How does this confer a benefit on a man? In fact most men have to earn their way to the top. We don’t benefit from affirmative action or preferential hiring or admission to a university. So I’d say that as long as women demand these preferential treatments and men are denied them it is clear that this is a clear + on the female side. And as long as those preferential treatments exist it is a valid question–did she get here because she’s a woman?

By the way I have lost my job to a woman. Even though I was an excellent employee with a superior work record and experience my boss told me he was letting me go to make room for a woman with no experience and who proved to be inadequate to the task I was doing.

Unlike a woman I didn’t get to claim discrimination. I had to find another job. And just for the record, I was 23 years old and had moved 4000 miles to get that job. I was also homeless at the time and living in a tent. But my situation was irrelevant because it was more important to give a woman who had a nice home and clothes and food on the table my job so she wouldn’t feel oppressed.

Two weeks later she got drunk at a party and didn’t show up for work the next day. By then I had moved once again to find work.

7. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible.

Rape is serious but you also forgot murder, assault, and a host of other violent crimes that men suffer 2 to 3 times more of. And while you skirt this issue, men in prison make up 2 thirds of all rape victims in the U.S. These men are raped repeatedly and cannot escape their assailants. Unlike women who have rape crisis and counseling men are forced to live in fear of the next attack and have little resources let alone counseling. Imagine if a woman was forced to live with her rapist? What if that rapist had aids?

Furthermore, most comparisons of rape between the sexes are inherently flawed. Male disposability forced on men through socialization requires that men not report rapes and other violent crimes against him. Should he report them then everyone knows he can’t hack it. Women receive no such socialization.

11. If I have children and provide primary care for them, I’ll be praised for extraordinary parenting if I’m even marginally competent.

If a man has children and his wife leaves him she can take those children from him and deny him access and a court will do nothing to prevent that alienation.

So perhaps if a man provides primary care and lots of love for his children he should be recognized for taking an extraordinary emotional risk that his woman won’t leave at some point and have the court strip him of his children because he was born with a penis.

And for the record we have over 50% divorce rate in the U.S.
70% of all divorces are filed by women.
Over 80% of all child custody goes to the mother.

BTW when a woman does a marginally competent job in a traditionally male field she is lauded with praise and approval. For instance I saw an ad on Yahoo! about a WNBA player who dunked the ball. Apparently she is the second professional women’s basketball player to dunk the ball. Huh?

17. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for it; male heroes were the default.

Most male “heroes” reinforce and promote protection of women, obedience to authority, acceptance and glorification of male disposability, and a rejection of the full range of human emotion.

Show me a positive role model where a young man avoids military service and becomes a ballerina? Show me a positive role model where a young man gets married and has a woman support him for the rest of his life while he stays home and does housework and takes care of children?

Male role models deny us choice and flexibility and force us into rigid life choices where our value is measured by our disposability and our ability to make money and our willingness to give that money to women.

28. If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore.

Compare Brad Pitt and George Clooney with Steve Bsucemi and Paul Giamatti. The latter are widely considered to be superior actors. The former make the most money. The fact is that if a man is ugly or short it may not affect his ability to get employment, but it’s almost a certainty that that employment will not be glamorous or high paying unless he goes through extraordinary efforts to achieve.

The ability of a good looking man to find love, companionship and a partner to reproduce with is much greater than an ugly man or a short man. Yeah. Try being short and male and find love.

For the record, even the most unattractive woman can reproduce. She need only go to a sperm bank. Can the most unattractive man reproduce? Maybe. But he actually has to bust a$$ to do so.

32. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.

This stereotype isn’t reinforced by men but by women. So the next time you see a woman on trial for murdering her husband and claiming, PMS, Menopause, or a host of other female centric maladies or when a woman in the army claims PMS to get out of guard duty you should point it out and denounce her.

It’s sick how some women will use their femininity to escape responsibility while others claim it causes them to be discriminated against.

43. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.

You’ve failed to outline any substantive privilege and if it wouldn’t be deleted I’d outline a host of female privileges that are bestowed by birth as well as legislation.

In the end, however, it is men and not women who make the most money;

Isn’t it funny how 85% percent of homeless are men but we make more money? Making money isn’t power or privilege.–it’s hard work. Privilege is in the spending and women control 80% of domestic spending. One need only go shopping to see that 70% of gender specific retail floor space is devoted to women. If women aren’t making that money as you just claim then how are they spending that money? Well the answer of course is Female Privilege not Male Privilege.

men and not women who dominate the government and the corporate boards; men and not women who dominate virtually all of the most powerful positions of society.

