A Realistic Female 'Privilege' Checklist

I was compelled to create a post on my Tumblr account, due to an on-going brouhaha involving moderation of the 'politics' tag on that site, and the misogynistic and socially offensive rantings and ramblings of the editor in question (who was subsequently removed from his editorial post). Part of his defense of his irretrievably unconscionable behavior was rooted in his denial of the idea of male privilege and his mistaken impression that the whole root cause of feminism was to drag men down into the mud and stomp them into it. When works of false and ignorant premises, one invariably opens themselves up to attack.

One place he pointed to, was a web site called 'Feminist Critics' -- which I shall not deign to link to -- and an article there on "female privilege," which was just an outrageous collection of non-interrelated and male-centered screeds on how "good women have it" in comparison to men, and how male privilege is just a figment of feminism's imagination. It so enraged me, that I proceeded to pound out what I consider a more accurate representation of "female privilege" as it exists in the modern world, and part of which I now reproduce here:

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As a woman, you have the privilege of...

1. Being told by men that you do not have a right to do what you like with your own body.
2. Being told by men that they only find you attractive when you dress sexy.
3. Being told by men that if you dress sexy, you're being "slutty."
4. Being told by men that they want to have sex with you.
5. Being told by men that if you have too much sex, you're being "slutty."
6. Being told by men that if you don't want to have sex with them, you're being "frigid."
7. Being drugged or manhandled by men who want to have sex with you when you don't.
8. Being raped by men, whose sexual needs override your consent.
9. Being told by men that if you were raped, you were asking for it, because of what you said, how you were dressed, what you drank, where you went, etc.
10. Being told by men that if you get pregnant by being raped, you should "make the best of it."
11. Being told by men that your position in life is to carry a fetus to term, even though you don't want it, can't afford it, and they won't lift a finger to help or support you.
12. Being told by men that marrying them and raising a family with them is what you're "meant to do."
13. Being told by men that the black eyes, bruises, and broken bones you got from them beating you is "your own fault."
14. Being told by men that if you try to leave them, they will take away your children and you will never see them again.
15. Being told by men that they've "moved on" and "found someone new" who is "more exciting," a.k.a. "slutty."
16. Being told by men that you are not smart enough.
17. Being told by men you're not good enough.
18. Being told by men that you're not strong enough.
19. Being told by men that you are too emotional.
20. Being told by men that you are too cold.
21. Being told by men to make them a sandwich.

If I were a woman, and I had to navigate that world on a daily basis, you can bet your ass I might harbor just a small amount of enmity toward men. Women have spent millennia getting the short end of the stick... ask Eve. And maybe, just maybe, women are tired of taking crap from men. BTW, I know I'm being all cis here, and I apologize to my trans friends, but the bottom line is: if you're a woman in this world, born that way, built that way, or otherwise, you can look forward to a long life of being told you are subservient to men, that that is the way "God intended it," and you should just shut up and accept it. I'm here to say that's wrong, that male privilege bullshit talking, and this is one man who doesn't buy it. You're a person, not a possession. You have rights. You have feelings. And no man has the right to tell you that you owe them anything.

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Any man who denies his privilege is obviously so colored by it, that he cannot be rationally expected to understand it, so it is up to other men not as tinged by it, to explain. Because one cannot look at what's going on in our nation and claim that there is no male privilege at work, when the majority of anti-choice organizations are run or advocated for by men, when the bulk of the legislators who are bringing forth and supporting anti-choice and anti-woman legislation are men, when the vast majority of Congressional members are men, when there has been no woman President, when women are a scarcity in boardrooms and at the heads of corporations, and where women, on average, still earn far less than male counterparts for the same level of work.

It is easy for a man to dismiss the complaints of women; those in a position of power, for no other reason than they are of one gender -- or one race or one religion, similarly -- have exactly that which they are unwilling to share. To a man, it may seem far-fetched that a woman would want or should have power, and that man will find it easy to construct a specious and fallacious argument structure to reinforce their view. It is a facet of an on-going issue humanity has, whereby fact takes a back seat to belief. Men believe they are meant to be in control, to dominate, to rule, and would rather fight among themselves for the privilege, than allow women an equal opportunity.

