UKC

This was shared to me on facebook. It's from American culture but it probably still largely applies.

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/male-privilege-trans-men/

In reply to Timmd:

Not remotely a surprise to 50% of us........

In reply to Timmd:

Bit more complicated though isn't it, because he fails to mention the reaction change from women.

D

In reply to Timmd:



Like most feminists they are trying to explain everything via politics while ignoring biology. Probably his feelings have changed because he is taking testosterone and that has psychological effects. He says he used to be scared of going out at night but now he looks like a guy it is safer and he can go out if he wants. Male on male violence is more common than male on female violence. It isn't that it is safer to go out at night when you are male it's that when your brain is loaded with testosterone you are less worried about it.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:
So, are you saying it's biology rather than politics, which is behind the general message that women should take care not to be raped?

Would biology be behind the pay differences...?

In reply to Timmd:


It's not such an outlandish claim is it? From an evolutionary point of view males spraying sperm around has zero cost but a small chance of perpetuating their genes. They can still go for the low risk/high chamce couple option too. Females getting pregnant without a male around is a high risk propersition for them.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


Interesting: got any data on that?

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

British Crime Survey data (so, authoritative) 209-10
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1...
says "At 16 per million population, males were more than twice as likely to be a victim of homicide than females (7 per million population) (Table 1.07). In 2009/10, 421 victims were male and 198 were female."

In terms of who the killers were
"For those suspects where proceedings had concluded, 91 per cent were male (263 suspects) and nine per cent were female (23 suspects)"

So, basically, men have much more reason than women to fear becoming victim of homicide than women in the UK. Overwhelmingly the threat to men and women comes from men.

In reply to MG:
What about the pay gap?

In reply to ericinbristol:

Aggressive, violent men are a turn on for many women possibly perhaps because the flip side of violence is security; not so keen when the aggression is directed at them.

D

In reply to Timmd:

Possibly. Perhaps more tenuous.

In reply to MG:
How might the pay gap be explained by biology?

Couldn't biology being thought of as the cause be a useful way of not looking too carefully into other possibilities?

Edit: I dare say nobody likes to feel as though they're a beneficiary of unfairness/inequality.

In reply to ericinbristol:


I'd guess it comes from a minority of men.

In reply to Timmd:


Try thinking about the fact humans are naturally hierarchical, tribal, patriarchal apes. Given this, it wouldn't surprise me if we ahave a biological tendancy to value males more than females.


If you like to think we have escaped biology and evolution I sure it could. But this isn't the case.

In reply to MG:

We have rather more developed brains and intellects than apes do, too. One might hope. Plus, there have been past societies where men haven't been the dominant sex.


You're at risk of putting words into my mouth, or thoughts into my head, rather.

I'm not thinking we have escaped evolution, I'm asking the open question of 'Couldn't seeing biology as the cause be a useful way of not looking too closely at other possibilities?'.

In reply to MG:

What do you mean by naturally apes? We were once but most of us can now avoid urges to take our clothes of climb a tree and hoot at each other!

In reply to Timmd:


We are apes!!


, I'm asking the open question of couldn't seeing biology as the cause be a useful way of not looking too closely at other possibilities.

I don't think so. "a" cause, not "the" cause.

In reply to ACollins:
You are pretty arrogant if you think we are very different in the sophistication of our behaviour to other apes such as chimpanzees.

We do tend to use things like rifles as well as hooting (e.g. football crowds), I suppose.

In reply to MG:

I can see there are similarities but yes I do think we're on the whole different. A human can create art, think analytically, believe in a religion, and communicate knowledge. Chimps can't do those things.

In reply to MG:


We're (probably) distinctly different in our ability to ponder like we do, and think about our own birth and death, and what gives meaning to existence and how best to shape societies.



So what could the other causes be?

In reply to ACollins:

Yes we are not chimps but we are not so different, and definitely heavily influenced nby biology in how we arrange things.

Chimps pass on knowledge and think analytic. Don't know about art or religion.

In reply to Timmd:


Some of it will be down to aggression and risk taking, some to not taking a career break to have children and some to unfairness and bias.

