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Well, decades ago, men did run the world, to all intents and purposes. They're still in most positions of power (politics ceos etc), most things are designed by

Well, decades ago, men did run the world, to all intents and purposes. They're still in most positions of power (politics ceos etc), most things are designed by men, etc. This doesn't mean that it's the fault of every single man, any more than as a Brit who benefits from a legacy of empire that I'm personally responsible for whatever massacres. You can be aware of it without taking the blame.

afiori 5y ago
An interesting part of this conversation is that there are strong subtexts that often have more weight than the actual words in driving how people actually answer. Scott Alexander as a nice rationaliization of this dynamic https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweapons/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap...
- developer93 5y ago
  Really useful link, thank you. It's useful to consider these things when having online discussions.
madaxe_again 5y ago
If you’re happy and willing to take the benefits of structural inequality and its legacies, by refusing to acknowledge that being a white British male is a profound privilege, then you absolutely are to blame. You would hand on heart say that women in the U.K. are 100% equal to men? I’m a white British male. Every time I do anything that takes advantage of my position, which is pretty much daily, I am to blame. By paying attention to your place in society, you can try, little by little, to work against the structural and cultural biases stacked in your favour.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you assumed the poster was male (I would guess otherwise). But it doesn't sound like they're refusing to acknowledge it. Also, what does acknowledging it do? You can't exactly stop being a white British male.
  - developer93 5y ago
    Ding ding we have a winner, though I hope it wouldn't be relevant what gender I am. This was kind of my point - you can't be penalised for taking the advantages you have in life. But if you are aware of issues facing others you can give them a hand up and we end up with a fairer and more equal society. Is your argument that you should not acknowledge something you know to be true (for the sake of the argument)?
- parafactual 5y ago
  Can you give an example of how one would work against the structural and cultural biases stacked in their favor?
  - developer93 5y ago
    A possibly trivial example, but I've found that I tended to be ignored in meetings. I'd suggest something, it would be ignored, and 5 minutes later someone else would say it and everyone would say "yeah that's a great idea". So you could call that out (I did but it looked really petty imo) or draw attention to colleagues who area struggling to be heard. I've heard someone dismiss the idea of employing a woman for a post because the team was all male. For such a situation, a rebuttal would probably be heard more if it came from a man. These are gender related because I'm white but you would doubtless find equivalents for other groups if you asked. Being aware is important I think
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  If you genuinely hold these views, I strongly suggest leaving London for a week, heading to an industrial town in the North and asking them how privileged they feel to be a white British male.
  - zd123 5y ago
    This isn’t about taking the poorest white folks in society, looking at their lack of economic empowerment and calling white privilege a flawed concept. IMHO theres more to it than that, and white privilege does exist. For example, there have been a number of studies that show having a non-white sounding name during a cv screening process leads to far less callbacks, even if the remainder of the CV is identical. Is this not white privilege? What about how the media treats different crimes. Take a look at the Daily Mail website, arguably the most popular UK tabloid and tell me it’s not designed to paint migrants and minorities in a negative light. For example, when there are acts of violence perpetrated in the name of islam, terrorism as a phrase is used frequently in the headlines. However when white nationalists do the same thing, the phrasing is completely different. Another example would be the coverage of the royals ie Kate vs Meghan. Acknowledging white privilege doesn’t mean that those poor white folks in post industrial towns have it easy. It means that there are certain areas of society where being white does afford a privilege. It comes down to the tribal mentality at the end of the day. People still seem to like to favour people similar to them.
