Nerds and Male Privilege • Hacker News Board

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#151

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 3:50 PM UTC

cemery wrote: post #111

da_dude4242 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

[deleted]

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#152

Post by kstenerud » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 3:58 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #149

zasz wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 me…

On the other hand, stuff like the causes of the salary gap, stereotype threat, and being expected to give up contact with your kids to be the one raising money to bring them up affect most adult men for most of their lives. (There's support out there for heterosexual men giving up their careers to raise kids but only so long as this decision is made by the kids' mother based on what benefits her personally.) The wage…

Actually, men in crappy, dangerous jobs is an evolutionary trait. It's also why they're (traditionally) the ones to go to war and why everyone thinks women and children are to be protected above all else.

If 90% of the males in a population die, it takes 1 generation to recover. If 90% of the females in a population die, it takes 5 generations to recover. Meanwhile, they are easy pickings for other competing populations.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#153

Post by wazoox » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 4:01 PM UTC

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…

> they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims.

Murder is an incredibly rare occurrence in most countries and social environments. On the other hand, women are a huge majority among rape victims, and this is not exceptional: 5 to 10% of all women are sexually abused at some point (depends upon the country, again).

> Perhaps the focus of all these stupid gender articles should be on encouraging young women not to alienate a large subset of people.

Perhaps the focus of people like you should be to think about your attitude, just like this article conveniently talked about? Your arrogance and close-mindedness are astounding. Oh, before you ask, I'm a white, straight male too.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#154

Post by wazoox » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 4:13 PM UTC

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.

Actually misrepresenting reality. Do you consider William Wallace as a wimp because he wore skirts ?

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#155

Post by kstenerud » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 4:23 PM UTC

Part of the problem is that the OP is concentrating on a game targeted specifically at guys who can't relate to women.

You can't say that Angry Birds is misogynistic, nor could you say the same of Bubble Bobble, Spy Hunter, Tempest, Centipede, Strider, Tetris, Farmville, and thousands of other video games throughout the ages. One thing Facebook, iPhone and Android have FINALLY brought is "casual" gaming for the masses, by demonstrating a market that nobody could see due to the social stigma of the geeky loser gamer.

The crazy shit only comes with heavy action games, mostly FPS (but even here there are numerous exceptions, such as Left 4 Dead).

But then again you see the same thing in TV and movies; they cater to different audiences, some of whom are offended by things the other audience likes (usually what the other audience finds sexually appealing). But when it comes down to it, it's escapist media. People don't care that it's unlikely, and they most certainly don't assume that it in any way reflects real life, any more than someone playing a FPS is likely to take a gun to work and start shooting up the place.

The comic industry in America on the whole has never grown up beyond male adolescent fantasy. That's unfortunate, as there are much richer possibilities (the Japanese manga industry, for example, caters to so many segments it's mind blowing).

But make no mistake: The American comic industry is not an example of male privilege, or any unconscious attempt at keeping women down; It's a vicious cycle of social stigma against comic READERS, and the resulting lack of market for a wider audience. Maybe someday the "iPhone of comics" will come and save us.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#156

Post by makomk » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 4:30 PM UTC

einhverfr wrote: post #144

slurgfest wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I'm not sure - because women talking openly about male privilege might find agreement from some quarters but ridicule or worse from other quarters. This is like saying that black people have the privilege of talking about race in the US, but whites don't. That might have some truth to it, but overall it's a point-missing half-truth, since black people who talk about that kind of thing are often treated as "angry…

Personally I don't find it problematic to talk about female privilege at all. I think one has to be careful (just as women have to be careful talking about male privilege) but there are areas where it is so blatant and damaging that it must be talked about, particularly in areas of domestic violence. When I was just out of college, I was (as a male) the victim of some pretty intense domestic violence several times a…

A related problem is the distinction between isolated incidents and social problems. Your story counts as an isolated incident because you're male, whereas if you were female and the attacker was male it would be treated as a serious issue by some well-organised lobbyists and any attempt to question this or suggest that male victims exist too would be shot down as a direct attack on you.

