I don't feel comfortable...

[Freespeecher]

...has recently been an 'end of' argument winner. I mean, I'm not particularly fond of it, but if someone says they're not comfortable doing x or y then that has generally been that.

Until now that is - recent Graun article regarding transwomen in changing rooms etc had a female writer initially recognising that some people, including herself, may be uncomfortable but, after a quick privilege check, they should 'suck it up' as transwomen have it worse than them.

Truly, There Is No Alternative (now where have I heard that before?)

Yes, a privilege check, that would be useful. Men have done a really good job with this ’feminists are just a bunch of man haters. We’re all equal now so shut up’ thing haven’t they…
Stockholm syndrome

what is a privilege check? I have seen the expression "check your privilege" written down but presumably there is some deeper thought behind the expression.

women suffer in boring universal usual ways. trans people suffer in novel ways I guess so get more attention at the moment. Not sure if that's the same thing as genuine sympathy or support.

Well, SW, it seems to be shorthand for checking your position on the identity politics totem pole.

So you might have some misgivings about sharing changing facilities with the male-bodied but, as you're lower down the list than transwomen in the current climate, rather than trying to find a workable compromise you just have to 'suck it up' and accept it wholesale.

On the bright side, as scary as it is, this all or nothing approach will be its own downfall.

Speakingwoman, privilege is an Americanism but it’s mostly applicable to race, especially in the US:

www.huffingtonpost.com/gina-crosleycorcoran/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person_b_5269255.html

The idea that ‘cisprivilege’ overrules the objections of women and girls around safety doesn’t stack up but using the same language means people get on the woke-wagon without critical examination of the issues.

good article Betty thanks.

I hadn't thought of "intersectionality" as being about thinking of the ways you ARE privileged. Had thought it was about being non-privileged in several different ways.

I can see the point. When I have gone through non-privileged experiences in my life I've been able to balance them out. How many of us have experienced problems with our children's special needs and known what it is to be someone educated to advocate for them?

I don't think this is applicable to the women's safe spaces debate though.

....or maybe it's my job as a privileged woman with high self esteem to advocate for poor/ignored women who wouldn't speak up about feeling uncomfortable?

so it is relevant.

Soooooo what about the 'Male privilege' of a male bodied person being brought up as a male, and so having lifetime of male experiences and attitudes? Therefore expecting females to step back and shut up?

OK then. I get it.

Black woman feminist just waiting for white male born privilege to have the front to tell me to 'check my privilege'...

That’s the crux of the thing, isn’t it? If we are obligated to check our privilege at having our sex match our gender (even though we are of the subjugated sex class and recognise gender only as stereotypes) then transwomen should surely be obligated to check their privilege at being raised and educated as male and having their cross-gender presentation lauded as ‘brave and stunning’ whilst retaining the strength and size benefits of the male body.

When TRAs accuse us of not paying equivalent attention to transmen, they fail to recognise (or deliberately ignore) that transwomens’ intersectional privileges are based on their birth sex, so transmen do not have an equivalent experience (and this is even enshrined in UK law, see thread on male born people retaining sex-based inheritance rights post-transition).

So yes, if anyone says I should check my privilege and share sex-segregated spaces with transwomen, I reply with ‘hey, I don’t personally mind much one way or the other but then, I’m not particularly vulnerable, so checking my privilege means recognising that protections put into place to protect vulnerable women and girls are not mine to give away’.

Calling women privileged in this way is ridiculous. Here's the actual racial equivalent.

Say I'm white. Sorry, 'assigned white at birth.' But I'm uncomfortable with stereotypes of whiteness, I don't 'feel white' and because of that I don't think the idea of structural white privilege applies to me.

I must actually be black. Trans black. I'm more oppressed than all those privileged cisblack people because I have to spend time and effort making my outward appearance look black while they don't have to do anything. People deny my existence all the time by saying 'but you're white' - it's literal violence and they want me not to exist. I can't help that I was born in the wrong body.

I'm so, so oppressed. All campaigns for racial equality should center me, and any article or TV show about black people's experiences should include people like me. My problems are more important and worse than theirs so they should be nice and move aside.

(I feel the need to apologise for even writing all that but that is honestly what the TRAs are doing)

"protections put into place to protect vulnerable women and girls are not mine to give away’."

indeed. Not that being educated gives you immunity from beng raped, but I know what you mean.

This is why the insistant focus by some TRAs is that the 'anti-trans' groups are 'white, middle class , older people'

MN is decribed as being populated by this group (with the additional implication that its members are hetrosexual- cf the claim 'mumsnetters call for new section 28')

Its important to recognise how narratives are constructed and beliefs perpetuated.

speakingwoman I’m vulnerable in some ways and not in others, intersectionally vulnerable, if you like?

For example, I’m above average height and above average fitness and I weight lift. I have reasonable eyesight and hearing, I am middle aged. I speak the dominant language in the country where I live and don’t have a religion, so I have no religious dress code to comply to. I have secure housing independent of my relationship and yes, I accessed a decent standard of education. I have no substance addictions and no disabilities. I did not experience childhood abuse. And yes, I am white.

