Time to Set Down the Tools

There's been some brouhaha recently on my second home, reddit, with respect to the recent creation of a "kinder, gentler" men's rights subreddit (r/masculism) whose stated intention was to build bridges of understanding and find common ground between MRAs and moderate feminists. Team up for equality! Yay!

A few feminists (mostly regular trolls of r/mensrights, but a few well-meaning ones) have already stormed off in a huff, citing the "rabid MRA spittle" of anger that "already permeates" the subreddit, after only being open for business a week or two, and others have retreated to r/egalitarian or r/equality after being forced to hear their beloved feminism maligned.

Some MRAs, on the other hand, accuse some posters and the head moderator of bias, intellectual dishonesty, intentional skullduggery, sock-puppetry, and an agenda of distract/divide/appropriate and thus conquer the MRM.

There have been complaints by MRAs regarding the name of the subreddit, indicating a degree of worry that an "ism" is, sorta by definition, based on ideological and advocacy concerns that don't necessarily conform to equality of rights between men and women. "Will masculism become like feminism, which has arguably become a movement with nothing much left that needs doing, but which doesn't know how to stop advancing women's interests for fun and profit?" Unlike feminism, the MRM's stated goals are right there in its name--and many members look forward to a day when they can declare "mission accomplished" and cease their work. (Personally, considering the state of things now and the natural, cultural and legal obstacles in the way, I'm neither holding my breath nor dreaming of drinking pina coladas on some beach anytime soon.)

I myself did not have high hopes for r/masculism, though it was difficult for me to articulate exactly why. Given that my SO was called on board to help moderate the forum, has had long discussions with its creator, and that he seemed cautiously optimistic about finding some common ground, I was really bothered by my misgivings, especially since it was very difficult for me to determine their exact source. He is...well, much more forgiving of wrongheadedness in others than I am, and has characterized me as antagonistic at times. And while this is certainly true--I can antagonize like whoa and like damn when someone is being obtuse or intellectually dishonest--I don't agree that allowing bullshit to stand is in any way correct or helpful.

My intuition was that I would not be able to participate on the subreddit in any meaningful way without having to don the mantle of "bullshit-caller" constantly, and after perusing some of the posts and participating in the comments, this intuition seems to have been accurate.

But it wasn't until I briefly discussed it with my SO yesterday morning, that I finally pinpointed the source of my doubts. When I mentioned that r/masculism was losing credibility with MRAs, he told me, "Seems to me that what MRAs want from feminists is an apology, and what feminists want is to not have to admit that feminism has fucked up or that they're wrong."

And while I think there is a grain of truth in what he said, I don't believe it's a true or complete picture of the situation. I don't think MRAs want an apology. I don't think they're that petty. What they do want is for feminists to acknowledge their fallibility, that they got it fundamentally wrong right from the start, and that they are continuing to get it wrong.

A quick look at some of the links and comments posted on r/masculism reveals that this is not something feminists seem prepared to do. Many links go to seemingly supportive articles on feminist blogs--blogs with other articles that are altogether different, such as this one, purporting to be supportive of helping male victims of domestic violence, which states:

I wish they had done a fourth ad showing a boy child as a future victim. Men are a minority of victims of intimate violence, but “minority” doesn’t mean “nonexistent.” There are male victims of intimate violence who require assistance, and there seems to be virtually no outreach to abused men. (The Family Place provides assistance to both female and male victims of violence.)

But the best evidence we have indicates that most intimate violence — and in particular, the most severe and harmful cases — are typically cases of men abusing women. Given that context, it’s ridiculous that Glenn objects to the depiction of women suffering from male abusers. It’s notable that Glenn didn’t work to have a new ad added to the campaign, reaching out to male victims of abuse; that’s a goal I could support. Instead, he campaigned to have these adsremoved. Whatever his intent, what Glenn’s demands called for wasn’t inclusion of male victims, but the erasure of female victims and male perpetrators.

...and which decry the efforts of the MRM as "anti-feminist", the tone being that "anti-feminist" is synonymous with being anti-woman, or with tearing down battered women's shelters, or with being against equal rights.

What MRAs want from feminists is an acknowledgement of empirically proven reality, and the above quote falls WAY short of that. What MRAs want from feminists is full concession that feminist interpretations of DV, rape and patriarchy itself are, and always have been, completely wrongheaded.

Yet when I mentioned to one commenter in r/masculism:

The entire feminist line of thought wrt rape being about power rather than sex is analogous to their views on domestic violence as evidenced in VAWA. The entire thing is constructed on the premise that both rape and domestic violence are patriarchal crimes--society-wide patriarchal oppression of women enacted on a microscale.

Both DV and rape (feminist interpretations thereof, I mean) have been held up as supporting evidence for the more general feminist Patriarchy Theory that formed the basis of feminist discourse on gender and power structures, privilege/disadvantage, gendered oppression, etc, and even helped to develop what many call "intellectual tools" for examining those issues (otherwise known as the feminist lens).

If there is mainstream acceptance that rape is NOT primarily about patriarchal power structures or views of women, and DV is NOT patriarchal oppression and violence on a microscale, it serves to discredit the entirety of feminist thought on gender, and on the nature of the tools we must use to examine it.

Feminist academics have a vested interest in dismissing all evidence that their supporting evidence is inaccurate or flawed, which makes their efforts to dismiss, discredit, disregard, manipulate and ignore the mountains of evidence wrt DV being essentially ungendered, very understandable (though no less malfeasant).

When you look at child abuse PSAs, the abuser is almost inevitably male, despite the empirically proven fact that mothers abuse and kill their children at a much higher rate than fathers do. While male child abusers do indeed exist, this mainstreaming of only one side of the problem poisons social perceptions of maleness and leaves women completely unaccountable for their (larger) share of the problem.

This is what we're talking about.

...what I get in response, over and over, is the same tired reasoning that it is "useful to examine" the different gendered motivations men and women have to hit each other, and how cultural views of women inform them--such as a woman who hits may feel like she's standing up for herself, or may not actually be trying to strike fear into a partner. Just more of the same--that men must be hitting for reasons consistent with the patriarchal terrorist paradigm, and that who knows (or cares) why women hit, so long as we can make excuses for them?

The CTS studies on domestic violence point to ungendered motivations for hitting. The only aspect of domestic violence that seems to be gendered to any degree is in the reporting differences between men and women--men are less likely to report being victimized (for a variety of reasons), men are more likely to understate both their own and their partners' perpetration (possibly indicating shame wrt both, or a desire to protect a female partner from consequences), and women are more likely to overstate both their own victimization (heh) and their own perpetration (wowza).

If domestic violence is gendered at all, it is in that as a culture, we teach boys and men that it is always wrong to hit girls and women, and we do not teach girls and women the inverse--in fact, we teach them that hitting boys and men is hunky dory, even funny, and an avenue to empowerment for which they will face no consequences, not even getting hit back. And we teach them that it is never okay for anyone to hit them, ever, for any reason, and if someone does hit them they are being victimized and deserve protection.

Is it any wonder then that woman will happily overstate their own perpetration? With the culture telling them men are fair game for a beating, and the law letting them off the hook for any bad behavior so long as they cry "victim", is it any wonder that they will overstate their victim status?