There are more men in the top jobs than women but there are also far more men in jail or sleeping rough than women, partly because of the same aggression and risk taking behavior. If you take risks you are more likely to do really well or really badly, if you are more cautious you will tend to end up nearer the middle. It is naive just to look at the top 5% of jobs and say there is an unfair preponderance of males without considering that there is also a preponderance of males at the very bottom.

In reply to MG:

Yeah I'd agree we're heavily influenced if not determined by our biology. Nice profile pic btw!

In reply to MG:



What about moderating behaviour towards a better society like humans can*?

*Which is at the nub of things, I'd have thought. Whether chimps or apes can or not, we seem to manage it.

In reply to Timmd:

Why don't people who write stuff like this realise that the wanky language they use makes most people want to scratch their eyes out. It's fine while they're preaching to the converted, but to influence people for whom being MGBGT isn't the most important thing in the world, it seems to me it's counter-productive.

In reply to Timmd:

For sure, homicide is a very rare thing in the UK population, among men or women - about 1 in 210,000 people commit homicide in the UK each year (e.g. UK population 2010 63 million: under 300 people convicted for homicide that year).

In reply to Timmd:



Population at plague levels, cause of mass exticntions, climate change, ozone depletion, ability to destroy all life? I'd go for chimps being better at society to be honest.

In reply to ACollins:

. Nice profile pic btw!

Thanks!

In reply to Timmd:

Were I a specialist in gender dysphoria I would question the giant elephant in the room associated with this article.

There is a high probability that the author had significant, persistent depressive symptoms that are hopefully being reduced by the changes they are going through. Many of the points raised could equally well be put in an article titled "How life gets better as a result of becoming less depressed."

As I'm not an expert I can't assert that with enough confidence so I'll echo Yanis' comments and say that this sort of preachy crap does little to help improve things for people and isn't going to win converts.

Then again I could say the same about almost any enumerated list of "truisms" and points about almost any subject on the internet. A pox of internet slacktivisim is upon us.

I'd like to rant a bit about some of the sentiment elsewhere but I don't want people to think I'm trolling those who favour the V.B. card.

In reply to wintertree:

Preachy crap - Really?

You do know that male privilege is actually a thing and not something made up?

You suggestion that this guy was a depressive and now they are better they are being treated better is laughable.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:


It's a made up term - as all terms are - that is used in a catch all sense to draw together many different - and real - inequalities that are largely perceived and/or evidenced as being beneficial to men.


Medical evidence would suggest that was highly probably, yes. I am not saying the author was, just that it is highly probable.


I did not suggest that they are being treated better. I just very carefully re-read my post and I never said that. You jumped to that conclusion.

However, the lens through which they view their world has likely and hopefully changed significantly for the better, and much of this list is about how they perceive the world. I don't want to get drawn into picking the items apart one by one and finding either scientific studies or internet slactivist lists that link the area where they have perceived a change as one where depression influences either perception or success in the real world, but if you want to call my suggestion laughable you go ahead and give me some counterpoints.

In reply to wintertree:
I jumped to that conclusion because you did imply that becoming a man has made them less depressed and has ultimately made them feel like the are experiencing this 'made-up word thing' of privilege. While it might be the case that they were depressed as a woman, to suggest they are being treated better because they are no longer depressed shows a bit of a misunderstanding of what depression is - it's not exactly something you show to the world whereas being a woman is something that is.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:


I may not be something a person shows the world but it can change how they show themselves to the world in various feedback loops with shifts in their perception. Massively.

I can think of yet more reasons that may explain the perceived changes in said slactivist list.

Either way a subjective list of quips from the first party adds somewhere between "zero" and "negative some" to serious efforts to change things in my view. An actual controlled study of changes of gender privilege associated with gender reassignment could however be fascinating, as would perhaps a reflective essay.

But no, we get more bloody lists of quips. It wasn't clever when Heinlein did it and stuck it in the middle of a book, and it isn't clever now.

