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Nerds and Male Privilege

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Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#111

Post by cemery »

da_dude4242 wrote: post #82
wanorris wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege". http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek. Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the id…

Males have the "privilege" of being the "stronger" sex. If you're not collected and emotionally unreactive you are abnormal/weak. Any emotional expression that deviates from a narrow acceptable range is abnormal. You do not need the same reaching out or emotional support of the "weaker" sex because you are strong. It's no wonder males have the privilege of being more likely to be isolated. Have the privilege of being…

You're thinking about the word privilege in the wrong way. When you use the term in a social justice setting you need to stop thinking about all the possible meanings and focus on a very few specific ones. (Think of the word in the same way you think of class when you are talking about programming, it has a specific meaning, trying to make privilege mean more then it does makes you look like you are trying to argue semantics).

When we talk about privilege in a social justice setting you want to think about the privilege of being the default. Ignore every other privilege and think about that one in particular. You point out all the downsides of that privilege in your post, which are all true and valid, which is why calling whiteness and maleness a privilege breaks our brains a bit. It's not unadulterated good, there are a lot of bad things that come about due to the default of maleness and masculinity.

Lets look at the idea that you put forward about Weakness, how in women it's ok, and in males it's not ok.

In males it's not ok because it violates the default maleness that is expected (a negative aspect of the default maleness), and in females it is ok because it goes along with the !default of femaleness.

When you start thinking of privilege not as things that you get for being male, but about expectations of the world, what we view the default as, and what we view the other as, the idea that male privilege could be bad for males and females makes more sense. In a lot of ways the word privilege is a crappy way to put it, because it makes us think about things that are privileges in our lives, not the privilege of being the default.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#112

Post by mayanksinghal »

wanorris wrote: post #60
da_dude4242 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Some of us, however, remember the torment, the humiliation, the violence, the scorn and the ostracism of finding science, electronics, and computers fascinating. There was, indeed, such a time. Many nerds who endured poor treatment at the hands of their peers developed deep emotional traumas that, to this day, exist to some extent or another. One of these traumas is borne of the experience of being not merely reject…

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege". http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek. Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the id…

> 1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed. > 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.

I remember a discussion on HN where many of the comments have said that the best way to bring women into the industry is to bring women into the industry. Quite true, I definitely agree to it. And so does most of the companies - they all try to maintain a gender ratio that is not too skewed to make the firm look sexist. But, when one tries to bring a category X into a field where X is rare, to bring them in - it results in lowering expectations from them. I just had my placement season on campus (I am a final year student) - the difference was visible. Of course, that makes me look sexist (I possibly am) when I say that the expectations from male students to get a job was higher than female students. Female students are, at least now, rewarded for being rare and because women are required to be brought in the industry. Unfortunately, there are pros and cons to this approach. These steps result in unavoidable animosity because of scarcity of resources - in this case, a lucrative job. My point is that you cannot have the best of both worlds: any corrective action has consequences.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#113

Post by slavak »

DenisM wrote: post #43

What a waste of time, this article. There is a great case to be made for treating every human as a person, and not a member of the class, but he did not make this case. First, the author complains that women get treated only as sexual objects in most games/comics/etc. Ok, that could be. It's not in Halo or Bioshock, the only games I play, but let's look at the data. So then he mentions opposing view - that men get se…

"It's not in Halo or Bioshock"

Not to take sides in this argument, but you might want to reconsider that specific statement: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3449/3698998163_fe844856da.jp... http://gamingsrapture.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/...

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#114

Post by cemery »

sliverstorm wrote: post #62
neutronicus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish authors of these sorts of pieces would focus more on the following two questions: 1. What do you want me to do? 2. What's in it for me? Paint a picture of your ideal gender politics, and let me know why I'd like it better than the one we've got now. You might get further than you are just by attempting to convince me that people I like are "misogynists".

What do you want me to do? "Feel bad about yourself" is usually my takeaway.

I used to think this and it's not true. The takeaway is to when you interact with people think about what your interaction is doing to the other person, on many levels.