But no. The feminist paradigm of domestic violence as inherently gendered in its perpetration (wrt both rates and motivations) is entrenched in the hearts and minds of feminists. Men hit women because they view women as "less than". Men hit women more often than the inverse. If women do hit men as often, then men are less harmed by it.

Sigh.

How do you deal with someone like that? How do you find common ground? How do you attempt to do this and reconcile it with any sort of personal integrity or ethical dedication to truth? How do you attempt to find common ground with someone who refuses to set down the faulty tools they've been taught to use when examining what society, and gender's place in it, looks like?

Here's a snippet of conversation I recently had with a feminist man on reddit. His sally:

So what about 'women's lib'? not even 60 years later and I'm supposed to believe that everything[sic] that not only did they already achieve equality but they were the ones actually causing the oppression the entire time?

You have a long history of claiming that, and I can't imagine how you convinced yourself that. Trading protection from work, war, hunger, etc for being a sex object? Seems like a fairly one sided deal, no? Women get all these things and only have to give up one. That would be pretty oppressive if it was women who were forcing men to protect them. Is that what you think is happening? Women are wielding sex as a weapon to get what they want?
Is that because sex is a powerful weapon, or because it's the only agency that traditionally woman has?

My reply:

Both.

I've never said that women caused the oppression. Only that they benefited from it and encouraged and enforced it, because the nature of the world up until recently would have rendered the alternative far more oppressive to them.

His response:

Wait, so you actually agree with me that women's power in a 'traditional society' is derived sexually?

my head just exploded.

My riposte:

Women certainly had other forms of agency available to them. Those forms of agency, however, had significant downsides and obstacles.

Listen, monogamy was a model of human interaction that springs from the cave, and could be rendered down to a very simple and powerful exchange:

A man got a shot at fathering children. In return for that shot, he provided resources and protection to his woman and children.

The majority of human behavior--especially, but not exclusively, wrt male/female interactions--can be inevitably reduced to a few primary motivators--individual survival, the ability to successfully pass on one's genes (generation and survival of offspring), and tribalism (bonds of family, community, etc).

For women, sex wasn't the only avenue to agency. It was just the one with the best cost/benefit ratio for most.

And that was pretty much the end of the conversation. He had nothing more to say. In light of our subsequent conversations, he's not convinced, but there was no logical argument with which he could refute my own.

There is no room in his feminist worldview for him--even as a man--to examine the issue from the other side of the gender fence, or through a different lens but that of feminism. For him, a woman was a sex object, and this was the worst thing ever (even if it was her best option at the time and improved her quality of life--not because of men or society, but because she could not realistically bring up children without being dependent on a man's resources).

There was no thought in his mind for where exactly this arrangement left a man, wrt sexual and reproductive agency. How this transaction objectified HIM. While it is sad that 400 years ago a woman's primary value was her ability to provide a man with children, it is equally sad to me that a man's primary value to a woman (and to the perpetuation of society) was his ability to provide a woman (and her children) with resources.

Warren Farrell called it "success objectification", and it is every bit as terrible and restricting and dehumanizing as sexual objectification, and just as much still with us today. If a woman had to sell access to her body in return for a living, then a man had to sell a living for access to a woman's body, didn't he? If either party wanted to procreate, this was the best deal available to each of them, even if it objectively sucked.

And all feminism's talk of historical male agency...well, yeah, I'm willing to concede that on the surface, men had more options--a million different forms of wage slavery (in a coal mine or a foundery or a factory or a forge or a barrister's office or a barracks) to choose from if they wanted a ticket in the genetic lottery. But if they wanted a ticket, they had to pay for it with cash on the table.

It isn't agency if you have to do it. It's only a choice between one form of slavery or another, a choice to either make horseshoes or plough a field all day, instead of writing poetry like you really wanted to, because writing poetry might keep your own belly full, but wouldn't bring you a "marrying wage".

My adversary on the internet is wearing very special glasses, and those glasses only allow him to see certain things from very specific angles. Those things all have to do with how women have always had things awful compared to men. Those glasses make him believe that it was obviously much worse to derive power with respect to the opposite gender through sexuality than through being seen as a walking ATM. He doesn't even see the men who sacrificed their health and their lives, the hours upon hours upon hours of labor when they'd rather have been doing something else, in order to spare their women the need to make those sacrifices themselves.

Those glasses make him believe that even though women initiate violence more than men do in relationships, that women are still more often the victims of violence in relationships because their reasons for hitting are different than men's. They make him believe that poster campaigns like this one and this one are better than nothing, instead of worse than nothing because they are lying to us about the nature of the problem, about the nature of society--both pre and post-feminism--and about the nature of men.

And while many would insist that any help--even wrongheaded help--is better than none, that if a feminist believes men are "the minority" of victims of severe DV still deserve support then we should bring that feminist on board...it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Because that is not alliance--it's conditional assistance, and it is conditional upon them being allowed to go on believing the same lies as before, and spreading them, and feeding the problem even as they're supposedly trying to solve it. And someone who cannot or will not see truth, who is lying even when he believes he's telling the truth, isn't someone you can trust as far as you can throw him.

Sex, Lies and Political Agendas

A very good article over at the False Rape Society, on how women's advocates are harming victims by their spinning of the outcome of the DSK sexual assault case. I started to leave a comment there, but then it got kinda big, so I decided a post was in order.

Prosecution's decision to drop the case has been condemned by women's advocates as a miscarriage of justice. They characterize the system as one that demands a "perfect victim" if they aren't going to abandon her. This is a gross mischaracterization of the facts of this specific case. Nafissatou Diallo was not just an "imperfect victim", she was a "toxic complainant" who has a long history of lying, and has done pretty much nothing but lie from the moment she reported the alleged incident.

Credibility is important in a sexual assault case--more important than in many other criminal prosecutions. In cases of rape and sexual assault, there is often no physical evidence unambiguously indicating a crime was even committed. What evidence there may be is frequently evidence of a legal act, not a criminal one. The factors that differentiate the legal act of sex from the crime of rape are based entirely on two states of mind: those of the victim's non-consent, and the perpetrator's intent--that is, his (or a reasonable or law-abiding person's) awareness of the victim's lack of consent.

There are usually only two witnesses who can testify to either party's state of mind at the time of the incident--and each of those two witnesses have a vested and oppositional interest in the outcome of the trial. This means that in a sexual assault case, credibility is everything. Due to the ambiguity of the evidence and the biases of the only eyewitnesses, it should be more difficult to convict a man of rape than it is to convict a man of murder, or aggravated assault, or any number of other crimes that rely more heavily on physical/forensic evidence.

But here's something I bet you all didn't know (I'll explain why you probably don't know it below). The conviction rate for rape is frequently higher than the conviction rate for homicide. Seriously. The conviction rate for a crime where there is no unambiguous physical evidence, and which therefore hinges almost entirely on a jury believing one party over the other, is often higher than the conviction rate for a crime with a dead body, forensic evidence of cause of death, and physical evidence tying the defendant to the crime.

To suggest that the outcome of the DSK case means the system "doesn't work" is egregiously misleading and harmful. I'm not going to lie. The system works perfectly for neither victims nor defendants, but it's the best possible balance we can manage given the circumstances. And to characterize the dismissal of the DSK case as some sort of evil on the part of the prosecution is...well, I can only say it's batshit insane. Diallo repeatedly lied to those whose job it is to help her and punish the man who allegedly assaulted her. Then recanted her lies, only to present prosecutors with, yup, more lies. She insisted she was not after money, then launched a civil suit against DSK for monetary damages. She lied to the Grand Jury, under oath. She quite plainly proved herself to be someone who can't be counted on to tell the truth about anything.

