Class analysis...

[BertrandRussell]

Why do people find it so difficult? Am I being too simplistic and missing something?
White people as a class have more power than black people as a class.. Men as a class are more violent than women as a class. Is there anything controversial there?

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the content of their character but by how the color of their skin fits into a class-based sociological analysis. I have a dream today!

....is not what the man said. He was looking forward to the end of these distinctions, not their ever-deeper and more pervasive spread.

bewilderness

People like you

What exactly are you implying by this? My point was this was an exception culture change speech. Had it involved an in-depth explaination of class analysis it would not have had the impact. That was the point I was trying to make.

Exception = exceptional

Maybe "class awareness" is something reasonable to ask for though?

An awareness that life is easier on some than others?

And that that is unfair and wrong and needs changing.

"Unearned privilege is the reason why there are disproportionate numbers of men in positions of power and mediocre men in high flying jobs being supported by a wife and a female PA"

Oh, are those female PA's working for free? The fact that those PA's are EARNING a living in exchange for the services implies that the privilege of their services is not UNEARNED.

Statistically women as a class are responsible for nearly all false rape accusations.
Are those UK statistics you are referring to?

Yes.

ConstantlyCold. No, I don't spend much time in deprived northern towns.

But I'm from farther north, Scotland to be exact. A place with a lot of deprivation (in western terms). And I don't know a single town decimated by the decline of heavy industry and the subsequent poverty and social problems that accompanied that doesn't have women doing wifework and men exploiting that. AKA as unearned male privilege.

Where is the classless utopia that you live in?

fmsfms.

Unearned privilege isn't about being paid (although it can be about that).

It's about status, opportunity, power, etc being unfairly awarded more to some than others according to class based categories.

Do you know the saying "behind every great man there is a great woman"?

You can't use someone getting paid for providing her services as an example of "unearned privilege"

I'm literally amazed that you think that's a relevant example of unearned privilege.

Here let me do it for you:

Unearned privilege - being born into the royal family and all that brings.

Unearned privilege - getting into Oxbridge without the right grades because of family ties.

Unearned privilege - getting a job at a company because of family connections

Paying someone for their services is not unearned privilege.

If a man is too lazy and "mediocre" to clean up after himself and he pays a female cleaner to do it, is that unearned privilege?

Where is the classless utopia that you live in

No such thing I live in quite a nice place now. But I grew up in a deprived northern town.
My dad was a teacher. Kids learning they were born of incest, loads of substance abuse, chronic low attendance at school, neglect.
And once these boys and girls left school with no education there were no jobs to go to. Having your pants washed for you isn’t a massive plus.

We had the discussion earlier about who had most privilege of two highly underprivileged people. I for one don’t feel the need to go there again. Brief overview below

^Sorry but I just think we are in danger of going down the whole. A white homeless person has more privilege than a black homeless person nonesence again.

Poor men and women in deprived areas have a shit time of it. A group of privileged people on on internet board arguing about who has the slightly shitter end of the stick does not sound good. I’ve no desire to go there again^

When you are subject to the same shitty circumstances re work as working class men are but as you are a woman you also are expected to fit your work around the man’s job and the kids and the housework because you are female you think this makes no difference? That because your male partner has a shittier time re work than another man you just suck it up and you don’t have the right to say ‘hey wait a minute, why is all the unpaid shit meant to be entirely my job?’

fmsfms. That isn't what unearned privilege means. The use of "unearned" is to signify "undeserved".

Forget about money and pay for a minute.

An example. In current society boys and men get to see themselves in the media often being portrayed as in charge, as having status, as being protagonists.

Women are less visible in the media and are often portrayed as low status, as victims, etc.

There is a socializing effect of this (especially when combined with institutionalized sexism) which sends a message to boys and men that they are automatically worthy of more status than women. This affects how they see themselves in the world and their confidence and actions. There is no real reason for this other than the fact that we live in a hierarchical society which values boys and men above girls and women.

This is unearned privilege.