As I have noted before, men wrote their dominance of humanity into society of their own accord, not because it was necessary or required. Misogyny is an extension of the primitive hunter/fighter mentality that drove primitive human society. It is a self-reinforcing construct, held in place by the male domination of society. That is privilege at its most basic -- I have the power, therefore I was meant to have it. If the heroes of The Bible are mainly men, it is because men were in the positions of power, men wrote the words, and men determined which gospels would be included, meaning the female voice was conspicuously absent by design. If most nations in the world have been run by patriarchal forces, that is because those forces already held sway. If the governments at the local, State, and Federal levels in the United States are dominated by men, that is by design, as it was men who dominated society and initiated the creation of the nation.

It is not enough that women fight for their right to join men equally in power, for to overcome thousands of generations of patriarchy through sheer will and determination means thousands more generations before it can come to pass. If women are to reach the equal footing they deserve, and is long overdue them, then it is up to we men who understand our privilege and its ill effects on society, to stand up to our brethren, and make them aware that the current state of affairs will no longer be tolerated. We must stand beside our sisters and we must take the power away from the patriarchy that maintains its death-grip on human society. We must break ranks with those men who hold power for power's sake. We must drive the money changers from the temple, to restore order to a more natural state of human equality in every dimension. We must reject our privilege, for to do less only perpetuates a system that has been unfair for far too long.

Why Feminism Matters On Father's Day

My daughter is six-years-old. She is growing up quickly, into a world where women are under assault, physically, mentally, and socially. Rapists, anti-choice rabble, magazine editors, Hollywood directors, and Congressmen are trying to tell her she's not good enough as she is, that she shouldn't get her hopes up, that she has no autonomy over herself, that her only worth is as a mother and wife. The Women's Suffrage movement of the early Twentieth Century is now under assault by men who have watched their power erode every decade since, as women and minorities assert themselves and take the rights and privileges that are owed them by their mere existence as citizens of America.

As a father, since the birth of my daughter, my leanings toward the equality of women has naturally risen above it's previous levels. My daughter is growing up in this world, and as her father, I am charged with ensuring not only that she is raised to be tough, strong, and intelligent, but with making sure that the world she grows into is not corrupted for women. I am forced to confront the societal ills more forcefully, as I cannot countenance women being returned to their status as second-class citizens in a male-dominated society. She deserves all the blessing of her humanity, and she is a person like anyone else, not an object to be coveted, taken, shamed, or shackled.

It is not just the purview of the father to look out for a daughter. Every woman, of every stripe, in every place, deserves to have the respect of every man. It is a woman we have to thank for our existence, and that should be enough, but beyond our mother, women are our sisters, aunts, grandmothers, teachers, doctors, nurses, soldiers, scientists, and fill every level of human society with their knowledge, their strength, their caring their compassion. Man and woman are equal measure of humanity, and while some men would argue the point, it is only because they have latched onto dogma and steeped themselves in their own need to be superior.

On this Father's Day, let us not forget how all fathers got their opportunity to be such, and let us not forget that our fatherhood does not stop at the door, especially where it comes to our daughters. We, having helped to create a human being, must nurture them, and provide them an environment in which to thrive. This means we must be vigilant, must be engaged, must strive to build a better world for them than the one we inherited. Father's Day is not a day for rest, but reflection, and action, if those Father's Days to come are to be worth celebrating.

From Woman Borne, Persecute Her No Longer

What woman has not brought a life into the world, of her choosing, and not been happy to care for it, raise it, and send it out into the world? There are some who, in circumstances we cannot fully comprehend, become a mother and are not so enamored of it; the vast majority are certainly not in that camp, or so we should hope. A mother raises a child to the best of her ability, and hopes to turn out a stellar example of humanity, trying though that path might be.

Still, it begs the question: why are so many male offspring of human mothers so hateful toward the female gender? One could imagine it if every boy were maltreated by a mother ill-equipped to handle the strain, but even some of the better-educated, intellectually-forward, well-raised men in our nation, seem predisposed to a venom and bile against women that they scarcely deign to hide it. Nowhere is this seen in greater profusion that in the halls of legislation, State and Federal, where male-dominated legislatures seek to impose heinous penalties and outrageous restrictions on women who merely seek to live their life as they see fit.