In reply to wintertree:

You never did answer my question about privilege being an actual thing. I wasn't referring to the words to describe it BTW - I want to know if you agree that men are generally treated more favourably than women; they can walk down the street without being told to smile, wolf whislted and generally treated like a piece of meat; they are generally treated better in the workplace and on average get paid more than women on account of them being a man? This is what I identify as male privilege and I am a white male and it pisses me off that people don't know or otherwise ignorant to it and like to talk it off as some kind of depressive state of mind that women have.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Men and women are different. Most right-minded people want there to be equality, not withstanding the differences that exist. There are disadvantages to being a woman, sure, but there are also disadvantages to being a man but they are rarely discussed. I'm not suggesting that we do discuss them, I'm simply pointing out that one can't just point to the disadvantages of being a woman without weighing them up against the disadvantages of being a man to get the true picture.

In reply to wintertree:



Rather than wanting to find scientific studies on the internet to support your argument, you're asking somebody else to give you some counterpoints...which presumably can only realistically be achieved by them finding scientific studies on the internet...can it not?

Somehow that seems a little askew....lacking in consistency.

In a friendly way, if you can't be bothered to find anything scientific to support your point of view, why should anybody take you seriously, when you argue as strongly as you seem to?

I do mean it in a friendly way, by the way, as it's something I'de expect of myself in a discussion online. One can't have things both ways.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:


To quote myself


So I think I did answer your question. To expand; I don't find lumping it all under a catch all term and sticking the word privilege in there to be a helpful step to addressing inequality. It's not privilege, it's inequality.

It should not be a privilege to be treated with a basic level of respect and fairness in the street or the workplace, that should be the equal expectation for everyone.

Perhaps that's splitting hairs but terms like "male privilege" do seem to be associated strongly with this subjective n=1 withering and not with the actual evidence bases that are carefully gathered and used to justify the need for change. That is it's a classic sign of Internet Slactivism, which I am pretty convinced does nothing to help and just further winds up people whose support would help further the cause.

In reply to MG:


One of my favourite topics of debate! I would say that *all* human behaviour *is* biology. Whether or not you should look to a biological explanation of certain behaviour depends on the circumstances and what you want to explain.

And the question of "how should..." is very different to "why is it that..."


There's a big difference. A friend of mine recently wrote:

What makes us different is that we can use language to compare our introspective understanding of the world with the experience of other people. It's because of our capacity for language that we can transcend the world of animals and explore the world of ideas.

In reply to Jon Stewart:




And argue about whether a sportive is a race on a thread about motorcycle clothing...

In reply to MG:

I'd argue that they don't create a society in the concious sense which we do, in standing back and pondering how much help should be given to the struggling. How well actually do things is another topic, but at least there's an element of being human which is to do with such thinking, at least there seems to be, I think.

Are you saying that women should just deal with being talked over in group discussions, and being expected to clear up after work parties, and the many other points in the OP?

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

Yeah. Can't really get into the actual topic - seems like a mixture of obvious and wrong.

In reply to wintertree:





Do you see the term 'white privilege' in the same light as 'male privilege'?

In reply to wintertree:
1 I’m Suddenly Funny I’ve always been dry, sarcastic, and satirical with my humor. In Ye Olden Times, I was considered unfunny at best – and a bitch at worst. Now that I’m a short white guy, people automatically peg me for a comedian and laugh at the bulk of my mouth zings.

But nothing has changed. I’ve even recycled some of my old material that people didn’t find funny before just to make sure.

2. Yet I’m Still Taken (More) Seriously I’m still amazed at the amount of people that now immediately shut their mouths the second I open mine. Believe me, my ideas haven’t improved at all.

I’ve even tried to derail serious conversations with ludicrous stuff just to see what would happen – and I’d still be regarded highly.

3. I Rarely Get Interrupted I used to be interrupted so often while presenting as a woman that I in turn started to talk over people as a form of conversational survival. Unfortunately, because it became so ingrained in me, I still find myself doing it from time to time even though it’s rarely necessary anymore.

4. I Get Paid More The proof is in my paychecks. Actual, numerical proof.

5. It’s Easier for Me to Be Poor Aside from usually getting paid more, it’s been easier to find work when the person doing the hiring is a white guy. It’s like helping out a buddy or something.