Feeling bad is A) crappy and B) not productive.

Whatever you do when you read an article like this is you shouldn't feel bad about being male, and you shouldn't feel bad about the fact that you are a privileged class. You should recognize the ways that privilege can cause the people around you to be uncomfortable and then avoid doing those things. There isn't a list of actions you can take, other then treat everybody in a way that makes them feel welcome. Nobody wants to be leered at in a technical setting, nobody wants to be groped in a classroom (true story), and everybody wants to be treated like they are your peer.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#115

Post by skore »

burgerbrain wrote: post #101
waqf wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and " 22. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex. " Supposing you are caught speeding down the freeway at 110mph on Saturday night. What sex is everyone going to expect you to be?

Or this one "25. I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual availability." Compare: A woman wearing pants. A man wearing a dress. One person is going to have their sexuality judged. And it's not going to be the woman.

That's funny, but not insightful. I assume that with pants, you don't mean plain jeans, but a pantsuit (because this isn't the 60's).

There are pantsuits designed for women, but no dresses designed for men. Even further than that - a dress is very specific to female anatomy in a way that a suit isn't, to male anatomy.

The real issue, however, is that a woman wearing a suit is perceived in a certain way (as aggressive and, funnily enough, "only imitating men") while a man wearing a dress happens to be an often frequented motif in comedy.

Finally, a man can wear a dress specifically to underline just how male he is, because "even a dress can't take that manliness away".

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#116

Post by burgerbrain »

skore wrote: post #115
burgerbrain wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or this one "25. I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual availability." Compare: A woman wearing pants. A man wearing a dress. One person is going to have their sexuality judged. And it's not going to be the woman.

That's funny, but not insightful. I assume that with pants, you don't mean plain jeans, but a pantsuit (because this isn't the 60's). There are pantsuits designed for women, but no dresses designed for men. Even further than that - a dress is very specific to female anatomy in a way that a suit isn't, to male anatomy. The real issue, however, is that a woman wearing a suit is perceived in a certain way (as aggressive…

No, I mean regular old jeans. Women seem to be able to "get away" with wearing "female" clothing, as well as "male" clothing without any questions asked. At least in the circles I am in^. The opposite is certainly not the case.

I was not attempting to be funny at all.

^And anybody wearing a "suit"-anything is just a stiff. The people I consider my peers don't do that either at work or casually.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#117

Post by mixmastamyk »

rayiner wrote: post #67
mixmastamyk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit checks for jobs?

Standard procedure in some fields, surprisingly common in others. I had a friend get hassled about an open collection before taking a job with the feds.

No credit as a 20 year old should be acceptable, no?

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#118

Post by zasz »

jcnnghm wrote: post #110
wanorris wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege". http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek. Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the id…

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 t…

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.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#119

Post by burgerbrain »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #117
rayiner wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standard procedure in some fields, surprisingly common in others. I had a friend get hassled about an open collection before taking a job with the feds.

No credit as a 20 year old should be acceptable, no?

I would not worry about it.

Probably worth looking into establishing some credit anyway though, if you're thinking about buying a car or anything like that in the near future.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#120

Post by 127 »

davidhansen wrote: post #28

I'm not sure why the author of this article somehow thinks that geeks deny the existence of sexism in geek culture. The reality is that it's widely known and accepted. If the author wants to find something to rail against, he should have chosen the fact that everybody knows, but nobody cares . I'm not going to defend the treatment of women in geek culture, as much of it is indefensible. but it seems that few people b…

I was one of those nerds. I was not bullied by girls, but by guys. Most of the girls were really nice and lovely, in fact. I have nothing but fond memories of girls from those times.

As such I find your hypothesis quite hilarious and insulting. Misogyny in Newspeak does not mean hatred of women, it means things women hate. Think about it. More often than not it is a pure strawman.

Your logic chain goes as such: bullying -> misogyny -> boobies in entertainment.

My logic chain goes as follows: I like boobies -> boobies in entertainment.

Somehow you jump from sexism to misogyny without blinking. Those are two completely different things.

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