Even more frightening to prosecutors was her ability to lie with "complete conviction". This meant that, no matter how convincing her story of a given day or week was, there was no way for prosecutors to determine if THIS particular version was the truth. The complaining witness was not an "imperfect victim". She was the justice system's worst nightmare. To go to trial with an alleged victim who can lie so convincingly that even prosecutors could not tell truth from falsehood...this could result in railroading a potentially innocent man based on the word of a woman who'd taken a tire iron to her own credibility.

As the FRS rightly claims, this case does not demonstrate that prosecutors require "perfect victims", and it is the women's advocates who make such absurd statements--not police or prosecutors--who are discouraging women from coming forward to report their rapes.

But I think women's "advocates" have a very different agenda from the one they openly admit to. As people who care about women, and care about rape victims, they should be doing everything in their power to convince women to come forward and report when they are raped. And yet they do the exact opposite.

WHY?

I once suggested on a feminist forum that my advice to any victim of rape was to get a kit done. Even if you don't want to report--in fact, even if you're positive you don't want to--getting a kit done leaves you with options if you ever change your mind. You can stand on the bridge for a long time before deciding to cross it or go back, but not if you've burned the way in front of you--and you do that by washing away all the physical evidence of what was done to you. Not getting a rape kit done erases all your choices, removes all your power.

Oh, the shit I got from feminists! That I should have the gall to "tell victims what to do! Don't you realize how hard it is? How small the chances of justice are? How victims are revictimized if they report? It's up to every victim how she wants to respond to what happened to her! She knows what's best for herself!"

I suppose it's just as well that I didn't suggest that women have a social responsibility to report their rapes, even if they don't want to go through the ordeal of pursuing charges. Go in to police, tell them, "I was raped. His name is John Doe. His DNA is in a test tube at Local Hospital. I don't want to pursue the case. But if another woman comes in saying this guy raped her, believe her and do everything you can to nail him."

Imagine someone implying that women have a responsibility to other people! I would probably have been crucified for even hinting at such a thing.

Sigh.

There's a pervasive and very public sentiment among feminists and women's advocates that it is pointless to report. That women should not trust the police or the legal system because it will, at best, let them down, and at worst, clobber them. At the same time, they inflate rape statistics, always applying the highest possible estimates on non-report figures (even when such numbers couldn't possibly add up), and including women who didn't believe they'd been raped among victims in surveys. At the same time, they deflate false report statistics, clinging to the insistence that false report rates for rape are ~2%, the same as for every other crime, even though a growing body of evidence places the rate somewhere between 8% and a staggering 50%.

They routinely compare the attrition rate for rape (the percentage of reported rapes that end in conviction) alongside the conviction rates (the percentage of trials that end in conviction) for other crimes. How many times have we all read that the "conviction rate" for rape is a "pathetic" 6%, when in reality it is usually 50-60%, and often higher than the conviction rate for homicide.

All while simultaneously implying there is nothing women can do, no way they can (or should) dress or behave that will minimize their risk, and that every woman is at risk because "any woman can be raped". They go out of their way to highlight a "culture of victim-blaming" that, in their view, applies solely to rape, when I would argue that we as a society are more likely to engage in blaming male victims of female violence (he must have done something to deserve it, he was probably a cheater, he probably battered her, she was defending herself), and male victims of female reproductive abuse (he should have thought of that before he had sex, don't stick your dick in crazy, if he didn't want kids he should have kept it in his pants).

Even when these feminists and victim advocates are being nominally truthful, they still spin the truth in the most pessimistic light.

It's like they want women to believe that there's a HUGE chance they'll be raped, that there's nothing they can do to prevent it, and that when it happens, not only will no one help them, but those responsible for helping them will only inflict more harm on them. To what purpose?

We're seeing the thin end of the wedge on campus now, with the attack on due process rights--the new 50.01% burden of proof, the barring of an accused from cross-examining his accuser, etc. Feminist's defence of this atrocious situation tends to consist of, "What, so it's a horrible thing that the accused won't be able to personally ask the accuser, 'Isn't it true you're a big ol' slut?'" when such a question would already be inadmissible in any hearing or court. Again, painting a false picture of the process as it was before this "reform" in the ugliest possible colors.

I can only believe that those who engage in this kind of scare-mongering and doomsaying have a specific goal in mind. I'm not a conspiracy nut, but here's how I see it, looking at the entirety of feminist discourse on rape:

• discourage women from reporting by telling them it is pointless, that they won't be believed, or will be blamed for their own rapes and revictimized by the system, that the police can't be trusted
• manipulate consent law to the point where even women who enthusiastically participated in consensual sex can be numbered among victims (consensual drunk sex, consensual unconscious sex)
• generate fear among women by telling them there is nothing they can, or should have to, do to protect themselves from rape
• generate fear among women by telling them that any woman at any time is at risk of rape
• inflate the numbers for underreporting, leading to a pervasive belief that rape is everywhere
• compare attrition rates for rape with conviction rates for other crimes, so that the public will believe the system doesn't work in rape cases
• constantly reiterate the erroneous 2% false rape "statistic", generating an erroneous assumption that women "don't lie about rape"
• define rape as a crime of "patriarchal domination" rather than one that has a multitude of different factors and causes--in other words, blame rape on "maleness" in such a way that all men are cast as rapists or rapists-in-waiting
• charge the discourse with emotional language that places "feelings" in authority over facts--i.e: "If she feels she was raped, then she was raped."
• characterize the necessary due process protections for accused rapists as an "infringement of female/victim's rights", even though the "rights" of complainants--female or otherwise--are currently greater in cases of sexual assault and rape than in other criminal case (anonymity is a privilege, not a right, as is the inadmissibility of an accuser's sometimes relevant sexual history)

Is anyone else seeing a pattern here? The last thing many women's advocates want is for anyone to believe the system isn't irreparably broken. Because if it isn't hideously broken, then there is no need to "fix" it or rebuild it. And if rape isn't everywhere, and something women must walk around in constant fear of, then the masses will simply never be terrified enough of it to enact the kind of overhaul that would lead to the kinds of "reforms" that are "necessary", ones we've already seen enacted on campuses across the US.

After examining the entirety of the rhetoric of sexual assault and rape from feminist circles, I can only conclude that the end game of women's advocacy groups is to reengineer sexual assault and rape law to the point where a woman need only claim a man raped her for him to be locked away for years. 

Welcome to Hell.

No Seriously, What About teh Man-Hatrz?

Okay, I just read something kind of encouraging on No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?

I mean, I do indeed believe it's time that the Sisterhood aimed some of its missiles at a few of the loonies who march(ed) in its ranks. It's long past time someone called out Mary Daly's misandry, transphobia and racism, her delusions of female supremacy and superiority, and her paranoid equation of Man = Oppressor.

But I'm sorry, ladies. It's too little, too late. I don't understand how you can't see this. You can't revoke anyone else's Feminism Card, and you certainly can't revoke it after their death. This is because, as I've been told time and again by feminists, Feminism is not a club with rules of membership, it's not a political party, it's not an ideological monolith with a rigid set of beliefs and ideals that are required of every member. Every single self-identifying feminist has a right to define "what feminism means to them". This is something I hear ALL THE TIME from, you guessed it, self-identified feminists.

