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Nerds and Male Privilege

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Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#251

Post by tsotha »

rmc wrote: post #229
tsotha wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you see I specified "opposite sex".

What you meant (i presume) is "i want people who I want to sleep with to fall over themselves to please me". What women actually get lots of time is "people I don't really want to sleep with, but want to sleep with me, falling over themselves to try to please me". As such I think the analogy of 'ugly gay guy hitting on straight guy' is apt, and similar to what a lot of women face.

It's not really the same. The thing is gay guys don't actually constitute a large percentage of the population, but straight guys do. Women get all sorts of preferential treatment without even realizing it.

I once went to Vegas with a friend and his attractive wife. We showed up without any kind of plans, and she decided she wanted to go to one of the more exclusive restaurants. I wandered over to ask if they could squeeze us in. Nope. All booked until we were gone. So I went back to the casino and broke the bad news, at which point she went to the restaurant to talk to them herself. We were eating there a few hours later.

Now, she didn't give them a big tip or promise sex or anything like that. She just asked (well, "wheedled" is probably a better word). And she knew to ask when they said no to me because that kind of thing happens all the time. Why? Well, according to her it's because men just don't know how to ask. I have another theory, which is that (straight) men are wired to do things for attractive women even when there's no chance of a relationship.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#252

Post by wpietri »

da_dude4242 wrote: post #250
wpietri wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point. When is the last time you read an article about leveling the field of female privilege? In theory the idea of privilege is inclusive but in practice it's not. Actually, there are quite a lot of people who seek true equity. Google "kyriarchy" and you'll find a lot of these discussions. However, the reason you won't find many articles like you want is that a) the historical gender bias is undeniably pr…

The reason you won't find many articles is because the male perspective has been marginalized from gender studies. The generic argument being "the male perspective dominates all other domains so there is no need for a mens studies". >the historical gender bias is undeniably pro-male, so people have focused on the bigger problem You're comparing apples to oranges. What's worse having a 5-15% risk of sexual assault or…

Once again, your goal doesn't appear to be to eliminate the gender-related problems that people face; it seems to be to disrupt the discussion of problems that women face.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#253

Post by jdp23 »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #218
jdp23 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, perhaps you should realize that the "logical" arguments are not actually logical and have been repeatedly refuted.

If you're trying to win over rational people, and refutations are out there to be had, they need to be included. Anyone who thinks "everyone says this argument has the same glaring flaws, and that illustrates how awesome the argument is!" is at risk of reaching conspiracy-theory levels of crazy.

The author explained why the people making the traditional arguments do in fact illustrate how accurate his observation is. It's true though that articles won't reach guys are so defensive or clueless on this subject that they're not responding rationally.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#254

Post by makomk »

wpietri wrote: post #252
da_dude4242 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you won't find many articles is because the male perspective has been marginalized from gender studies. The generic argument being "the male perspective dominates all other domains so there is no need for a mens studies". >the historical gender bias is undeniably pro-male, so people have focused on the bigger problem You're comparing apples to oranges. What's worse having a 5-15% risk of sexual assault or…

Once again, your goal doesn't appear to be to eliminate the gender-related problems that people face; it seems to be to disrupt the discussion of problems that women face.

We're not just discussing the problems that women face, though. When the author of that Kotaku piece used male privilege as a starting point to base his argument on, he made an implied statement about men's problems with gender too; he implied that they were irrelevant. It's not just a case of ignoring them or putting them to one side - his argument was an argument that they couldn't exist, at least not in any way that mattered.

This is a common pattern when someone "disrupts" a discussion of women's issues. Sometimes it's a discussion of women being raped as the only kind of rape. Maybe someone's arguing that domestic violence is something that happens to women because they're women - of course, then all the many male victims couldn't exist.

In fact, almost every time I've seen someone tell a man that they're disrupting a discussion of women's problems by talking about men, they were making a statement about what men experience in the first place and using it to shut out contradictory evidence.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#255

Post by wpietri »

makomk wrote: post #254
wpietri wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, your goal doesn't appear to be to eliminate the gender-related problems that people face; it seems to be to disrupt the discussion of problems that women face.

