Female privilege

[lose24lb]

There is a lot of talk of male privilege but not female privilege? Can we discuss things from the other point of view?

As a white female in a developed country, my privileges are:

1. If I am a child and I go missing, the media is far more likely to give my case more attention than if I were a boy. And if I'm pretty with blonde hair then all the better, I can guarantee the entire country will know I'm missing and be out looking for me.

1. From an early age the opposite sex will be instructed never to hit me but I will be given the same instructions. And should I strike males I can expect not to be hit back and any social penalties that occur from my actions will actually fall on the male.

1. If I'm not smart and unable to get a well paying job, all I have to do is marry a wealthy man.

1. Most homeless are men, yet most homeless shelters are created with my gender in mind. Which means if I go homeless I am more likely to get a bed in a shelter than if I were male.

1. If I commit a crime I am more likely to get more leniency than a man in the exact same circumstances. People will want to try and understand what made a pretty woman like me do such a thing and look for reasons. Unless I go on a mass murder spree I don't really have to worry about going to prison.

1. If I am attacked, passers-by are far more likely to intervene to protect me than if I were male.

1. As a female I am less likely to be physically attacked in the first place or challenged to a fight.

1. Despite killing almost as many people, prostate cancer gets only a fraction of the funding than breast cancer does. It benefits me if my health issues are given priority over men's health issues even if the men's issues are almost as deadly.

1. If a man masturbates it is seen as disgusting and perverse. If I masturbate then I am seen as pleasuring myself. Female masturbation doesn't carry the same stigma as male masturbation.

10. If I am pretty and/or I can make myself cry I will be able to get away with anything and everything.

11. If I am upset I am allowed to cry without being ridiculed. I don't have to be all macho and bottle my feelings up like boys and men have to do.

12. Similar to #11, I am encouraged to seek help if I need it. Seeking help is not seen as a weakness for my gender. If I seek support I will get it and people won't laugh at me or ridicule me or tell me to "man up" or "take it like a man".

13. I can wear almost anything I want without having my sexual orientation being questioned. If a man doesn't want people to think he is gay then his wardrobe will be extremely limited. But with the possible exception of dungarees I can wear anything I want.

14. One word- chivarly. Because I am female I can expect little perks here and there. One seat left on a bus? It's mine! Expensive dinner bill? The guy can get his wallet out.

15. If my husband lays a finger on me he will be labelled as a wife beater for the rest of his life, be beaten up by other men and spend time in prison. But if I hit my husband people will say "you go girl!" and say he must have deserved it. I can hit my husband and he won't dare hit me back out of fear of what I just pointed out.

16. Violence against women is the worst crime on earth. Violence against men is hilarious, especially if it involved injury to the titter penis/balls.

17. On today's TV programmes my gender is portrayed as being smart, strong and independent. The male characters in today's soaps, comedy's, cartoons etc are shown as complete idiots, deadbeat useless fathers or criminals.

18. I can work with children without being worried about people thinking horrible things or making horrible allegations.

19. If I live in the USA and there is a military draft, I won't be forced against my will to sign up to the army and go fight in battle.

Drafting is one of those things that scares DH no end. In that respect, I'm extremely glad to have been born a woman.

LeBFG wrote - "flipping hair to get favours"

Men choosing to do "favours" for a woman who flips her hair seems to me more like male privilege. The man gets to decide to do a favour for a woman if she is able to make him feel good, or not do a favour if she isn't able to make him feel good.

LeBFG wrote - Drafting is one of those things that scares DH no end.

I hope your DH isn't impacted by the fact that Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Turkey and possibly China are the only G20 countries that have military conscription for men.

Quite Vesuvia.

I think anyone who thinks that getting a favour from a man because he likes the look of you is an indicator of privilege, hasn't really understood what privilege is tbh.

The point of privilege is that you get something regardless of who you are, what you look like, what you do etc. It just is.

Flicking your hair may not actually be doing much, but it's doing something - it's conforming to femininity and in doing so reminding men that they're in charge. IE giving them a bit of a boner/ ego-boost.

That is not privilege. That's the opposite.

I should add South Korea to the list of G20 countries where men are conscripted.

Errr, until the day the UK decides it wants to draught it's men that is. Just because it isn't happening now doesn't mean there is no chance of it happening in our lifetime.

*its not it's

But Basil, why are you so intent on finding fault here? doing so reminding men that they're in charge

LeBFG wrote - "Drafting is one of those things that scares DH no end. In that respect, I'm extremely glad to have been born a woman."

and

"until the day the UK decides it wants to draught it's men that is. Just because it isn't happening now doesn't mean there is no chance of it happening in our lifetime."

With the British Army researching autonomous military robots, perhaps a draft of British men may never happen. The possibility that women will be drafted into the UK military at some time in the future is probably not zero. Does that worry you too?

" Why is it just not about making the man feel helpful, engaging with his nuturing side, or his sexual side if you want. This isn't about male 'control'."

It may also be that of course LeBFG - making him feel helpful etc.

But that surely can't be described as "privilege" can it? People, men and women, do this all the time to each other - we all flirt with each other, flatter each other, cede power to another person by appealing to their helpful, nurturing or controlling side - but when we do, we're not exerting privilege.

That's the description I'm quibbling with.

... because I like to quibble

Such an extreme interpretation of the OP. He just says that there exists a female privilege as well as a male privilege. Surely this is undeniable? I can't understand where all the vittriol on this thread comes from. Men clearly have better than women, but why the need to deny the existence of any miniscule female privilege?