Mary Daly was a feminist. She was a feminist because she said so. That is literally ALL it takes to be a feminist. And what's more, she had every right to label herself a feminist. And you, Doctormindbeam, have no right to take that label away from her. Neither by consensus, nor by fiat.

I mean, sure, it's a step in the right direction to try to distance a movement whose members--some of them, anyway--are in favor of gender equality, from those who are bigoted, hate-filled, intellectually dishonest and batshit fucking insane. But it's as ineffectual as the constant refrain I hear from other self-identified feminists that "not all feminists are like that!" or "no true feminist would advocate for such a thing."

The only thing that makes a feminist a feminist is an interest in women's issues and the self-applied label of feminist. A person advocating mass chemical castration of males for the protection of women is a feminist if he/she decides that's what to call him/herself. This is the way it works.

I mean, it's really nice of you gals to think about cleaning house, but, frankly, the place has turned into an episode of hoarders over the last several decades. What started out as a gorgeous mansion built on a foundation of equality, fairness and humanity, now looks more like Monster House. No matter how hard all of you work, and how many cans of Febreze you use, the place is still going to be filled with the lingering stench of the rotting corpses of dozens of bigoted, man-hating, self-labeled feminists and their cats. Mary Daly should have been evicted the first night everyone sat around the dinner table and heard her spouting her bullshit, not 40 years after she first started leaving her shit lying around and cluttering up the place with effigies of dead men. Certainly not a year after her body went cold.

Sometimes shit gets left to fall apart for so long, that the job of clean-up and repair is either impossible or not worth the investment. Sometimes the place has been left in disrepair for so long, the floorboards are rotted, the foundation is sinking, and there's nothing for it but to condemn the place and move.

And seriously, it's not as if you don't have your share of undesirable squatters sharing the house with you even now, stinking up the place with their more modern style of bigotry and misandry.

Some things feminists have been up to of late:

• Arguing to keep the gender-profiling and discrimination against male DV victims in VAWA unchanged.
• Lobbying--and succeeding--in mandating lighter sentences for female criminals in the UK.
• Lobbying for a shut-down of women's prisons in the UK.
• Asserting that Women as a group feel--and should feel--threatened by Men as a group.
• Arguing that despite women comprising 60% of university enrolment, that it's both "too soon" to do away with women-only scholarships, and sexist to consider men-only scholarships.
• Opposing the changing of retirement age for women in the UK to bring it in line with retirement age for men.
• Lobbying to lower the amount of child support arrearage that will result in jail time.
• Opposing a presumption of shared parenting after divorce, using language that demonizes men as abusers and portrays women as victims.
• Defending the practice of routine infant male genital mutilation, citing that it is NOTHING like female genital mutilation.
• Freaking right the fuck out because milk producers implied in their ads that men are the primary victims of PMS, because they have to live with PMSing women, while cheering Hillary Clinton's assertion that the wives, daughters and mothers of men who are dead, are the primary victims of war

These people can't be evicted, ladies. There's no feminist landlord to evict them, no condo association, no property management company, because feminism doesn't work like that. They get to live in Feminist House with you for as long as they choose to call themselves feminists.

When I talk about the problem of rape, I sometimes speak of the inherent value of what many perceive to be "victim-blaming".  That is, if there were decisions a woman made that led to her being easily victimized, it is not only appropriate to examine them, it's beneficial (arguably necessary) to the recovery process. And I've argued that expecting society to protect women while refusing to expect women to take some responsibility for their own safety, is a disempowerment of women. It is taking power from them as individuals, stripping them of agency. It is telling them they are objects that shit just happens to, rather than participants in their lives, and that this is the way the world should work.

I believe the way I do because if there's no other lesson life has taught me, it's that we cannot control the actions, behavior, thoughts, motivations, goals and emotions of other people--we can only control our own. And because of the nature of feminism as a self-applied, self-defined label, no individual feminist has any control over what other feminists will do in the name of feminism. You can't kick anyone else out of the club. The only membership you can revoke is your own.

I mean, how much time and energy are you people going to waste trying to sweep up after these people? How much time and energy are you willing to put into arguing amongst yourselves, trying to throw people out who won't go, tidying up their trash, running damage control, and picking their empties up from the yard so the neighbors won't think you're all a bunch of irresponsible jerks? Isn't there something more useful you could be doing?

And why the hell are you so attached to the word, anyway? Words mean things, people. And while the connotations and even denotations of words evolve over time, right now, in common parlance, feminism doesn't mean what you think it means. It has come to mean something else to a growing number of people who aren't feminists, even if they believe in equality.

By your stubborn and single-minded attachment to the label "feminism", you do more harm than you can possibly know. By refusing to abandon the house, you give every man-hating kook who lives there more legitimacy than they deserve.

Let me put it this way. Here's the Senate Judiciary Committee, listening to testimony regarding whether to change VAWA or leave its bigoted, anti-male legislation as it is. Many people are testifying as "experts" on domestic violence, and many of these people are in favor of leaving VAWA unchanged. Many of them are feminists. And they're saying, "Women must be protected. As a feminist, I implore you to keep VAWA as it is."

Then the head of the Committee looks out his metaphorical window and sees millions upon millions of other feminists crowded under a banner that says "WE ARE FEMINISTS". Unbeknownst to him, they are debating and arguing and nitpicking each other, and some of them may even be strenuously trying to convince the others that VAWA is wrongheaded and must be changed. But all he sees are millions of feminists, and some people in front of him who claim to be speaking as feminists, and all those millions of feminists on the street outside his window add weight to every single word those few feminists have said before the Committee. Even if he knows not every feminist is in agreement on every issue, their association with THESE feminists, in front of him today, add to the credibility of what they've said.

By calling yourselves the same thing that these misandric, sexist, intellectually dishonest assholes call themselves, you are giving a perception of unity of purpose with them, whether you like it or not. Every single self-identified feminist provided the ballast that a few feminist-identified nutbars needed to ram their mandatory lower sentencing for women through in the UK.

I hold a lot of beliefs that could be said to be feminist beliefs. I've written articles on women's issues that were lauded by feminists. But I see a lot of harm done in the name of feminism, too. I choose not to call myself feminist, because I don't want my presence under the banner to add any weight to the efforts of those who would do harm in feminism's name. If I call myself feminist, I throw my vote in with the defenders of VAWA, whether I want to or not.

I won't do that. Why are you?

How Feminism Hates Women

Part Three: Politics

Much is made of the fact that women are underrepresented in the upper echelons of politics and business. There are discussions of glass ceilings in the business world, and systemic societal sexism, all conspiring--either purposefully or incidentally--to keep women from these spheres of power and influence.

I once sarcastically posed the question, "I mean, what woman wouldn't want to work in a logging camp, living in a barracks in the middle of nowhere away from your family two weeks out of every three, toiling from sun-up to sundown in inclement weather, facing a daily risk of injury or death orders of magnitude higher than most other jobs? Sign me up!"

Considering the nature of the job and the sacrifices one must make with respect to personal and family life, no one questions the underrepresentation of women in these kinds of positions.