Why do you think that every British Prime Minister bar 2 has been a man? Because men are better than women or because society treats men as better than women?

I think you surely must know that the standard working class household in a ‘crappy northern town’ is double earner, man has the ‘main job’, very often man fucks off and doesn’t bother paying for the dc...?

Honestly, you mentioned how ‘privileged’ we all are but you’ve moved to a nice place now. I am here, on Merseyside, on a council estate... right now....

Having your pants washed for you isn’t a massive plus

Perhaps not. But it is a plus that men generally have and they have it because women not only don't have it but are washing everybody's pants.

And doing everybody's cleaning, shopping, organizing, thinking about others, etc. And deferring to their husbands, and male bosses whilst watching themselves on TV being victimized and underrepresented in politics, economics etc.

When you are subject to the same shitty circumstances re work as working class men are but as you are a woman you also are expected to fit your work around the man’s job and the kids and the housework because you are female you think this makes no difference

The unequal amount of housework and child care by women is not simply true of working class women. It’s true of huge huge numbers regardless of class.

I’ve seen the mortality figures for men in my home town. They are shocking. I’m not going to start playing the this deprived group have it worse than this group.

Women in general do more housework and childcare than men. I’m not denying that for a second. What I won’t do is start say people who enjoy considerably less privilege than me are privileged.

But no-one is asking you to...

You seem to be saying that if you acknowledge the fact that it is much much harder to be poor and a woman because as well as being poor you have women’s work then you’ll be insulting poor men or somehow erasing the fact that being a poor man is shitty.

Well, it’s pretty insulting to working class women to erase the fact that the actual burden of being poor is magnified by also being a woman.

I thought you were going on about nuance re intersections of class earlier, that’s one right there!

And presumably you are aware that once you reach upper middle class as a woman you are able to outsource your shitwork.... to working class women...

Again, it’s not a competition... If you want to take that argument to it’s logical conclusion absolutely no person can speak about material conditions of class because some people are dead....

"There is a socializing effect of this"

I'm not getting into the nurture debate again.

"This is unearned privilege."

It really isn't.

"Why do you think that every British Prime Minister bar 2 has been a man? Because men are better than women or because society treats men as better than women?"

Neither of those reasons for starters

"Perhaps not. But it is a plus that men generally have and they have it because women not only don't have it but are washing everybody's pants. "

Just curious, what do you think the men are doing? Or are they just sat at home watching Babestation whilst the women tidies up around them?

Again, it’s not a competition

If it wasn’t a competition you wouldn’t be asking me to state which group have the shitter end of the stick.

WC men? The real life examples I know are; sleeping while their wives do a night shift in a care after she comes puts the children to bed (the wives come home and get the older kids to school, do all the wifework and sleep while the baby naps), they are at the working men’s club or doing a hobby like bowls, the younger ones are often playing computer games or playing 5 a side with their friends...

Mostly the men will have one allocated job that has to be done everyday (after years of ‘nagging’) it is usually the washing up, their wives do everything else including drawing a bath for them and nagging them to get in it...

The vast vast majority of the men, well I have no fucking idea, they have entirely fucked off and these women are earning money buying and selling reduced clothes/toys from home, working zero hours in care jobs (with no pay for driving between appointments) if they have school age kids, working as dinner ladies, working night shifts on psychic hotlines...

Oh and there’s a few families where the women don’t do paid work at all and they all live off the man’s drug dealing... until the man goes to jail and then they end up like all the other single mums.

And then there’s the older women who are all single because either their male partners fucked off when the kids were young or their husbands died who are now retired but actually spend all their time taking care of their grandchildren because their children either can’t afford childcare or social care has removed the children from their parents. There are two of these women in sight of my house and I worry a lot about them, they are utterly at breaking point and one is suicidal.

And none of that means that I don’t care about the fact where the men are around they are manual workers, or that some of them are dead because they were poor.

You can and should care about both.

Articulating that there is a difference in experience does not mean you can only care about one.