6. My Clothing Is More Practical And better made and longer lasting and cheaper and less judged…

7. I Get a Ton of Free Passes For the record, I’ve never done anything horrific enough to invoke the all-saving phrase of “Boys will be boys,” but I often forget to watch my mouth in front of superiors and authority figures. And while I was getting into tons of trouble for the smallest thing through school and my earliest jobs, these days I can’t recall a single time I’ve been called out or reprimanded.

8. I’m Not Held Accountable for Keeping Rape from Happening I remember all of the rape prevention education I got, which always focused on how I should behave, where I should walk when, how to appropriately cover my drink, and so on. These days, I’m told nothing. Not even not to rape.

9. I’m Very Likely to Arrive Home Safely After Walking Alone at Night Assuming nobody is out looking to f-g bash, but that’s a somewhat different matter. It remains that I walk alone at night far more than I used to purely because I’m a dude. Put up my hoodie, and people have even been known to cross the sidewalk to avoid passing me.

10. I Don’t Have to Worry About Keeping an Eye on My Drink at Parties and Social Gatherings Unless it’s at a gay venue where there seem to be some questionable, creepy chickenhawks around, drink safety doesn’t even cross my mind anymore.

11. I’m Not Told by Strangers (Or Anybody Else) to Smile Not once has it happened since. Not once.

12. I Don’t Have Strangers Giving Uninvited Opinions About My Body as I Pass By (Or then expecting me to thank them for it). Again, not once has this happened in the usual, everyday world.

13. I’m Allowed to Have Body Hair ‘Nuff said.

14. I’m Allowed to Grow Old And likely will even be considered “handsome” or “sophisticated” because of it.

15. I’m Allowed to Eat Without Being Policed I’m actually still really damn skinny, but people no longer do things like judge me about what I’m eating or ask if I should be eating it at all.

16. My Abilities Speak Louder Than My Appearances at Work When I work on-site gigs, I tend to just wear jeans and a t-shirt. Nobody cares. It’s all about the quality of my work.

17. The Bulk of Porn Is Made with Me in Mind Well, the general sense of a guy who has any sexual interest in women.
Even “lesbian” porn is often geared toward the male gaze.

18. Older White Guys Treat Me Like a Best Friend Especially when I have to wear professional slacks and a tie, I’ve been amazed at how many strangers happily strike up conversation with me in this kind of…fatherly way. Their smiles are warm, their eyes are bright, and they seem eager to bestow any wisdom upon me that I could ever think to ask. It’s like I’m automatically their patriarchal protégé or something.

19. I Can Be a Gamer Without Worry of Being Threatened, Insulted, or Demeaned
The gaming industry is still very much a man’s world. Female characters are frequently sexualized, brutalized, and demeaned when they’re represented at all – right along with the female gamers themselves.

20. My Comfort Comes Before Anyone Else’s Nobody expects me to sacrifice a thing for them anymore.

21. I Have Significantly Less Sexual Liability I can now have as much sex with as many people as I want and nobody says boo about it.

22. I’m Allowed to Take Up Space – And Lots of It If I feel like spreading out on public transportation, nobody – regardless of gender – tells me to move over anymore.
They just act like I have full right to be obnoxious. (Please note that I’ve only ever done this for experimental purposes.)

23. I’m Not Subject to ‘Soft’ Sexism Being asked to grab someone their coffee, help decorate for a work party, or help clean up said party is simply a thing of the past.

24. People Think My Successes Have Been Made Purely By My Own Gumption I’ve worked hard, sure, but I’ve also had plenty of luck and help. People just don’t question my supposed right to be praised anymore, nor imply that I earned what I earned by playing some sort of card. My same exact successes are somehow now all me, all hard-earned, and all things that had absolutely nothing to do with the cultural system we have in place.

25. I Can Say the Most Ridiculous Things Imaginable And people will still think I’m right. Seriously. I’ve tested this.

......................................................................................................................................................................................
It strikes me as incredible that every one of these observations can be explained through him not being depressed any more, or explained away as being biological in nature, with the troubling implication going unsaid that this means they can't be changed, so I thought I'd copy and paste them to keep them in the forefront of people's thinking.