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      I'll admit I could have been more informative and less pithy, but the idea of white privilege being a foreign concept in economically underprivileged communities is more complex than "white people can experience poverty too". I've lived in working class neighbourhoods for the majority of my adult life, and there are so many observations that fly in the face of white privilege as a theory. Most of the poorest people I would encounter were white. The people most likely to be long-term unemployed were white. The people whose children were least likely to get an education and escape poverty were white. Almost all of the junkies were white. Every single homeless person was white, no exceptions. Whether or not HR staff hiring for a white collar job prefer white names is irrelevant when you and the people you are competing against didn't complete high school. What the Daily Mail think about Meghan Markle or Islam is less important that what the Vietnamese fruit shop owner thinks of you because you share phenotypal characteristics with the homeless ice addict that sleeps three doors down and scares away customers. This doesn't even start to cover ethnic tensions (Serb vs. Croat, Indian vs. Pakistani atc.) which exist with no regard for the typical sociological black/white/asian racial boundaries and can cause real violence and discrimination. I will admit that there are racial groups that have it rough simply because of their skin (black people in America, Aboriginals in Australia, Gypsies in Europe), but the idea that being white grants you privileges over and above all other racial groups ignores the lives and experiences of an enormous segment of the population. (Just to clarify, I do accept that John Smith has an unfair advantage over Rajesh Kumar when applying for a software job at a FAANG. I also admit that this has worked out well for me. This doesn't extrapolate to the whole population, though; many white people will experience little to no privilege because of their race.)
hebrox 5y ago
There is a subtle difference between "men did run the world" and "women didn't run the world". The first one skips over all the men that also didn't run the world.
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  The point is more that men were the assumed default. Ambition was seen as healthy and positive in men and negative in women (the word “bossy” comes to mind). Large parts of the world and some parts of western societies still see it that way, as a sort of natural imperative. So the average man certainly had more of an advantage. But there are lots of other factors of course, then and now. Class, race, disability status… I often wish the public face of feminism was more intersectional. Unfortunately we get undifferentiated pop/choice feminism instead. I’m as tired of it as the next person, considering it usually ignores trans issues (beyond maybe some lip service) all together. Also I feel like this entire thread seems to ignore the economic component of this discussion. Women are stagnant too. Our system is crumbling, and young people without access to generational wealth are suffering, there is no good path into the middle class anymore, so why bother at all? That is the main takeaway.
  - telesilla 5y ago
    >Women are stagnant too. Our system is crumbling Absolutely. Through all the stats and pronouncements that make it seem as if women are all powerful and are gaining economic and moral power, it's true only on the scale that is dwarfed by the patriarchal capitalism that is taking everything. For all of us who work hard and take home so little compared to those who hoard so much, we take the bait that the conflict is between us and ourselves, not us and them. Orwell write SO well about this in Animal Farm.
  - developer93 5y ago
    I do feel like some of the terf tropes come from people building straw men because they don't like the idea to start. "Maybe we should all be nicer to each other, by the way this group has these problems" doesn't really make news, whereas "politician says all men are rapists" immediately gets outrage shares.
faeriechangling 5y ago
So punish them instead of the young! Drain their bank accounts and fire the CEOs. Why is the focus on blaming the young and the innocent? Punishing the most vulnerable individuals of a group because of the collective sins of that group, we may as well feed males lead until they're out of the game, it's only really one step further than subjecting them to systemic discrimination. JUSTICE!