And while political office is very different than cutting down trees for a living, much of the reason women are not flocking to politics in the west is largely due to these same calculations of effort, reward, sacrifice and risk. Being elected to congress may be a more influential, prestigious and financially rewarding position than working in a logging camp, and one that is probably less likely to get you maimed or killed on the job, however, the sacrifices necessary for either job are much the same. Both positions require a great deal of putting work before family, and may mean not being in the same room with your children for weeks at a time.

Moreover, both positions come with enormous risk--not as many trees fall on political candidates as on loggers, but the weight of media scrutiny into one's life, and the ever-present understanding that all your efforts could well be for naught come election day...these are considerations everyone makes before entering the political sphere. For women more often than for men, the risk and sacrifice of running for office is simply too high. And women cannot get elected to public office if they do not run for public office.

Because political office is an elected position, the number of women elected is based almost entirely on freedom of choice. First, on an individual woman's decision to run for office, and second, on the electorate's collective decision to elect her. In both cases, women have a great deal of power. Practically any woman can throw her hat in the ring, and women comprise the majority of voters in virtually every election since who knows when.

However, much is often made of the fact that when women DO run, they are less likely to be elected. It is often observed that both women and men do not trust women in positions of leadership and power.

I'd actually be quite interested in seeing some data on a woman's likelihood of being elected when she does choose to run. That is, if women make up 13% of congresspeople, and also make up 13% of the candidates running for congress, can any real argument be made that gender discrimination--either institutionalized or in the minds of voters--is at work?

But let's approach the issue of both men and women holding sexist assumptions with respect to women in politics as if it's a fact. The first question we must ask is why do these assumptions exist?

I've often been told that perception is reality. We must perceive our leaders as strong, capable and responsible. And while patriarchal assumptions of Women as having none of these qualities may still linger in many of us, what is being done to counter these assumptions, and what is being done to reinforce them? Is feminism helping Women in this respect, or is it hurting them?

Feminism takes great pains to tell us all that Women are strong, capable, responsible, accountable, intelligent, ambitious, and worthy of authority, leadership and trust.

But perception is reality, isn't it? And what else does feminism tell society?

Feminism tells us that Women are disadvantaged, need help and protection, can't make it on their own merits but need artificial measures put in place if they are to succeed.

These two agendas work at cross-purposes in the hearts and minds of the public. If there is a lingering sexist societal "why" behind the underrespresentation of women in politics, it absolutely does have something to do with most of feminism's focus on Women as disadvantaged members of society who are in need of protection and supports if they are even to survive their own lives.

Let's look at VAWA first, because VAWA is in the news right now, and as recently as a week ago, people with intellectual authority as feminists spoke in favor of keeping it exactly as it is. The gender-profiling in VAWA works against women in two ways.

First, it gives everyone the impression that Women are weaker and more submissive and timid than Men, and that Women are prone to making poor decisions--like staying with an abuser--unless there are supports and assistance and measures in place to not only make it easier for her to leave an abuser, but to even convince her that leaving is a good idea.

Add in Women-only scholarships, ministries and congressional committees on the status of Women, social safety nets aimed solely at Women, and the constant focus on the oppression (both macro and microscale) of Women makes it seem like women as a group aren't capable of even functioning in our society without help. And just as our experience with the men we know can run counter to our perceptions of Men as a group or an abstract social entity, our personal experience with strong, intelligent, responsible, capable women does not always inform our perceptions of Women as a group.

If I bought into feminist ideas of oppression of Women, I wouldn't trust women in positions of power, either. Someone who is too weak or foolish to leave an abusive husband, someone who focusses constantly on their disadvantage and how they are kept down, someone who whines about oppression of women in North America (especially when oppression of women is not the norm for the middle class women who talk about it the most), is not someone I would trust to be a strong, capable, rational leader.

Second, VAWA's exclusion of men from its protections and benefits only reinforces the idea that Men (as a group) would be better for the job of running a government than Women (as a group). Because in reality, men are just as likely to be abused as women, just as likely to stay in abusive relationships, are just as in need of help, and just as foolish in their decisions. But we don't see them that way, do we? Not as a group, or an abstract social entity. We see them as capable of taking care of themselves, of succeeding (or failing) on their own merits, and of being responsible for their own decisions no matter how bad those decisions are. 

VAWA, and much of feminist thought and activism, also demonizes male dominance. But by demonizing it, they only emphasize it. If Men are the oppressors in our society, well, oppressors are strong. The oppressed are weak. Weakness is not an attractive characteristic in a leader, is it?

Men are seen as strong and capable because they must be in our society. The objective Truth is a little different from our perception, though. Men are indeed oppressed and disadvantaged in many ways, and need help and support in many ways, but we don't see it because no one--especially feminists--is willing to acknowledge it. In this regard, because not only are Men forced to succeed without artificial help or support, but even the weakest, most unsuccessful of men are simply seen as not needing anything from the rest of us, well, we have an impression that Men are strong, capable, have merit, and would be good leaders.

The same gendered perceptions of Men and Women that inform the entirety of VAWA are what tell us all as a society that Men are capable leaders and Women are not.

Now let's look at the Skepchick elevator debacle, and how this informs public perceptions of Men and Women. Here we have a million people talking constantly about the oppression of Women in a society where that oppression simply isn't a concrete reality for most white, middle class women today.

Hell, if even an intelligent, white, successful, fairly privileged woman can't stand to be hit on (maybe) in an elevator without it turning into a huge internet kerfuffle over how being in an elevator with a man is scary enough even when he doesn't speak...how the hell is she going to survive a televised political debate? She felt threatened, a feeling which she is entitled to, but that feeling was not only informed by her perceptions of Men as aggressive and dominant and dangerous, but by her own perceptions of Women (and herself) as defenceless, small, powerless, in need of protection and incapable of even keeping themselves safe. Hundreds of people--mostly feminists--chimed in that it was entirely appropriate for her to feel this way. That is, hundreds of people chimed in to agree that Women are defenceless, small, powerless, in need of protection and incapable of even keeping themselves safe.

Contrast this to our perceptions and expectations of Men. Men, even though they are twice as likely to be victims of violent assaults, are not perceived in this way. A man in Rebecca Watson's position in an elevator may have felt the same level of threat, but he'd be expected to just deal with it. Why? Because Men are strong, capable, and responsible for taking care of themselves, even if an individual man might feel the same level of fear and be facing the same amount of objective physical risk in a given situation.

The fact that this ridiculously small incident caused the uproar it did, with everyone now talking about how scared Women are as a class, how in need of extra consideration and protection they are...all this did was reinforce that Women do not have the necessary mettle to be out and about at 4 AM, let alone be leaders.

And then Richard Dawkins essentially told her to pull up her big girl panties. And the shit hit the fan.

Rather than be able to accept that some people disagree with her and believe she's making a huge deal over nothing much, she called for a boycott of his books. Someone disagreed with her and had the temerity to say so, and in response, she rounded up as many bullies as she could in a determined effort to ruin his career. She could not win her debate with him on her own persuasiveness and the merits of her argument, so she called in the marines and took him down. And hundreds of people--most of them feminists--agreed with her position.

How on earth can someone like Rebecca Watson she be trusted in a position of real power? What little power and intellectual authority she had as a speaker within the Atheist community...she arguably abused this power to punish someone for exercising his right to free speech. He disagreed with her, therefore his career should be destroyed. What would she have done if she had the authority of office and government resources to do her bullying for her?