In reply to Timmd:


If I saw it at the top of a subjective n=1 quip list then I would... Can't say I think singling out one artificial group and sticking labels on them is going to help fix the problems that underlie inequality. There's a big difference between unconscious bias and privilege; going round pissing off those you need to win over doesn't help.

In reply to wintertree:

As a white person, I wouldn't be remotely pissed off. Given that you would see them similarly, aren't you being influenced by the manner in which something is presented or written, rather than the points being made?

In reply to Timmd:


I didn't say I would be pissed off either did I?

In reply to wintertree:
I think there's a distinction to be made between inequality and white/male privilege. privilege is a recognition (by the privileged group) of certain things being afforded to one category that isn't to the other. Inequality occurs whether people recognise it or not.

In reply to Timmd:

As always from third-wave feminism, nothing but pathetic, victim mentality nonsense.

In reply to Jon Stewart:


Yes fair point. I suppose I was pointing out that the behaviour we evolved to have for our pre-agriculture phase tends to dominate how we still behave now. . We have only been farming for a few millenia so I doubt our make-up has changed much in that time, consequently we respond in rather odd, possibly unhelpful, ways to the modern world.


Probably the degree to which we do this is a major distinguishing factor, yes. But despite all these ideas, our behaviour (social structures, etc.) hasen't actually changed very much.

In reply to MG:


True in as far as it goes, but it totally ignores what Richard Dawkins calls 'the extended phenotype' - all of the apparatus of modern life, both physical and social, which is also a product of evolution, just as much as an ant's nest is.

As for the article, it reads like propaganda, so here' s a bit of balancing propaganda:
https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1723_48863927451...

As a case study to illustrate the point, one of my best friends is a transgendered biological female in her 30s who has elected to remain female rather than transition because from her present perspective (as I understand it) the costs of transitioning outweigh the benefits.

In reply to Andy Morley:


Yes clearly it is all pretty tangled and more complex than what we would do in the savannah but going back many posts, it isn't just about politics!



Pretty accurate! Those who get shat on by inequality aren't generally the ones we hear complaining about it.

In reply to MG:


Evolution is all about competition for scarce resources, and politics is just one flavour or facet of that competition. However it's the one that often comes to the fore in debates like these.

In reply to Timmd:

Just because something can be explained biologically doesn't mean that's the way it should be.

e.g historically, humans have eaten a lot of meat and developed because of it, but that does not mean that humans should eat a lot of meat today.

To accept the second premise does not mean denying the first.

In reply to Timmd:
How about this,- I drive along a single track scottish road, the opposite driver arrogantly drives through a passing place {which was on his side} and then we meet and he gets out of his car and blames me. He's about 45 -50. Now that is institutional sexism - got to be my fault because I'm female, and attitudes like that just come out in the heat of the moment revealing cultural conditioning ----I'll slaughter him when it comes to the witness statement from the insurers plus photos! I said nothing except lets exchange insurance details. True story....... You deal with it by ignoring it when it happens and use brain power instead to get beyond it. My daughter and her contemporary friends, male and female, seem much more equitable in their respct for one another at secondary school. Are things improving?

In reply to MargieB:

So true, so true....
Lost count of the number of male drivers that barge through on opposite side of road with parked cars. When we meet in the middle and I point out "we drive on the left in this country" male driver is always astonished that male privilege has not allowed him to ignore this.....

In reply to Babika:

This has gone all Poe's law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

In reply to Timmd:

I’ve been in this situation a number of times when a women will barge through. Must be sexism.

I don’t really think that is sexism, I think it just depends on the person in question.

Are you saying that if it were a man (if you could even see/ identify the gender of the driver at the other end) that the sexist driver was facing then he would wait patiently and let him pass?

In reply to Babika:

There are certainly people of both sexes who are unpleasant towards or talk negatively about the opposite sex. With men, they can be traditional/ conservative types or they can be sexually aggressive males in their late teens and early twenties (there's a bit of a wave of it right now). With women, they can also be traditionalists or they can be feminists.