Actually women hold half the wealth in the United States. And while women may not hold as many political positions they tend to win more positions when they run. In nearly every political race there is at least one man running. So by a simple law of averages there SHOULD be more men in public office. When every race has a woman running you will see parity in public office. But if that happens women won’t be able to blame men if things don’t go their way. Oh wait that’s silly. It’s always men’s fault. That’s part of the bigotry of feminism to make scapegoats of men.

As for powerful corporate positions there is a clear reason why there aren’t as many women. Women choose mates who do not support them at home. They want the most powerful and “alpha male” mate. He’s not going to stay home with baby and play house while she climbs the corporate ladder. Don’t blame him though. He is what he is because that’s what she wanted him to be. When a man climbs the corporate ladder he most often chooses a mate who will support him at home. Tend to his dry cleaning, clean and prepare the food, take care of the kids.

Here’s a statistic to chew on: 61% of women at the top of the corporate ladder are childless. The demands of being an executive preclude the privilege of reproduction.

Of course these women could have found a nice little man who likes to shop and cook and change diapers and who will enjoy spending your money and living in the house you paid for. (I can already hear the collective female cringe upon reading that last statement) So I guess you have your answer.

And it is women and not men who suffer the most from intimate violence and rape; who are the most likely to be poor; who are, on the whole, given the short end of patriarchy’s stick. As Marilyn Frye has argued, while men are harmed by patriarchy, women are oppressed by it.

Actually women initiate domestic violence more than men do. Unlike most men, women are more likely to bring knives, guns, and other weapons as well as use ambush and surprise to even the odds.

30% of those hospitalized are men. Yet a disproportionate number of those charged and imprisoned are men. So then, there is a double standard here. Women can beat their husbands and expect preferential treatment. In fact, women can murder their husband and expect to get away with it. Often the better looking the woman the more lenient her punishment.

I wonder if you feminists think men don’t suffer emotional scarring just because they healed from their physical scars?

When women see violence against women on TV they know it’s bad and everyone feels that it is wrong.

When women commit violence against men on TV we laugh and think it’s funny.

100 men might die in a movie comedy. But if one woman dies it’s drama.

1.2 million men have died fighting for this country. Most of those were conscripts who were forced into service. I bet more people know who Susan B. Anthony is than know that statistic.

Are women more likely to be poor? No. In fact divorced women with children have a higher net worth than their ex-husbands. Why? Because while the man makes more he’s obligated by patriarchy and the courts to give more of his money to his ex-wife. Interesting how when patriarchy confers a definite benefit to women ya’ll get real quiet about it.

Tell me; if retail merchants are willing to devote 70% of their floor space to female specific merchandise how is it that women are more poor than men?

What’s more is that women are not as likely to fall completely through the cracks to the bottom. 85% of homeless are men. Isn’t that a funny bit of irony? Fewer women work and many make less money yet many more men are homeless.

Women also haven’t been legally forced from their homes and conscripted into service. Then shipped far away to fight, kill, and die so that others may enjoy the fruits of democracy. And then when they return denied adequate medical and psychological treatment to heal from their wounds.

Women aren’t oppressed by patriarchy? Take an objective look at the male physical form and the female physical form.

And then ask yourself these questions:
1. Which body was bred for 1000′s of years to do hard labor?
2. Which body was bred to fight and die and suffer hardship and deprivations?
3. Which body is most likely to wear clothing for leisure rather than work?
4. Which body is more likely to be bathed in fine fragrances and enjoy a spa treatment?
5. Which body is most likely to belong to a coal miner, garbage collector, sewer worker, or convicted criminal?
6. Which body would you more likely expect to die to protect you?
7. Which body is more likely to reproduce?
8. Which body is more likely to have a court deny him/her access to his/her children?
9. Which body is more likely to be relegated to the status of “financial slave”?
10. If both bodies committed the same crime under the same circumstances which body is more likely to be convicted and receive a harsher punishment?

Mike Lew has a nice chapter in his book “Victims No Longer” (a book for and about male survivors of sexual abuse) on the feminist movement. He writes:

“I believe that men recovering from sexual abuse have no greater ally than the feminist movement…. Society at large (including mental health professionals) finds it less stressful to look the other way [from sexual abuse]. Proponents of feminist criticism haven’t permitted this ostrichlike denial. They continue to insist that we deal with the realities of many important life issues, including child abuse. They forced recognition of these issues in the face of resistance and misunderstanding. It is no accident that only recently has the sexual abuse of boys and girls become a topic of widespread public discussion. Years of struggle by feminists set the stage.” (pgs36-37)

The idea that men can be victims of domestic violence, of sexual violence, of abuse, is slowly being recognized because the feminist movement has forced society to reexamine traditional gender constructions and the nature and existence of abuse. Feminism is good for men and for women, and I think it is important to remember that some of the statistics you bring up (the concept of men as victims of domestic violence, for instance) would be laughed off as nonsense were it not for the efforts of the feminist movement.