And that hundreds of feminists agreed with and supported the boycott--"If you can't persuade him, destroy him!"--only reinforces whatever lingering patriarchal perceptions we have in society of Women as irrational, prone to emotion, vindictive when scorned, and eager to get others to fight their battles for them...and none of these qualities make for a good leader, either, do they? And yet these are exactly the qualities many feminists--both male and female--supported and reinforced as reasonable and applicable to Women when they threw their weight behind Rebecca Watson and her boycott.

So while feminism makes a great effort to tell us that Women are strong, capable, responsible, accountable, intelligent, ambitious, and worthy of authority, leadership and trust, much of what feminism does in its efforts to help and protect women tells us exactly the opposite. 

And while many people will indeed believe what they are told, most of us form our view of the world and how it works through integrating a multitude of messages that come at us from all directions. And in many cases, through its advocacy and activism, feminism itself has done nothing so well as to convince us that our old-world patriarchal assumptions are correct, and that Women are not fit to be leaders.

Freedom or Obligation?

Note: all stats pertain to the United States, unless otherwise specified.

-Among adults 25 and older today, more women than men have finished high school.

-Female enrolment in post-secondary education had surpassed male enrolment by the early 1980s.

-Due to decades of female dominance in post-secondary participation, 20.1 million women now hold bachelor's degrees, compared with 18.7 million men.

-Among adults 25 and older in the US, 10.6 million women now hold master's degrees or higher, compared with 10.5 million men.

-In the US, 57% of students in post secondary education are women.

-As of 2009, 58% of all bachelor degrees were earned by women.

-60% of students enrolled in advanced/graduate programs are women.

-In America's largest cities, single, childless women 22-30 out-earn their male counterparts by 8%.

Everything's coming up roses for women. Woot! You go, grrrl! 

Okay, here's something else to think about: Men employed full time work more hours per week, on average, than women. Many experts insist this disparity reflects that "responsibilities for child care and other unpaid household work are still unequally shared among partners." In other words, women would work more, if they could. You know, if they weren't stuck at home with the young 'uns and all, changing diapers and scrubbing toilets.

However, in countries such as Sweden, where generous paid paternity leave is granted in conjunction with maternity leave, men tend to take only about 20% of their entitlement, and where possible, transfer the remainder of their leave to their wives/partners. 

Consider this: when my ex and I were first together, and discussing the kind of life we wanted to have, we agreed that we both wanted kids, and that we didn't want our kids raised in a daycare center. We both worked in the same vocation (we actually met at work), and I had enough experience in the job to demand the same wage as he did. Still, I wanted to be the one to stay home with the kids for the first few years. That time at home gave me time to enjoy my children, to watch them grow and develop, and to give them the intangible things that money can't buy. It also gave me the time to get enough work done around the house that when my ex got home, he got to enjoy the children too. As a couple, we sacrificed half our income so we'd be able to see family time as something wonderful, rather than something onerous. It also gave me time to add to the million words of crap conventional wisdom says all writers must get on paper before they get any good.

When I went back to work--when my older two were 3 and 4--I pulled 16-20 hour weeks compared to my ex's 40 hour weeks, with us working opposite shifts so someone was always home. This was also largely my choice--no way was I going to work outside the home if it meant I had to hand over half my pay (or more) so someone else could raise our kids for us. In our low income bracket, between the savings I could generate by cooking from scratch, hunting down deals, and not hiring out home maintenance work, it would have made better financial sense for me not to work at all, if we'd had to pay for child care. When all the costs of working were tallied, the moment daycare got added into the mix, I "earned" more by staying at home.

As a single parent, I still only work part time outside the home. Between the 20 hours/week I wait tables, royalties from my four published books, and rental income from the house I still own in BC, I earn about $40k/year. My kids and I live very lean, but we're getting ahead month by month. I could, and arguably should, work full time--it would add over $20k to my yearly income if I did--but if I did that, I'd barely see my children. With two of my kids in their teens, domestic labor is not a serious consideration--they can and will do their part to keep the house tidy and get themselves fed, watch their younger brother, keep the grass cut, and they don't need anyone to cattle-prod them into doing their schoolwork. The only thing stopping me from working more is that I value my time at home and with my children more than I value money.

Other mothers can and do feel the exact same way. If men in Sweden are handing over their paternity leave to their wives...why are they doing it? Is it because they don't want to stay home and change diapers? Or is it because their wives DO want to stay home and read stories to their kids, cuddle them, rock them, bond with them, watch them take first steps and hear them speak first words? Is it because these women feel stuck at home, or is it because they want to be home?

Consider my sister. She's a medical doctor working in administration. She earns a fuckton of money, as does her pilot husband. They have four children and a full-time nanny/housekeeper to take the majority of the domestic burden off of them. My sister has consistently made career decisions that limited her income, advancement, and seniority level in her job in order to have a balanced life that sees her spending more waking hours at home than at work. She opted not to specialize in plastic surgery (as many advised her to do), because it would mean years of eating, sleeping and breathing surgery, only to have her biological clock start clamoring at the exact moment she'd be finishing her residency.

Even in administration, she has declined promotions that would likely have seen her earning 50% more at this point than she does now, but would also have required her to spend weeks at a time overseas, and 3+ hours more per day at work when she wasn't abroad. Even though, in her ginormous income bracket, the cost of hiring additional domestic help would be more than offset by the increased income she'd have received by making her career her top priority. 

According to feminism, my sister's choices are a big problem. My sister's choices have led her to earn less than most men in her chosen profession, and apparently my sister has made these choices because she "feels stuck" with an uneven share of domestic and child care "responsibilities" compared to her husband, all because of gender norms.

However, my sister's husband has also chosen his jobs based on the number of hours he can spend at home with the kids. Rather than a "glory job", he opted for a stable position where the number of hours, and nights, spent away from home was limited, and which would allow him to relocate as his wife's career demanded. In other words, he's made the exact same choices my sister did, for the exact same reasons, and he sacrificed a good portion of his earning potential to do it.

Watching them at home is like watching a well-oiled machine, each of them taking on the chores that need doing and spending quality time in the evenings and on weekends with all four kids. Considering my brother in law earns $20+ every 6 minutes, his hours in the air are worth WAY more than any extra hours he'd have to pay someone to do laundry, cook meals and drive his kids around so the burden wouldn't all fall on my sister if he chose to work more. But the time he gets to spend with his kids is worth it to him. 

I have a few issues with the way feminism weighs career success. 1) It assumes the only conceivable way to measure career success is through earnings. 2) It assumes any pay gap owing to women making different choices than men are a result of women feeling "stuck" with child care. 3) It assumes any pay gap owing to men making different choices than women are a result of men "being free" to make their careers their #1 priority. 4) It reduces children's relationship with their working parents down to a single characteristic: the obligation of domestic labor. 

KIDS ARE MORE THAN WORK. For fuck sake, what's the point of even having them if you don't get to watch or help them grow up because you're working all the time?

Blaming women's tendency to choose to spend more time at home on the fact that "responsibilities for child care and other unpaid household work are still unequally shared among partners," means feminism sees kids in only one light--as a burden on parents, rather than a joy. According to feminism, women work fewer hours because they feel they HAVE to be home more, when I'd argue that women work fewer hours because they WANT to be home more. Participating in your children's childhoods isn't a goddamn chore--it's a privilege, and one not everyone gets to enjoy.

Especially men, who often feel that putting their careers first IS the only socially acceptable way of putting their family first. 