In either case, by some subtle and mysterious process (with occasional forays into the not-so-subtle) those kinds of people of both sexes often seem to seek each other out, and I would say that they richly deserve each other. Meanwhile, the people I tend to hang out with are not at all like that, regardless of gender. That's probably because by some equally subtle and occasionally not so subtle process, I tend to avoid people of that ilk. But I'm not averse to trading the odd blow with you on the internet on an occasional basis

In reply to Timmd:

hahaha this thread is too good.

In reply to Babika:


And you know this is about "male privilege" rather than him being a selfish pr**k , how exactly?
I've lost count of the number of times I've had to ask a woman to move their bags off the tube/bus seat so that I can its down. They are always astonished that their female privilege has not given them the right to take up an extra seat.

In reply to higherclimbingwales:


I think this is one of the dangers when people say Privilege is a thing, you've got this the wrong way round, one type of privilege could be when a disadvantaged group sees the advantaged group as having power, not the way round you've got it. Even then Privilege could be said to exist whether or not anyone is aware of it.

But Privilege is an analogy, a conceptualisation, to express a fairly complex social power interaction. So although it's true that complex social power interactions are a Thing it isn't true that every conceptualisation of them is a Thing. The value of the analogy is the manner to which it conforms to the latter.

So in this list of trifles, most of them are just bollocks ('I'm allowed to grow old' FFS) , don't relate to someone's gender status at all and aren't proof of anything. It's an internet lolcat but without the funny.

In reply to Margie B & Babika:

I drive along a single track scottish road, the opposite driver arrogantly drives through a passing place {which was on his side} and then we meet and he gets out of his car and blames me. He's about 45 -50. Now that is institutional sexism - got to be my fault because I'm female

Lost count of the number of male drivers that barge through on opposite side of road with parked cars. When we meet in the middle and I point out "we drive on the left in this country" male driver is always astonished that male privilege has not allowed him to ignore this...


Not sure if you're being serious or not.
I'm a single male and I've experienced exactly the same type of attitude when driving along narrow roads, etc. Sometimes I'm on my own, sometimes with other males, sometimes with female(s), sometimes with children and sometimes a mix of all of the above.
The other driver is also sometimes a female...

In reply to Babika:



Are you serious? You really think that when someone male acts like a prick, it's because they're a male and exercising their privilege? Maybe they're just a prick? It must be very tiring to go through life with such a jaundiced view of half the population.

In reply to all:
" Generally speaking, men have fewer reasons (both statistical and tangible) to fear a sexual assault. This is what is being referred to by "privilege" in this sense. Men have a particular privilege not to experience this fear, or in other words women have a particular under-privilege (or lack of privilege) to experience it."

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Male_privilege

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

" Generally speaking, women have fewer reasons (both statistical and tangible) to fear a physical assault. This is what is being referred to by "privilege" in this sense. Women have a particular privilege not to experience this fear, or in other words men have a particular under-privilege (or lack of privilege) to experience it."

In reply to Yanis Nayu:
Disregarding the fact that it's a fallacy to say one thing doesn't exist because of the presence of another, Where's your evidence for this?

Also, is sexual assault not physical assault?

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

there were murder statistics cited up thread

the summary of which was men kill women, but they also kill men. and in far higher numbers

obviously only a very small part of assaults, but arguably the most serious part

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:
Yeah, but that's not the issue here. I don't feel fearful of murder when I walk home at night. pointing out that men are killed more often by men and men are more likely to be the purpertrator of these crimes is a bit of a red-herring. Sexual assualt is still physical assault and is something that many women are fearful of and it is something that men, in general, don't have to worry about.

Also, I don't think women are fearful of being murdered as much as they are being raped!

The number of rapes recorded by the police in England and Wales has risen by 31% in the past year to 24,043
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/22/number-rapes-police-england-...

Police recorded 550 homicides in 2011-12 in england and wales.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18900384

You see, Rape is just a little bit more common that murder!