afiori 5y ago

An interesting part of this conversation is that there are strong subtexts that often have more weight than the actual words in driving how people actually answer. Scott Alexander as a nice rationaliization of this dynamic https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweapons/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap...

developer93 5y ago
Really useful link, thank you. It's useful to consider these things when having online discussions.

madaxe_again 5y ago

If you’re happy and willing to take the benefits of structural inequality and its legacies, by refusing to acknowledge that being a white British male is a profound privilege, then you absolutely are to blame. You would hand on heart say that women in the U.K. are 100% equal to men? I’m a white British male. Every time I do anything that takes advantage of my position, which is pretty much daily, I am to blame. By paying attention to your place in society, you can try, little by little, to work against the structural and cultural biases stacked in your favour.

noduerme 5y ago
I'm not sure why you assumed the poster was male (I would guess otherwise). But it doesn't sound like they're refusing to acknowledge it. Also, what does acknowledging it do? You can't exactly stop being a white British male.
- developer93 5y ago
  Ding ding we have a winner, though I hope it wouldn't be relevant what gender I am. This was kind of my point - you can't be penalised for taking the advantages you have in life. But if you are aware of issues facing others you can give them a hand up and we end up with a fairer and more equal society. Is your argument that you should not acknowledge something you know to be true (for the sake of the argument)?
parafactual 5y ago
Can you give an example of how one would work against the structural and cultural biases stacked in their favor?
- developer93 5y ago
  A possibly trivial example, but I've found that I tended to be ignored in meetings. I'd suggest something, it would be ignored, and 5 minutes later someone else would say it and everyone would say "yeah that's a great idea". So you could call that out (I did but it looked really petty imo) or draw attention to colleagues who area struggling to be heard. I've heard someone dismiss the idea of employing a woman for a post because the team was all male. For such a situation, a rebuttal would probably be heard more if it came from a man. These are gender related because I'm white but you would doubtless find equivalents for other groups if you asked. Being aware is important I think
AussieWog93 5y ago
If you genuinely hold these views, I strongly suggest leaving London for a week, heading to an industrial town in the North and asking them how privileged they feel to be a white British male.
- zd123 5y ago
  This isn’t about taking the poorest white folks in society, looking at their lack of economic empowerment and calling white privilege a flawed concept. IMHO theres more to it than that, and white privilege does exist. For example, there have been a number of studies that show having a non-white sounding name during a cv screening process leads to far less callbacks, even if the remainder of the CV is identical. Is this not white privilege? What about how the media treats different crimes. Take a look at the Daily Mail website, arguably the most popular UK tabloid and tell me it’s not designed to paint migrants and minorities in a negative light. For example, when there are acts of violence perpetrated in the name of islam, terrorism as a phrase is used frequently in the headlines. However when white nationalists do the same thing, the phrasing is completely different. Another example would be the coverage of the royals ie Kate vs Meghan. Acknowledging white privilege doesn’t mean that those poor white folks in post industrial towns have it easy. It means that there are certain areas of society where being white does afford a privilege. It comes down to the tribal mentality at the end of the day. People still seem to like to favour people similar to them.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    I'll admit I could have been more informative and less pithy, but the idea of white privilege being a foreign concept in economically underprivileged communities is more complex than "white people can experience poverty too". I've lived in working class neighbourhoods for the majority of my adult life, and there are so many observations that fly in the face of white privilege as a theory. Most of the poorest people I would encounter were white. The people most likely to be long-term unemployed were white. The people whose children were least likely to get an education and escape poverty were white. Almost all of the junkies were white. Every single homeless person was white, no exceptions. Whether or not HR staff hiring for a white collar job prefer white names is irrelevant when you and the people you are competing against didn't complete high school. What the Daily Mail think about Meghan Markle or Islam is less important that what the Vietnamese fruit shop owner thinks of you because you share phenotypal characteristics with the homeless ice addict that sleeps three doors down and scares away customers. This doesn't even start to cover ethnic tensions (Serb vs. Croat, Indian vs. Pakistani atc.) which exist with no regard for the typical sociological black/white/asian racial boundaries and can cause real violence and discrimination. I will admit that there are racial groups that have it rough simply because of their skin (black people in America, Aboriginals in Australia, Gypsies in Europe), but the idea that being white grants you privileges over and above all other racial groups ignores the lives and experiences of an enormous segment of the population. (Just to clarify, I do accept that John Smith has an unfair advantage over Rajesh Kumar when applying for a software job at a FAANG. I also admit that this has worked out well for me. This doesn't extrapolate to the whole population, though; many white people will experience little to no privilege because of their race.)

hebrox 5y ago

There is a subtle difference between "men did run the world" and "women didn't run the world". The first one skips over all the men that also didn't run the world.

sascha_sl 5y ago
The point is more that men were the assumed default. Ambition was seen as healthy and positive in men and negative in women (the word “bossy” comes to mind). Large parts of the world and some parts of western societies still see it that way, as a sort of natural imperative. So the average man certainly had more of an advantage. But there are lots of other factors of course, then and now. Class, race, disability status… I often wish the public face of feminism was more intersectional. Unfortunately we get undifferentiated pop/choice feminism instead. I’m as tired of it as the next person, considering it usually ignores trans issues (beyond maybe some lip service) all together. Also I feel like this entire thread seems to ignore the economic component of this discussion. Women are stagnant too. Our system is crumbling, and young people without access to generational wealth are suffering, there is no good path into the middle class anymore, so why bother at all? That is the main takeaway.
- telesilla 5y ago
  >Women are stagnant too. Our system is crumbling Absolutely. Through all the stats and pronouncements that make it seem as if women are all powerful and are gaining economic and moral power, it's true only on the scale that is dwarfed by the patriarchal capitalism that is taking everything. For all of us who work hard and take home so little compared to those who hoard so much, we take the bait that the conflict is between us and ourselves, not us and them. Orwell write SO well about this in Animal Farm.
- developer93 5y ago
  I do feel like some of the terf tropes come from people building straw men because they don't like the idea to start. "Maybe we should all be nicer to each other, by the way this group has these problems" doesn't really make news, whereas "politician says all men are rapists" immediately gets outrage shares.

faeriechangling 5y ago

So punish them instead of the young! Drain their bank accounts and fire the CEOs. Why is the focus on blaming the young and the innocent? Punishing the most vulnerable individuals of a group because of the collective sins of that group, we may as well feed males lead until they're out of the game, it's only really one step further than subjecting them to systemic discrimination. JUSTICE!