We're not just discussing the problems that women face, though. When the author of that Kotaku piece used male privilege as a starting point to base his argument on, he made an implied statement about men's problems with gender too; he implied that they were irrelevant. It's not just a case of ignoring them or putting them to one side - his argument was an argument that they couldn't exist, at least not in any way th…

Your theory that not mentioning something equals saying it's irrelevant is fascinating. You didn't mention famine in Africa, the bad economy, or the decay of NASA. Your "implied statement" (coughoxymoroncough) is that those are irrelevant. Why do you hate Africans, workers, and NASA?

As far as I can tell, this is just the same disruptive tactic as I've called out elsewhere.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#256

Post by da_dude4242 »

makomk wrote: post #254
wpietri wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, your goal doesn't appear to be to eliminate the gender-related problems that people face; it seems to be to disrupt the discussion of problems that women face.

We're not just discussing the problems that women face, though. When the author of that Kotaku piece used male privilege as a starting point to base his argument on, he made an implied statement about men's problems with gender too; he implied that they were irrelevant. It's not just a case of ignoring them or putting them to one side - his argument was an argument that they couldn't exist, at least not in any way th…

Don't feed the trolls.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#257

Post by Goladus »

rayiner wrote: post #66
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…

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…

Men who are inappropriately aggressive get kicked in the balls, then get called a bitch (by men) or loser (by women). Alternately they are simply considered irritating and are ignored until they go away. If there's an equivalent insult in this case, it's "aspie."

Men might be able to be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch, but that's minor compared to the other consequences that face by being aggressive.

> You have to be an order of magnitude more aggressive to be an "asshole" than you do to be a "bitch."

One caveat being that for men, balancing aggression and restraint tend to be learned early and if there's no reason to challenge the hierarchy there's no reason to be aggressive. Women, on the other hand, who are thrust into male-dominated environments without understanding the rules may fail in a variety of ways. They may fail to use appropriate body language. Their voice might betray too much emotional investment in the outcome. They may persist on unwinnable points where men would back down (iow fail to choose their battles effectively).

If you've dealt with successfully aggressive women, they are rarely called "bitch" unless they are truly hostile or by angry people who have lost control and pick the first insult that comes to mind (see the movie 'Crash' for some excellent examples of this phenomenon as it applies to racism). Typically you will notice that these women are comfortable adopting male body language, probably have a deep and confident voice, and are far more emotionally restrained than average women. They are typically physically intimidating (a saleswoman or CEO). They are capable of aggression and assertiveness without being called a bitch because they have learned to do it in a masculine way.

What women can't do is be aggressive without sacrificing femininity.

> I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew

Women who are loud in the way that men are loud are never called shrews. They are maybe called unfeminine but usually it's just something like "she's type A." Women who are loud in the sense that they complain constantly about small things and provoke arguments which they try to win by shrieking as loud as possible is the definition of a shrew. I think you'll find that's far rarer for men to behave that way.

Re: Nerds and Male Privilege

#258

Post by culebron »

wpietri wrote: post #161
culebron wrote: post #150

I agree with the commenter who points out that the culture is not dominant, and if it's that bad, it won't have much acceptance. And all who care of the sexism in IT, geek culture, etc., should turn themselves to the core problem. Use the Japanese method: ask 5 questions "why?" Why are geeks so sexist? They see women first of all as a sexual object. Why they do this? Because this is what they want. They are sexually…

The point of the five whys is to elicit insight and fact, not stuff you just make up. It turns out that guys who get laid are also often sexist, so your theory is bunk. There are also plenty of guys who don't get laid who aren't assholes to women. When you got to the notion that IT managers should create a culture of respect for women by hiring prostitutes for their most sexist male employees, you should have realize…

We did hire a prostitute for a depressed friend to make him feel better. Not openly. I have no idea how it works for your company, that's why I wrote "maybe".

Your trying to be judgemental and look down on everyone around completely discredits your arguments.

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