A different perspective on female stereotyping

[Foxglove]

Ah, sorry, I should have written that a bit clearer. I was basically rephrasing the principle of "male privilege" as described in the article at Kotaku. The idea is that all men feel this way subconsciously, because it is what we experience all the time in daily life. Because it is supposed to influence all men's thinking, and because there are a lot of men here, I used the word "we".

Have you read the article? There is a passage I think about why men immediately go on the defensive when someone mentions "male privilege".

Of course I have read all the responses. I just don't believe that being able to explain a behaviour is the same as being able to justify it.

Noortje, you’re not saying anything here that I haven’t been hearing all my life. Basically, what you’re throwing at us on this thread is anti-male stuff that comes from certain anti-male elements that have been around for some time, and I myself find them truly tiresome.

One of their most common tactics, which you’re employing here, is to lump all men together as if we’re indistinguishable parts of one vast male machine, so that if you find something that’s true about a few men, you can attribute it to all men.

“All men feel this way subconsciously”: neither you nor anybody else who’s ever lived knows what all men feel subconsciously. You don’t know me, for example, and you don’t know anything about anything I feel, consciously or subconsciously. So I will repeat: you’re not speaking for me.

And “male privilege”: Noortje, you don’t know me, and you don’t know the first thing about any privileges I’ve enjoyed in my life. Again, you’re trying to lump all men together. If a few men enjoy some privileges, then all men enjoy privileges. Which is totally wrong: your average Joe throughout history has been no more than that. Your average Joe, who goes out to work every day to try to support himself and his family and has never enjoyed any influence, power or privileges to speak of. If you want to talk about “male privileges”, you’re talking about a few boys at the top. And while you’re talking about them, you might talk about the few girls at the top and their “female privilege”.

And this notion that “men go on the defensive when you mention male privilege”: this is a clever little trick. If he denies he has any privileges, then obviously he must feel guilty about the privileges he knows he enjoys. This sort of trick is fairly commonly employed. Just last night I watched “The Crucible” again. If you denied that you were a witch, that meant that you were a witch and you were hanged. The only way to save your life was to confess to being a witch. Not much way you could win, was there?

I just don't believe that being able to explain a behaviour is the same as being able to justify it. Sometimes it is. Would you condemn a child for acting like a child? When you understand the reason for their frequently annoying behaviour (their youth), then you can accept it, which is close enough to justifying it. If certain CDers (like me) don’t always express ourselves in the best way that we could, and if we see that our behaviour is largely due to inexperience and lack of guidance and lack of opportunity to really explore ourselves and find out where we are, not to mention the immense psychological pressure we’ve been under all our lives, then perhaps our behaviour can be considered a bit less reprehensible. If you refuse to take these factors into consideration, I really think you’re being a bit harsh.

I’ll say this, Noortje—if you want to know why your thread has upset me. This anti-male stuff that you’re throwing at us and that I’ve been hearing all my life is just an attempt to make us feel bad about ourselves. We’re supposed to feel bad about “our attitudes”, even if we don’t actually have them. And I’m tired of feeling bad about myself. I’ve had a huge guilt-trip loaded on the feminine side of my personality all my life, and as for my masculine side, it’s heard too much of this sort of superficial and unjustified carping for far too long to take it kindly. I don’t have the attitudes that you say “we” are all guilty of. And so I refuse to feel bad about something that I’m not guilty of.

If it makes you feel good about yourself to plead guilty to having such attitudes, it’s your choice. But you don’t speak for all of us. You speak for yourself alone. OK?

Best wishes, Annabelle.