My view of the OP was formed not just by this post, but by the fact that he started this thread very shortly after the one he started entitled "the myth of male privilege" didn't go the way he wanted it to. He tried to rephrase slightly, but his fundamental point was the same.

He lied - or at least lied by implication - in his OP that he was a woman.

He was not starting a thread to talk about 'female privileges', or areas where women are treated better by society, but the concept of a female privilege which was somehow equivalent to that of male privilege (which he has repeatedly demonstrated on this and his other thread he doesn't understand as a concept).And in doing so, he wants to demonstrate that male privilege was a myth and feminists are just whining.

I have no problem talking about areas where our society fails men and boys. I think that there are many. I'm just not going to pretend that this man is anything other than a whining MRA who didn't want to actually understand his own privilege at all, just moan about how he has it so hard.

LeBFG Errr, until the day the UK decides it wants to draught it's men that is. Just because it isn't happening now doesn't mean there is no chance of it happening in our lifetime.

I think it just might possibly be outside the realms of all but the most fevered imaginations.

In case you hadn't realised, the British armed forces have almost finished getting rid of 1/10th of the service personnel it presently has. Every one of those (unless medically discharged) is eligible for and liable for being called up as reserves should the need arise, until they are 55. They would only be called into service if every single member of the various volunteer services was already in action.

I think you and your husband are pretty safe from having to serve, don't you? Tell your DH not to worry any more.

And back to the actual thread!

Really, until they're 55?

That seems terribly late in life.

Sorry bit of a de-rail, but what are the conditions upon which they can be liable to be called up until they're 55? Do they have to have served a specific amount of time, or is it just anyone (bar medical discharges) who has served time in the armed forces?

No particular reason for asking, just interested.

Well, I can't comment about other threads because I haven't read them. I'm responding to the stuff on this thread and OP's point seemed reasonable. I also agree with him that the list of male privilege on some blog or other is pant's poor. There were such simplifications and, to respond to Basil, this original list was full of non-privileges too. Most were just advantages or averages. A proper privilege, as you say, is like an access card to a club - you have it and you get in whoever you are.

I'm a quibbler too so I think a lot of people on here are determined to do a 'patriarchy' 'sexist' analysis when so much of it is male/female behaviour. Why are men more agressive? - they have a whole lot more testosterone flowing around their veins. Why do women flirt? - they are the ornamental sex that gets to choose mates (that's why the lowest ranking males struggle to get any partner whatsoever and why women can always marry 'up' but men rarely do). Societal conditioning plays a part too, or even a large part, but it acts to emphasise these pre-existing differences.

CaptChaos - don't need reassurance from you, how can you possibly know what's likely in 20 years from now? I don't expect DH'll be called up to fight in WW3. But I think it's a possibility. I don't suppose men 20 years before WW1 were expecting that to happen either.

The idea that gay women don't get beaten up for being gay is hilarious. I can't even count all the times I've been surrounded by gangs of men screaming 'dyke' into my face. It's not as many times as I have been sexually assaulted by men of course but it does still happen.

It is the total lack of political analysis which is so tedious.

Does the OP actually understand what 'privilege' means in political terms? (It would appear not.)

We live in a male supremacy and within the current set up, there is no 'female privilege' as a meaningful political concept.

There is no counter binary female privilege. If one intelligently examines any so called advantages that women have in male supremacist society, one can conclude the following;

a) any 'advantages' that women as a class are perceived to have, are crumbs from the patriarchal table once things have been divided up to benefit men.

b) any and all of these 'advantages' could be withdrawn from women at the drop of a hat if those in power (men) decided that suited them.

c) most of these so called 'advantages' either exclude women from power and structural control, or when examined properly, exploit women (childcare, financial dependence, chivalry, decision making, ownership, workforce dynamics, war.)

LeBFG - How can you know that society is just emphasising pre-existing differences? Because almost all the studies I have seen can't adequately control for that. I think the furthest we can go is to say that we don't know if there are pre-existing differences.

BBE 55 is the upper retirement age for most people within the British military. So, 55 is used as the upper limit for recalling ex-service personnel, whether they were Officers or ORs. They would only be used in a time of emergency, and almost certainly only after all other reserve forces had been called up to active service. It's all enshrined in the Reserve Forces Act 1996 if you have the urge, although, it's an awful snoozefest, and only of any real interest to those of us whom it might affect.

LeBFG sorry if I confused you, I wasn't trying to 'reassure' you. I was stating facts.

WW1 was a slightly different kettle of fish to any kind of modern warfare, and even then, only 1 in 4 adult males in Britain served, men were only conscripted between the ages of 18 and 41. It was also fairly obvious to people who took any notice that, with the various alliances being forged between European states and those in Asia Minor, along with the militarisation of Germany and France in the 15 or so years leading up to 1914 that war was inevitable. WW2 conscription (at least in 1939) was for men between the ages of 20 and 23, it then went up to men aged 41.

Sorry for the derail again!

Interesting factoid I remember learning years ago but can't remember which book but may have been Marilyn French: in US more women died in childbirth during Great Depression than the US soldiers in both wars.

Anyhow point is, we all spend so much time focussing on War heroes of the past that we don't stop to think how high maternal mortality was.

Also, I think that most of the problems that men face are down to patriarchy.

Derailing here, a bit.

A "factoid" is not a fact, KaseyM.

A factoid is something that sounds like it should be true, but is in fact false. That is, it is "fact-shaped".