As for your statistics — yes men are victims. Men are also largely the perpetrators, and I think it’s important to show THAT side as well. This makes the equation pretty simple for women. In violence against women, the perpetrators are almost always male. The reverse is almost never true. There is clearly one privileged class here, one oppressed class. The oppressed class is the one getting killed, raped, abused. Obviously, in male/female interactions of violence, there is a general trend. Men have power and privilege.

When you have statistics about men doing violence to men, those do not in any way negate the privileged status of men in their interactions with women. You see?

Re: Domestic violence, yes there are some studies that show equal percentages of violent incidents. Many of these incidents are minor, however (pushing, shoving, slapping). Yet when you look at statistics about extreme violence (murder, rape, hospitalization), you’ll see there is a severe gender imbalance. Men are nearly always perpetrators and women are frequently murdered by a spouse.

Men’s suffering is considered less important and not their primary concern, because such suffering is usually at the hands of other men. I struggled with that a bit, but I take the point.

I’m a white male. I don’t own a big car, I don’t run a company, and I haven’t exploited anyone for financial, sexual or emotional gain. I have never been accused of being racist or sexist. And more importantly, I never asked to be a white male. I’m aware that I may have done some of these things unintentionally and thus, cannot remember when, why, where or whom I was being sexist or racist but I feel nearly all of us have done something that may have been treated as sexist or racist at some point. Maybe by mistake or ignorance.

It seemed this article and subsequent posts by others ended up as being some kind of competition to see who has been more wronged by “society” and “The Man”. And I feel that misses the point. Especially because the moment an average white male starts talking about issues regarding races and genders different from his own, the opinion is taken to mean less and less by those he is trying to understand. It seems the male has to show his colours by claiming his strong feminist roots before being able to be taken wholly seriously. yet many on here have done exactly the same thing when looking at the male section of society.

I guess, depending on gender and race, we as individuals are more sensitive to seeing bias in outside opinions on our particular pigeon-hole in society. So whilst I agree that stereotyping females, and people of different races from our own is bad, I find it strange that some have forgotten this, and actively stereotype and look down upon white males and the opinions they offer.

I’m not saying all men are good and kind and wholesome, but I’m also not saying that all men are bad, exploitative and ignorant of sexism either: just like I cannot say for a fact that all women are harder workers than men. So maybe the point of this article and subsequent posts was to highlight sexism in terms that a white male could understand by being inflammatory, and at times, sexist. A “taste of your own medicine” kind of thing.

I understand that I may have missed the point a little like others before me on this page but I hope you will at least read this with the knowledge that I’m not looking for an argument, I just wish to clarify a few points that I’m unsure about.

For example, in today’s world, I do worry about whether the female and ethnic groups at work believe that I got my job today because I’m a white male. Because I cannot be certain that they haven’t developed opinions and stereotypes of white males that actively influence their opinion on my worth as a fellow employee. yet i feel just mentioning that might offend.

The main problem I have with understanding all of the points about white/ male privilege is that I have encountered statistics that tell another side to the story. Whilst I don’t wish to anger anyone who has been a victim of intrusive and sexual violence, there are other crimes out there which males are far more likely to be a victim of.

“Because of time restraints I will just post the links to the statistics and quote directly from them.

“DURHAM, N.H. — A 32-nation study of violence against dating partners by university partners found that about a third had been violent, and most incidents of partner violence involve violence by both the man and woman, according to Murray Straus, founder and co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. The second largest category was couples where the female partner was the only one to carry about physical attacks, not the male partner.”

http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2006/may/em_060519male.cfm?type=n 2006

But an important point to note is that the violence inflicted by women causes lower amounts of injury. yet it also does point out that women are committing assaults on their domestic partners too, apparently more than men.

“Males were almost 4 times more likely than females to be murdered in 2005.”

“Males were almost 10 times more likely than females to commit murder in 2005.”

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm

I just feel that if the murder rates are so much higher than of females that maybe there is more to the situation than first meets the eye and that some privileges held (maybe unintentionally) by males may have far more sinister undertones that we may realise.

“Women are seven to 14 times more likely than men to report suffering severe physical assaults from an intimate partner.”

http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/

An interesting and horrifying statistic, which either highlights the fact that women have a higher probability to encounter severe physical assaults from their partner, or that men who do suffer at the hands of their partners do not feel it wise to report that crime to the authorities.