Ok, Guys, Here's The Deal

Men are pretty good at having uninformed, uneducated, nonsensical positions on things, based solely on their "experience" and "knowledge." They are more than willing to tell others what to do, especially where the repercussions of their "advice" do not fall on their heads. So here's the deal, my brethren:

• You get to tell a woman what to do with her body, when she gets to tell you what to do with yours.
• You get to complain about pregnancy, when you get pregnant
• You get to form an opinion about rape when someone drugs you and you find yourself waking up naked in a hotel room, being violated
• You get to talk about abortion after you get pregnant because your partner didn't use protection, or forced themselves on you, or you get raped, and are faced with the choice of raising a child you did not want or expect

I know what you're thinking: how is that fair? I have a brain, I can think about these things, they seem to be pretty obvious to me.

That's male privilege talking.

Bad Apples

It is far easier to condemn a group for the faults of a few, than to take a long, cold, hard look at the larger picture. Stereotypes are often born of those who make themselves prominent from a group, even though they are not representative of the whole. This leads to the whole body of individuals being dragged down into the mire of iniquity, where they do not belong. It is better to single out those bad apples for the treatment they deserve, rather than extend our disgust and displeasure to everyone.

Islamic radicals have done an excellent job poisoning American opinion against Muslims. Far from pointing out America's "war on Muslims," they have been able to create it from whole cloth, by showing the rest of the world how we react to their religion, with threats of burning the Qur'an, or marches opposing the building of mosques (or community centers), or even abandoning one of the fundamental precepts of our founding, the freedom to worship, by claiming Islam is "not a real religion."

Of course, what can be said for Islam can be said for Christianity. The tiny church group that created the furor over the potential burning of the Islamic holy book is a tiny fraction of all Christianity. It is certainly -- we would hope -- not a representative cross-section of the many and varied Christian sects, or even the Roman Catholic religion.

And of the Roman Catholic religion, we could say the same, that though the idea of priests preying on innocent children is repugnant and reprehensible, those priests certainly do not represent a sizable fraction of all the priesthood. The Roman Catholic Church, for its many faults, still tries to do good in the world, though its messages has become less secular and more deterministic of late. The church's refusal to allow women into the higher echelons of the faith has certainly led to these issues being more pervasive than they should be.

When it comes to women, we must also learn to not look at the likes of Christine O'Donnell, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Bachmann as the new wave of women in politics. They are but a small slice of the much larger pie of women making strides in the political arena. While they may seem to be weakening women's positions in the world, I think they are in fact creating dialog that was for too long missing in America. It almost seems as if the feminist movement has lost steam, with younger women coming to the conclusion that with so many freedoms, there was not much left to fight for, even though equality on paper does not translate into equality in society.

When we speak of equality in society, we must touch on that portion of Americans who are virulently homophobic, working diligently to ensure that gay people do not end up being regarded as equal to themselves, borrowing from the era of Jon Crow segregation in all but the signs on water fountains. The majority of those who may not appreciate homosexuality as a fact of life are probably not of the type to look at them as sub-human or less than normal; they merely are scared that somehow giving gays the same rights as everyone else will dilute their way of life, when nothing could be further from the truth, given how watered down the "sacrament" of marriage is in our modern age.

The list goes on. In every category, in every group or organization or society, there are those who stretch the limits, who go beyond what is normal, what is fair, and what is decent, to proselytize and pound their fists, enraged by the rest of us who choose not to buy into their paranoia, fear, and ignorance. We can never truly be rid of them, for they are a natural product of our development. Just as there are those who will find it possible to transcend the moment, to become much more than simply a product of their gender, religion, nationality, or sexual orientation, there will be those who retain a death grip on the walls they have created, and the boxes they have labeled, trying to create order in their rapidly deteriorating universe. They will wail and rail against change, commit themselves to do battle with it at every turn, to keep their "precious" world alive, no matter the cost to others. Because it is never truly for the greater good that they do this; it is merely to fill the empty void that would otherwise be their life, to give them some purpose and meaning, even as they see humanity passing them by.

Battle of the Sex

A couple of months ago, I wrote a tract on opinion and judgement, stating that it is a slippery slope we tackle when we write opinions and commentary on our blogs, or in public forums, stating that we believe our point of view to be the "correct" one. While it is possible to find a great number of people who may agree on any one salient point about a particular topic, statistics tell us there will always be groups outside the mean with differing opinions. The idea of debate is founded on this; for any subject, there is more than one side, more than one opinion, and in a proper setting, the give-and-take of ideas allows us to see all sides clearly, form value judgements, and come to a consensus.

