different ways and you can't conclusively show that men generally have a higher quality of life as a result of being male then what exactly is male privilege? Couldn't you just say that men and women enjoy different perquisites and pitfalls due to a huge number of reasons, some biological and some sociological? Where is this huge advantage in being male really being felt in the lives of average men? And if there is no huge advantage what is male privilege?

And why can we easily accept that women live longer due to biological factors, but it's impossible for men to actually be biologically hard wired to excell in certain areas where women may be deficient? Maybe I'll take a page from the SJW handbook and argue that men live shorter lives because "society" places more stress on men, I mean it's the exact same as arguing that women don't succeed in chess because "society" is holding them back.

I have no idea if men are (in general) more "privileged" than women in the modern West. Nonetheless, Clopin, I agree with Morpheus that some of your statistics suggesting that they are not are irrelevant.

Perhaps we can agree that in (a hypothetical) polity where only white men have the franchise to vote, that constitutes a form of white male privilege. In addition, perhaps we can agree that in such a society, women might live longer than men, commit suicide less often than men, and die in combat less often than men (etc., etc.). They might do better in school than men. None of this is relevant to whether voting rights constitute white male "privilege".

Think of Muslim societies where women are denied the right to work outside the home, the right to vote, and the right to go to school. Clearly, men have access to some of these "privileges" and women do not (although, of course, it would be reasonable to say that not having to work outside the home also constitutes a "privilege"). Nonetheless, it's certainly possible that Muslim women live longer, are imprisoned less frequently, and are homeless less often than men -- in fact (without any special knowledge) I'd bet this is the case.

At the same time, I agree with you that salary statistics (etc., etc.) don't PROVE "male privilege" (although they may be "consistent" with it). There could be any number of reasons for the statistical differential in salaries.

Also, "social equality" (to use Morpheus' term) is complicated. Your six-figure-earning welder on the pipeline makes as much money as a Harvard professor, but their social and cultural status is quite different. The professor enjoys cultural and social "privileges" that are difficult to prove or quantify. Charlie Rose never seems to interview the welder.

In addition, both women and black people enjoy certain "privileges" that white men do not (the NFL, for example, suspends players who hit women, but gives them salary increases for "hitting" men). The legal privileges that white men used to enjoy in the U.S. no longer exist; the cultural attitudes on which they were based and by which they were justified may constitute more subtle "privileges", and may change more slowly.

One more aside: the popularity of the notion of White Male Privilege is itself a sort of cultural privilege. The salary differentials Morpheus (and others) refers to as supporting the notion of White Male Privilege suggest that we place some sort of cultural value on wealth. I don't hear people arguing that women are "privileged" because (as a possible example) they work shorter hours than men (if they do). It's sort of a chicken and egg question -- do men strive for what is culturally valued, or do we culturally value what men strive for?

[Clopin]

Good post. I'm only referring to the Western world, by the way. I am aware that women are grossly oppressed in other parts of the world.

My statistics are at least as valuable as his. If you're going to equate privilege with equal rights and freedoms then we can end the discussion right now as women have absolutely no fewer legal rights than men do. When he argues that male privilege exists I believe he is suggesting that society harbours a climate more conducive to male success than female, and in my opinion this is not true (Assuming your metric for determining success is not entirely based on salary. As you said the Harvard professor and pipe fitter are probably not going to be considered equally 'successful' despite earning a comparative wages).There are also affirmative action quotas for schools and job positions. Sometimes these aren't only a problem for white people either. The average disparity between an Asian applicant being accepted to Harvard and a Black applicant receiving the acceptance slip is something like 400 points on the SAT. So who's privileged here? The black guy who can get into an elite school with a much weaker score, or the Asian guy who might not get in, but gets to see more of his racial group represented at elite schools?

[Gutted]

2. The existence of certain female privileges, even if you could conclusively demonstrate them, would not disprove male privilege.

What if female privilege provides equal or greater advantages when compared to male privilege?

[Clopin]

It wouldn't matter. That's the beauty of these buzzwords and slogans, they mean everything and nothing all at once! You can't possibly debate against them because they shift meanings and ultimately mean nothing.

[MorpheusSandman]

Again, Ecurb is dead on with most everything he's saying. I have a feeling we could disagree over the particulars without him being resistant to understanding the general concept, unlike our resident genius.

What if female privilege provides equal or greater advantages when compared to male privilege?