Warren Farrell coined the term "success object", and for many men, this is what their value in the sexual marketplace and in their own families boils down to. Feminism believes men have freedom and privilege because they earn more than women. But according to Farrell, "men often feel obligated to earn money someone else spends while they die sooner--and feeling obligated is not power." 

Back in Sweden, where men tend to opt out of their own paternity leave after only a few months, one needs to ask why? If they simply chose to forfeit their leave and go back to work early, one might argue they wished to escape the drudgery of being housebound, changing diapers and scrubbing floors. But men in Sweden don't forfeit their leave--they transfer it to their wives. From this, we can assume that women not only want to stay home longer with their children, but that they feel it is socially acceptable for them to do so. And that even men who may wish to stay home during their children's first months of life, still feel pressured to go back to work ASAP, to not allow their careers to stagnate while they spend their days rocking their babies and smelling the tops of their heads and enjoying all the other intangible benefits that are not measurable by feminist standards, but which many parents consider to be worth more than dollars and cents.

And now to circle back to my original statistics. The feminist contention is that women make the career choices they do because they feel "obligated by gender norms" to spend more time at home, while men have the "freedom" afforded by gender norms to put work first. I would argue that it is the opposite--that women make the career choices they do largely because of the freedom current gender norms give them to make choices that are right for them, and that if men consistently put work before family, it's often out of a sense of obligation owing to those same gender-based expectations. 

And what does that have to do with women's overrepresentation in post-secondary education? Well, if women make the choices they do because it's what they want...well, in Canada, we already have problems with shortages of physicians in many communities. How will that shortage be affected when 60% of the doctors graduating today take a year off work to have a child, and when they do go back to work, opt not to spend 60 hours/week in the office, but to spend more time with their families because they have the freedom to do so? If we can't get more men into post-secondary education, many professions will be in for a shake-up. 

In medicine, everything from the number of available spots in med schools to the number of physicians licensed by provincial Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, is largely dependent on a traditional male "work-first" ethic that is going to have to change if we don't do something to eliminate the gender gap in post-secondary education. If male physicians tend to work more hours than female ones, it follows that the larger a percentage of women there are earning medical degrees, the more doctors we're going to need to provide the same services. 

According to feminists, this problem is easily solved by collectively guilting women into making the same choices men typically do. But is this fair to women? Is it fair to kids? 

And is it fair to men, who might make different choices in their careers if they didn't feel socially obligated to become "success objects", because everyone, including feminism, is telling them that money is everything and nothing else matters?

The Female Privilege Checklist

In discussions of social and legal issues, I have frequently heard feminists (and gays and lesbians and transgendered people and people of ethnic minorities and, well, pretty much any identifiable group) tell others to "check your privilege", especially in cases where other individuals offer viewpoints that differ from accepted norms. 


This can be valuable advice, when it is given in good faith. We should all examine not only the ways in which we are disadvantaged, but take the time to really look at the areas in which we have advantages others do not--even when those advantages are the result of measures taken by the law and society to alleviate a disadvantage. As I told the teenage busboy at work last night when he was complaining the truck his father had given him was several years old, "You should get down on your knees and thank your dad, you ungrateful brat. You know what my teenagers get? $20 shoes and a goddamn bus pass." He was offended at first, but after he thought about it for a while, he realized just how lucky he is and actually thanked me.


However, in almost every instance I see the phrase, "check your privilege," used by a member of a group that is considered to be disadvantaged, it is used to convey victim status in relation to the dissenter, and to shut down all discussion other than that which confirms the group's beliefs. Moreover, they will often insist that because they are disenfranchised by virtue of their membership in the group, there is no way they could also hold privilege due to their membership in the same group. This is so not the case.


Privilege is largely about the real-world consequences of stereotyping and prejudice. Stereotyping and prejudice may be disfavored as a way of determining the true characteristics of a given individual, and thus be a "bad thing"...but at the same time, they don't always result in negatives for the people stereotyped, and when they result in positive effects, many are entirely prepared to take advantage of their privilege. Consider: Asians are likely to be assumed to be bad drivers = negative effect on individuals. Conversely: Asians are likely to be assumed to be good at tech and math = positive effect for individuals in certain contexts, such as when s/he is applying for jobs in these areas.


And while privilege is a complicated thing--affluent, white, straight, well-educated, able-bodied males being "at the top" in most contexts, middle class black males inhabiting a huge gray zone with upper class, white gay males somewhere down the privilege ladder, and mixed race, overweight, disabled, poor, uneducated, transgendered lesbians stuck right at the very bottom...well, it all gets complicated when you start considering just who has more advantages and disadvantages than whom. 


It's a contest these days, and to hear people talk, everyone's vying for the prized spot at the very, very, very bottom. Discussions of race, class, sexuality, gender and gender identity, disability, economic status, education level, all seem to devolve into a bizarre exercise in "one-downmanship", where everyone clamors that they are a more victimy victim than everyone else.


But some things really are black and white--at least they seem so. When considering things like male/female gender privilege, you need only consider the bilateral--that is, how does one play out in relation to the other? That is, what privileges do men enjoy solely due to their gender that women of similar economic class, education level, race, able-bodiedness, sexual orientation, etc etc, do not?


And conversely--and contrary to what many feminists believe--what privileges do women enjoy that men do not, all other things being equal? I was asked by a feminist to provide a list, and I did. She dismissed it as a "failed experiment." But I wonder what all of you might think of my female privilege checklist. Feel free to suggest more in the comments, if you think of any--I'll update the list as necessary.


Women are requested to consider whether they can answer "yes" to these questions:


1) People are likely to assume I am a warm and empathetic person.


2) People are likely to assist me when I must perform a physically arduous task.


3) If my car breaks down or I am otherwise in distress, people will be more likely to stop and help me.


4) If I am being physically assaulted, no matter the gender of my assailant, it is more likely that passersby will intervene.


5) People are likely to assume I am a competent parent, unless and until I prove otherwise.


6) People are more likely to respect my right to be offended by inappropriate or impolite behavior.


7) If I yell, people are not likely to believe I am going to hurt them.


8) Dress codes in the workplace and in leisure contexts are more likely to allow me to choose clothing that emphasize my most attractive features and minimize those I am unhappy with.


9) I am allowed by society to wear make-up to make myself more attractive without anyone questioning my sexual orientation. I am given a large social leeway in the kinds of hairstyles I can choose that will flatter my facial features.


10) If I work in a profession that is dominated by the opposite gender, people are likely to see it as "heroic", or a sign of social progress, rather than that I am deficient in some way.


11) If I show weakness, the first response of most people will be to console or help me, not criticize me, ignore me, or dismiss me as pathetic.


12) I am not expected to make the "first move" when meeting members of the opposite sex for the purposes of dating.


13) Members of the opposite gender are expected to make the first move; therefore, it is less likely I will be sexually rejected by those I come into close contact with in a dating context.


14) I am not expected to spend a significant portion of my yearly income on a token that accompanies a marriage proposal.


15) I am less likely to be expected to spend a significant amount of money on gifts, tokens, and activities during courtship and dating.


16) If I am having dinner with a member of the opposite gender in a dating context, and I do not reach for the check, people are unlikely to assume I am cheap.


17) If I am having dinner with a member of the opposite gender in a non-dating context, and I do not reach for the check, people are still unlikely to assume I am cheap.