I will no doubt become more vulnerable as I age and none of the above make me immune to being the victim of crime (I’ve been sexually assaulted twice in the street by total strangers, 20 years apart) but I certainly have no right to water down the rights to spaces and services that other women need more than I do.

also worth being aware that amongst some NUS Trans / LGBT+ / Women's officers trans women claim that trans men have privilege and furthermore that non-binary trans women experience further oppression still.

THis has led to (female born) trans men being excluded from women's space and services by those who are (male born) trans women / non-binary trans women.

I've checked mine, with my handy PrivilegeChecker App and having a vagina beats having a penis. So I'm all good to have my feeling valued. Or something.

MaterialReality thank you.

They are appropriating black women, appropriating oppression, and it stinks

Microaggressions
Intersectionality

^^Terms that are important to us in discussing and defining the ways in which our race double-impacts on the issues we face. Misogyny, Misogynoir and racism to contend with alongside sexism

Then along come a bunch of privileged white men who just blithely co-opt our terms and despite having the gall to compare their plight to what black women experience, wouldnt ever speak to a black woman don't know any black women, haven't sat and debated with black women.

Lily Madigan called black women aggressive and seemed surprised at the ensuing clapback. After a half hearted apology came the admittance of not even knowing any black women.

Pathetic

I find it really contradictory that all these SJW manage to reify individual identity and at the same time castigate people for their (assigned by SJW)
group collective guilt. An almost orgasmic mix of self flagellation and moral superiority.

They sneak around the privilege checking by saying that they were always women/females/girls. Que women are privileged due to others ability to recognized women as women. And that's how they exclude trans men, they were always male so always privileged.

I don't believe women are intrinsically privileged over trans people.

A lot of the statistics around transpeople are exaggerations, flawed or not really applicable to the UK.

Women are often assaulted physically or sexually by people with penises.

When it comes to safety, everyone is at risk from male violence. I don't think it's helpful to catagorise the risk.

Protecting everyone from harm is important. Allowing people without vaginas into women's spaces does not do that.

Protecting people from harm is more important that anyone's feelings.

Third spaces are good, different options is good. Forcing shared spaces on people is bad.

Who is to say a transwoman is more or less privileged than a non-white muslim woman, for example?

Unpacking the privilege backpack is a thought exercise to examine the things we take for granted and find our way to empathy and understanding of women with very different life experiences. Kinda the way Dworkin's book Right Wing Women helped us understand that for many women it is a matter of cutting the best deal they think they can, because of how little is on offer for them, and then defending the choice they made against all comers.
Not surprisingly the most privileged class repurposed the concept to DARVO women who say no.
Here is a pdf of the backpack if you would like to see the list.
www.interpretereducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/white-privilege-by-Peggy-McIntosh.compressed.pdf

essentially...?

I really hate the modern idea of privilege.

I read a book that talked about privilege in an evolutionary sense and it makes a lot of sense. Privilege is anything your parents give you. Fish don't have privilege, their parents fart out clouds of sperm and eggs and nick off leaving the little fish babies 100% on their own and 100% judged by their own merits. A crocodile's egg is privilege, the mother is giving the babies a boost by putting them somewhere safe and giving them nutrients to start them off (which means that any crocodiles with a shit mother who puts them in a stupid place are disadvantaged). Big cats get privilege in that their parents look after them and teach them to hunt instead of leaving them to figure it out for themselves. Humans have the most privilege of pretty much any other animal. We spend a huge proportion of our lives dependent on our parents, and therefore our start in life is heavily dependent on not just our own abilities but the ability of our parents to 'boost' us. Which creates inter-generational advantages and disadvantages along class and race lines. That concept is really easy to understand and obviously a systematic problem. You can't ask for privilege and you can't refuse it, it's the stuff that is done to you by the previous generation to help you whether you want it or not, and that results in the people in your generation having differing advantages. It's no one's fault and since you can't refuse it "checking you privilege" doesn't do anything productive. But when we started with male privilege, straight privilege, neurotypical privilege, passing privilege, etc etc it all gets so murky and just become 'who has the saddest life story?' Your individual choices can affect your amount of 'privilege'. e.g. you could say someone who has never been addicted to drugs is privileged.

I think it started out as a request of empathy for people with different experiences and ended up as a hierarchical pity party that's of no use at all and actually hinders our ability to understand our world and empathize with others.

or maybe it's my job as a privileged woman with high self esteem to advocate for poor/ignored women who wouldn't speak up about feeling uncomfortable?

Yes, it is. To the best of your abilities and resources to do so.

I recently came across this quote from Mary of Hungary, asfter hearing that Henry VIII had re-married following the execution of Anne Boleyn:

"It is to be hoped, if one can hope anything from such a man, that if this one bores him he will find a better way of getting rid of her. I believe that most women would not appreciate it very much if this kind of habit becomes general, and with reason. And although I have no inclination to expose myself to dangers of this kind, I do after all belong to the female sex, so I shall also pray God that he may protect us from such perils."