Of course, this doesn't just affect men; female victims of violently abusive women get similar treatment. There was a lovely incident where a really major feminist blogger wrote a post [1] which talked about her experience of domestic violence and attributed it to the fact that the abuser was male, just completely erasing victims who'd been treated in the same way by a women. Another women had actually experienced this from a female abuser and was quite distressed by being erased in this way, leading to a long discussion[2] in which said big-name feminist claimed without any sense of irony that not allowing her to treat other victims' experiences as impossible was somehow an attack on her and an attempt to erase her experiences as impossible, before going on to further erase the other victim's experiences and call her irrational.

As far as I can tell there's pretty much no real movement towards gender equality anywhere, and most of the anti-domestic violence organisations are actually anti-violence against women (but only if it's by men). Sady Doyle is still a respectable member of the online feminist community, the moderators of that blog went against their stated goals and the interests of their commenters to side with her, and I don't think anyone else cared.

[1] http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/10/08/the-percentages-a-biogra... [2] http://noseriouslywhatabouttehmenz.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/...

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#157

Post by makomk » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 4:48 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #152

makomk wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, stuff like the causes of the salary gap, stereotype threat, and being expected to give up contact with your kids to be the one raising money to bring them up affect most adult men for most of their lives. (There's support out there for heterosexual men giving up their careers to raise kids but only so long as this decision is made by the kids' mother based on what benefits her personally.) The wage…

Actually, men in crappy, dangerous jobs is an evolutionary trait. It's also why they're (traditionally) the ones to go to war and why everyone thinks women and children are to be protected above all else. If 90% of the males in a population die, it takes 1 generation to recover. If 90% of the females in a population die, it takes 5 generations to recover. Meanwhile, they are easy pickings for other competing populati…

Well, that's probably kind of true and it matters a lot if you're doing something like constructing a fictional matriarchal society. It's not exactly relevant in modern times though; we don't (or at least shouldn't) stop women from working because having other options might discourage them from having kids anymore, why should we allow other kinds of horrible gender-based discrimination in the name of population increase?

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#158

Post by rayiner » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:35 PM UTC

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…

> Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist?

Sure. My girlfriend can randomly go up to random people and play with their babies, while my doing so is likely to get me arrested. A mother has the presumption of getting custody in a contentious divorce, etc. Nobody would take a sexual harassment complaint against a woman seriously.

But you know what? In pure economic terms, I'd take male privilege over female privilege any day of the week. I can't remember the last time a woman was sexually harassing me but nobody at work would take me seriously. Negotiating salaries, gunning for promotions, making trade-offs between career and family--these are things with huge economic impact that affects everyone and women have a disadvantage in these areas because of perceptions.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#159

Post by rayiner » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:43 PM UTC

neutronicus wrote: post #70

rayiner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a shockingly insightful list. I love #30: I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch. I've found that I can entertain a much broader range of personality tones than my female friends. You have to be an order of magnitude more aggressive to be an "asshole" than you do to be a "bitch." "Pensive" is a word you might use for a man, "moody" for the e…

I don't disagree with your examples, but I do think that men are more common targets for the "creepy / sketchy" nexus of slurs, including the not-particularly sexualized varieties. The same goes for the "loser / choke artist" family, I think.

Oh definitely. But when was the last time having a reputation as a "choke artist" negatively impacted someone at work?

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#160

Post by azakai » Sat, Dec 17, 2011, 5:53 PM UTC

beloch wrote: post #46

The article makes some interesting points, but permit me to play devil's advocate when it comes to the way women and men are portrayed in geek media. All media, really. Men: Serious. Women: Sexy. Okay, no arguments there. But what does this difference in portrayal of the two sexes really mean? However much some might believe otherwise, humans are hard-wired by evolution to have gender roles. Homo sapiens has been aro…

> However much some might believe otherwise, humans are hard-wired by evolution to have gender roles.

This is heavily debated in academic circles, with strong arguments either way. Please don't assume it is a scientific fact.