“Males experienced higher victimization rates than females for all types of violent crime except rape/sexual assault.”
Trends in violent victimization by gender, 1973-2005
http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/cvict_v.htm

I don’t want these studies and statistics to be treated as argumentative; I just want to be aware of the full and complete picture, rather than just half. Is it a male privilege to know that I’m far more likely to suffer every type of violent crime apart from sexual assaults and rape? Again, please don’t think for one moment that I think that the crimes a male might be a victim of are worse than that which women might suffer from, but I do think there at least as important in this context.

As you can see if you look at these links, I have ignored several statistics highlighting the victim rates of women, only because I feel they have been mentioned enough in the above articles and posts. Yet I encountered very few statistics pointing the other way in these articles, even though I know of their existence.

I know the whole idea of reverse-sexism/ reverse-racism that many white males call forth is an insult to the suffering of many who have experienced racism and sexism in its extreme. Yet I don’t feel I got the whole story from these articles on male and white privilege because it seems so selective. So I can’t work out whether the idea that white/male privilege is now getting closer and closer to being a thing of the past or whether I’ve just found the wrong statistics and studies. I’m not trying to argue that males suffer just as much as females; I’m just trying to work out where these statistics fit into the feminist stance on this subject. So if anyone could help me clarify this it would be much appreciated.

This is so true. I see it a lot in fiction. I’ll write a story with a mostly female cast, and people will point out the lack of men and suggest I add some. They will stress this as if it is a serious flaw. But I read literally DOZENS of stories that have only male characters (not a single female), and when I point this out as a problem I’m seen as being a politically correct nuisance. The double standard drives me friggin CRAZY.

And it definitely applies to race, too. I remember reading a question an interviewer asked Toni Morrison once:

Interviewer: “You don’t think you will ever change and write books that incorporate white lives into them substantially?”

Morrison: “You can’t understand how powerfully racist that question is, can you? Because you could never ask a white author, ‘When are you going to write about black people?’ … Even the inquiry comes from the position of being in the center … and saying, ‘Is it ever possible that you will enter the mainstream?’ It’s inconceivable that where I already am is the mainstream.”

Her answer is perfect. True of both racism and sexism. Ah, white male privilege…

I was especially struck by the points made about how absolute equality is often seen as ‘inequality’ by the privileged group (as is the case with race relations, as well). I truly can’t take men seriously when they complain about how ‘easy’ women have it just because we don’t have to get drafted and can cry in public; quite honestly, I take this sort of male whining about as well as I take white complaints about ‘reverse racism’ and affirmative action – with a great deal of eye-rolling.
Of course, I’m not claiming that men don’t have any difficulties whatsoever; on the whole, though, women have been getting the short end of the stick for too damn long, and I’m sick of people who turn a blind eye to it.

I admit being wrong lots of times – being able to do that is the only way to arrive at the truth. So I considered what people said and developed a better way to make my point.

No. You just ignore the fact that women work harder and live in greater poverty, while still claiming they’re “allowed to avoid stress and competition.” Two ideas which directly contradict each other, unless you have VERY strange ideas of what avoiding stress means. How hard is it, really, to admit that you were wrong, and that #1 as you had written it is the exact opposite of reality?

Also, everything ABW said. :D

Also, by not considering race in this list, you’re leaving out a lot, as others have already pointed out. What’s the breakdown for living longer than men race-wise? Do black women live longer than black men? Latinas longer than latinos? Asians? Bueller?

And where di you get this statistic from? Did the study that came up with this marvelous number have many non-white date-points (studies often don’t, unless their mandate is to study non-white people specifically)? Did they take into account the number of men killed that has nothing to do with their “stress level”, like those who are killed because of dangerous activity (being in the mob, frex?) or because they are in prison? How many men, on average, die from diseases women don’t get, like prostate cancer? Are they counted in the “women live longer than men” tally? Wouldn’t it be fairer to only compare women and men who don’t die from gender-specific diseases?

I could go on.

My guess as to why women live longer than men? Willpower. not less stress. in fact, more stress because women know if they die men will fall the fuck apart and no one will take care of anything.

Okay, that was flip and also an unfair generalization. But I do think it has to do with willpower – staying alive to take care of what needs to be done.

I ‘ve heard several times that men who are *married* tend to have shorter lives than women, but men who are unmarried have longer lives that women (who are unmarried, I assume). Maybe unmarried women are like “Gee, I don’t have to take care of anyone! Thank GOD, I can die peacefully.”

Also, women are SO not allowed to avoid stress and competition. It may not be the same stress you go through as a man, and it may be the kind of competition you don’t even notice because you’re a man, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Ah, Male Privilege, you never fail to entertain.