If they were socially more privileged then, yes, female privilege would be a bigger issue; but note the comparative ER. Too many view privilege as a mutually exclusive thing of inverse proportion, meaning that if one group is "privileged" then another can't be, and the degree they can't be is inversely proportionate to how much the other group is. This isn't how it works (well, not always; privilege can be a zero-sum game in some instances). While we might say that privileges accumulate to one group being generally more privileged overall, that's often (not always) difficult to quantify, and it doesn't mean that the privileges that disadvantage both groups don't need fixing. It reminds me how of in relationships one partner will say "you do X and X is wrong and you should stop," and the other says "but you do Y and Y is wrong and you should stop," and maybe X is worse than Y or vice versa, so one is "more wrong" than the other; but whomever is overall more wrong is irrelevant to the point that both should stop doing X and Y, not use X and Y as an excuse to keep doing what they're doing. Like I said, if people find out ways in which white men are disadvantaged by privilege, then by all means go wage an effort to fix those problems; but don't use those disadvantages as an excuse to ignore or devalue the disadvantages of other groups.

[MorpheusSandman]

So if men and women are privileged in different ways and you can't conclusively show that men generally have a higher quality of life as a result of being male then what exactly is male privilege?

Read my reply to Gutted (and, btw, I'm not ceding that what you're saying is true; I just don't have endless time to write these long posts consistently every day).

Couldn't you just say that men and women enjoy different perquisites and pitfalls due to a huge number of reasons, some biological and some sociological?

We can't fix the biological unless you want to become a scientist or want to filter a lot of money into science to fix them. This isn't true of sociological problems where a combination of politics and actually changing people's minds can have the desired effect.

And why can we easily accept that women live longer due to biological factors, but it's impossible for men to actually be biologically hard wired to excell in certain areas where women may be deficient?

I'm not saying it's impossible that men are biologically hard wired to excel in certain areas; what I'm saying is that they don't seem to be the areas that are currently most valued by society. There's no indication, eg, that men naturally make better scientists, or stockbrokers, or entrepreneurs, or engineers, or software developers. Rather, what's happened is those areas have been (historically) boys' clubs and women have repeatedly stated how the men in them have been quite hostile to their presence. Now, sure, some women overcome this hostility and find success, and maybe some women fall into groups that aren't as hostile (or hostile at all); but, again, it's hard to deny that society, in general, doesn't encourage women to pursue such things.

And, yes, you can also (perhaps fairly) say that society encouraging men towards success and judging/valuing them by that success in such areas leads to stress, which can be its own disadvantage, and maybe that needs to change as well. But what would be fair would be for either both men and women to be encouraged to succeed in the same ways, or neither to be pressured at all and let them pursue what areas interest them without hostility and without pressure.

[MorpheusSandman]

both women and black people enjoy certain "privileges" that white men do not (the NFL, for example, suspends players who hit women, but gives them salary increases for "hitting" men).

This is the only part of your post I object to; at least, I'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting with the NFL example. For one thing, I don't see how blacks are privileged there (white men both play football and, if they play defense or offensive line, are also paid to hit people; if they play quarterback then they're also typically paid more to not hit anyone). Likewise, the "hitting" is something everyone agrees to before they play the game; women don't go into a relationship and agree to be hit.

It's sort of a chicken and egg question -- do men strive for what is culturally valued, or do we culturally value what men strive for?

I think it's both. So many of our values come from past societies that were undeniable patriarchies where women were clearly seen as lesser beings, sometimes viewed merely as property whose entire value was bound up in how much they appealed to men. Such values change slowly, and, as you suggest, the laws change faster than the values. Look at, eg, the recent "outrage" of so many in the south over the removal of the Confederate flag. What does it say about someone who values a "symbol of our heritage" when that heritage included slavery and we've had so many recent examples of where those racial tensions have erupted in violence that was clearly racially motivated? That's an example of how laws can change (no more slavery, blacks can vote, etc.) but how the values underlying how things were have not been eradicated. So, yes, I still think we live in a society where far more value is placed on what men have (traditionally, and still a lot today) find valuable and where men, typically, pursue those values and, in many cases, discourage women. I'm not even saying that all, most, or many of those values are wrong, all I'm saying is that the only way we can really know is removing whatever stigmas and hostilities are attached to women themselves pursuing those values, and women having more input on what is valuable (which they do have far more now than in the past).