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Swings and roundabouts

In reply to higherclimbingwales:


No, men have to worry about someone randomly kicking them into oblivion. Both are physical assaults. I wouldn't know but suspect it depends on the nature and context of the attack and the personality of the victim which is worse.

In reply to Postmanpat:

Do you honestly worry about someone randomly kicking you to death when you walk home at night?

You do know that Rape is considerably more common than murder, yeah? see my edited post - http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=617155&v=1#x8062001

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

Here's something to get outraged about:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2001/jan/08/health

Health is the most important thing right?

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

depends where i am- but if i'm walking through keighley after hours i pay attention to who else is around and whether they could be trouble. i'm probably a bit old to be a target now, but when i was younger i was chased by a mob of 20-30 people, and on two other occasions assaulted in broad daylight, all in the leafy west end of glasgow. not long after, a lad a couple of years younger than me was attacked with an axe and received head injuries.

so yes, i do have a healthy level of worry when i'm walking around in urban areas at night. and assaults occasioning actual bodily harm are far commoner than either rape or murder; but i'd prefer not to turn this into some sort of top trumps of which form of assault is worse to be a victim of.

so here's another example where male privilege is clearly lacking:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/19/number-of-suicides-uk-increa...

but it shouldnt be a competition to see who is most badly done by. there is clearly discrimination based on gender in society, and that is more often to the disadvantage of women; but that is clearly not always the case, and there has been some sloppy misattribution on this thread, both in the original link and by posters, of simple ignorance as sexism. that does neither 'side' any favours and reduces the argument- which is a real one- to a matter of trading caricatures,

cheers
gregor

In reply to higherclimbingwales:


I idn't mention death . As a young bloke in South London I certainly used to worry about walking home at nigh. With good reason, I was chased at least twice by groups of blokes probably not wanting to check the time.

Reported GBH figures are very similar to reported rape numbers. Less serious wounding are about twenty times higher. Before you point out that the crimes are different and have different impacts, I'm simply pointing out that young men have good reason to fear violent attacks, even if sometimes they are the instigators of trouble themselves.

In reply to Timmd:

Can we tackle the salary inequality thing, because there is another elephant in the room here, and it's called pregnancy and childcare, the burden of which on the whole falls more on the female of the species than the male.

If we assume that 'better paid jobs' tend to pay more as the employee acquires more experience, then if some employees drop out for a while - for whatever reason - and accumulate less experience, then they are likely to be paid less.

I understand that this may cause offence, but doesn't this account for a decent proportion of the gender inequality in salaries, especially in 'professional' roles?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I suspect quoted numbers are usually nonsense. It is illegal to pay people differently on the basis of gender if they are doing the same job. Childbirth and rearing , as you say, lead a lot of women to reduce their career expectations or hinder their careers so they are in jobs that pay less or work part time.

You would also find in "non professional" jobs that women will also take jobs that pay less or take less time, also for family reasons.

It can be argued that women should not be the primary child rearers or that pay should be artificially inflated to allow for this, but that is a different point.

In reply to FactorXXX:

I agree, there are all sorts of people who run past their passing places arrogantly. But my point, is the one I met got out of his car and blamed me instinctively. He did back peddle a bit after the heat had gone out of the situation but it is my personal experience,{ when he has so obviously made the mistake trying to force me off a road,} that I had to actually ignore/put up with before getting on with matters. The drivers that you meet probably feel a bit guilty as they force you off the road. And the ones i usually meet usually look guilty. This one didn't! It is just that occasional crap that gets under your skin. I agree with the above that there are types of people that give you that crap and best avoided.

In reply to MargieB:

But my point, is the one I met got out of his car and blamed me instinctively. He did back peddle a bit after the heat had gone out of the situation but it is my personal experience,{ when he has so obviously made the mistake trying to force me off a road,} that I had to actually ignore/put up with before getting on with matters. The drivers that you meet probably feel a bit guilty as they force you off the road. And the ones i usually meet usually look guilty. This one didn't!

I think you are missing the point. That sort of person would act in exactly the same manner to anyone they happened to meet. I've certainly met them and it wasn't always men that had the attitude that they were automatically in the right...