Hopefully.

The twin phenomena of the blog and the commenter, brought about by the rise of the Information Age, has altered the normal structure of debate and dialog to a great extent. Whereas great debate has always taken place in person, between parties capable of reacting to each other, making their vision and passion known through their actions at the podium, as well as their words, the Internet has provided us with the idea of "telepresent" debate, whereby hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people may weigh in on a topic, in a kind of whirling frenzy, punctuated by colorful metaphors and diatribes and remotely-launched character assassination. All this, from behind the cloak of anonymity, or in some cases, pseudo-anonymity. Most combatants in this game of computerized expostulation take part behind shields of their own creations, pseudonyms being the rule more than the exception. Even I find it easier to comment while shielded by a name which is part trademark, and part jest.

Most of it is harmless enough. Trading banter has always been part of the human condition. However, the relative anonymity and ease of attainment leads many to unleash inner demons, allow the darker parts of themselves to roam free. Intellect and cogent discourse are subverted by emotion and rampant gainsaying. A holier-than-thou attitude, normally checked by proximity to people, is launched onto the Internet, to wreak havoc and sow discord through narrow-mindedness and effrontery.

This was no more evident than when Linda Hirshman, of Slate's female-oriented site doubleX, went on a rambling, baseless, and self-indicting screed against a site on which I comment regularly, Jezebel. The gist of the attack was that feminism was being ruined by the editorial staff of Jezebel. Rather than reproduce any portion of the diatribe here (feel free to look it up on doubleX, under the title 'The Trouble With Jezebel'), given that I do not wish to drive any more readers to that site, it must be said you could find more coherence of thought in a Chinese restaurant menu.

I won't launch any kind of personal attack here; I will say that if Linda Hirshman is holding herself out to be a scion of feminism, then feminism is, indeed, in serious trouble. You cannot, on one hand, claim that feminism is about the liberation of women from the oppression of men that has lasted for centuries, while, on the other hand, decrying women using that hard-won freedom to do as they wish. It is especially galling that she should heap her particular brand of ill-considered scorn on the editors and staff of Jezebel, who represent what is probably one of the best staffs of any web site you care to name. Day after day, they fill Jezebel with timely and important information of interest to women (and men like myself, who care about women's issues), as well as entertainment news, providing an eclectic mix that makes for a pleasant read.

Ms. Hirshman based her opinions on a handful of posts and one video from an ill-fated discussion attended by two editors. From that scant base, she concocted a theory of how the freedom of these women and their personal choices spelled the doom of classic feminism. Apparently, being a feminist and having been freed of the patriarchy, you are free to go about your business, as long as it doesn't reflect badly on feminism. That is to say, you're not allowed to make mistakes in judgement, not allowed to determine how you will handle your own rape, not allowed to imbibe freely, not allowed to be a free-wheeling, devil-may-car, sex-enjoying woman. Once you have been labeled a feminist, you receive your ID card and handbook, and are expected to be circumspect, to follow the tenets of the movement religiously, and are allowed no variation from them.

To say that all this is laughable and ludicrous, is to put it mildly. Like so many of the "old guard" that any movement spawns, Ms. Hirshman is frightened by these women, who have taken their freedom and run with it, while she remains fettered to the movement. As any movement (feminism, civil rights, gay rights, etc.) progresses, it grows and evolves, incorporates more people, people with different viewpoints and perspectives, who take it in new directions and break new ground. Such is the way of things. This leaves the old-timers waxing nostalgic, pining for the ground-breaking days, when they could control the thing they breathed life into. But the only constant in the universe is change; those who deny it are left behind, embittered.

Eventually a thing grows beyond those who brought it into being. That is true of our country, which the Founding Fathers would know but not recognize. Or a California redwood, which has far outlived all the plants and animals that were alive when it sprouted as a seedling. It is very true of children, who last far beyond their parents, and see the world become far different than the one they first emerged into. So it is that feminism has moved beyond suffrage and "women's lib," to become a standard, something that generations of women from now to the distant future will accept as their normal birthright. True, women are still caught in an imperfect human society, portions of which have yet to see this new birth of female freedom, but no longer is it just a crazy idea, a pie-in-the-sky dream still awaiting its day. No, feminism is now a living, breathing entity, an implacable force that will shape our world in myriad ways, as it sweeps across our planet and lifts the faces of all women up to the sun.