18) If I earn less than my partner, no one will look at me funny.


19) If I earn nothing and my partner supports me, no one will look at me funny.


20) If I am unemployed and my partner is supporting me, people other than my partner are unlikely to pressure me because I am "not trying hard enough" to find employment.


21) If I earn less than my partner, people are unlikely to expect me to contribute equally to our living expenses.


22) If I am skilled in activities/hobbies that are commonly attributed to the opposite gender (kick boxing, operating power tools, shingling a roof, knitting, scrap-booking, floral arranging), people will see me as admirable. No one is likely to think I am a weirdo or wonder if I'm gay.


23) If I am completing a task with a member of the opposite gender, it will be expected that they take the greater physical burden--such as carrying the heavier boxes.


24) If I cry or am hurt, men and women are unlikely to tell me to "suck it up".


25) If I choose to stay at home with my children while my partner works, people are unlikely to think I am a deadbeat, unskilled, or shirking my responsibility to my family.


26) If I choose discontinue, temporarily leave, or reduce my participation in a high-status career in order to spend time at home caring for children, people are likely to consider it a "noble sacrifice" rather than a waste of my talents. 


27) If I work and have a family, my employer will be less likely to require me to work overtime or bring work home with me. This will be the case even if I equally share domestic duties with my partner, or have outside domestic help (housekeeper, nanny).


28) If an employer claims to have "non-sexist" hiring policies, I can assume this to mean that members of my gender will be more likely to be hired, rather than less.


29) If I choose a career in early childhood or elementary level education, or volunteer to work with youth, no one will wonder if it's because I am a pedophile. They will trust me, even if they are aware that members of my own gender can and sometimes do use these positions to facilitate their sexual abuse of children.


30) If I commit a crime against children, even before details come out, people are likely to want to believe I have been falsely accused, was "failed by the system", or was somehow "driven to it" by factors outside my control (such as mental illness, poverty, lack of social services, childhood abuse), because members of my gender "just don't do stuff like that". It is unlikely they will automatically attribute my actions to unprovoked aggression or hold me entirely responsible for them.


31) If I am a victim of domestic violence, there are many services in my community that will help people of my gender. It is unlikely I will be denied services based on my gender.


32) If my partner physically abuses me, I will be believed by the authorities. Their belief will not depend on whether I have physical signs of injury.


33) If I physically abuse my partner, people--including the authorities and victim's services personnel--are likely to assume it was in self defence. Even if I tell them I hit first and my partner is non-violent, they are likely to wonder if my partner did something to instigate the assault, like cheating on me, yelling at me, or otherwise provoking me to lose control.


34) If I physically abuse my partner, and they reciprocate, they are as likely or more likely to be the one arrested as I am, even if my partner's reciprocation was in self-defence.


35) If my partner physically abuses me, and I reciprocate--even if I admit my reciprocation was not in self-defence but out of anger--it is unlikely that I will be arrested.


36) If I am divorced, and my ex-partner earns more than I do, it is more likely I will be awarded spousal support, even if am employed and self-supporting, than if our positions were reversed.


37) If I am divorced, the default assumption in the family court system is that I will have primary custody of my children. This will be the case, even if my ex-partner and I shared breadwinning and childcare duties roughly equally during the marriage.


38) If my ex-partner sues me for custody, they are unlikely to be as successful as I would be were our positions reversed. The burden will be on them to prove I am an unfit parent, rather than that they are more fit, before this likelihood tips in their favor.


39) If I am divorced, I will in almost every case be awarded child support. If my ex-partner does not abide by the terms of the custody/child support order, they will face legal consequences as serious as a prison sentence. They will face these consequences even if their reason for not paying is that their financial situation has changed since the marriage. They will face these consequences even if I do not fulfill my own legal obligations spelled out in the custody order to permit or facilitate their access to my children--my right to distance myself from my ex-partner is likely to take precedence over my children's right to involvement with their non-custodial parent.


40) If I am divorced and my partner is awarded primary custody of my children, I will only rarely be required to pay child support, even if I can afford it. If I am required to pay child support and I do not, for whatever reason, it is unlikely that I will face any legal consequences.


41) If I abuse the legal process during my divorce by obtaining a fraudulent temporary restraining order, misrepresenting my financial status, hiding assets, or otherwise perjuring myself, it is very unlikely I will be charged with a crime. In fact, my abuse of the legal process--even after it has been discovered by the court--is likely to benefit me in matters such as custody. Moreover, "the good of the children" will be treated as a reason to not penalize me monetarily--such as by reducing my share of joint assets.


42) If my ex-partner abuses the legal process in the above ways, they are more likely to be penalized criminally by being charged, or monetarily through reduction of their share of our joint assets. 


43) If I have consensual sex with my partner and we are both underage, and a charge of statutory rape is filed, I will never be the one charged. This will be the case even if I pressured my partner to have sex and they objected.


44) If I am raped by a member of the opposite gender, and I am not below the age of consent, no one will tell me such a crime does not exist.


45) If I am raped by a member of the opposite gender, knowledgeable members of the medical and criminal justice communities are unlikely to consider my body's involuntary and automatic responses to sexual stimuli as "proof" that I gave consent.


46) If I am the victim of a statutory rape committed by a member of the opposite gender, and it results in a pregnancy, I will have a choice as to what my parental responsibilities to that child will be. I will not be legally required to be financially responsible for a child that results if I have been raped by an adult.


ETA: 

47) irregardless of my parents' culture or religion or any small beneficial side-effects, I am protected by the law from any genital cutting until I am an adult and request it for myself. If I have been cut, my peers will universally agree that I have been a victim of a heinous crime.

48) I can openly state a sexual preference for members of the opposite gender who had significant portions of their genitals removed at birth, and not immediately be called out as crazy by most of society. I can request a sexual partner who has not been cut to become cut for me, and that partner would most likely not immediately leave me.

49) I can cite my own sexual preference for members of the opposite gender who had significant portions of their genitals removed at birth as the sole reason for requesting the same done to my newborn child, and my child's doctor will comply without arguing with me or reporting me to the police. My health insurance will even pay for it.

50) It would be career suicide for a doctor or politician to recommend cutting off significant portions of my genitals to reduce the chance of catching STDs or having other medical problems with my genitals.

51) There's little debate as to whether or not cutting my gender's genitals is bad.


***Please, if anyone wants to add more items, just let me know in the comments, like Beanie Appa did. This list is a work in progress. :)


When I proffered some of the second half of this list in an online discussion, one feminist scoffed, "Women's privilege is exclusively when we are raped, physically abused, or divorced? Wow, lucky me."


What feminists--and many groups claiming disadvantage in whatever area--don't seem to consider is that privilege is an inherently oppositional and proportional concept. In order for men, for instance, to have male privilege in a specific context, it requires that women's disadvantage in that context be in opposition in relation to that privilege. If everyone had equal status under the law and in the eyes of society in relation to each other, even if our circumstances were terrible, no one would be more privileged or disadvantaged than anyone else, right? Privilege of one group requires the disadvantage of another. And when you have gender privilege, it is the other gender that is, perforce, disadvantaged.


Feminists of today still see the wage gap as a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. Feminists believe that the wage gap is a product of sexism in the workplace and unfair social expectations placed on women. The more libertarian view is that it is largely the result of women's choices in regard to work-life and home-life, and that most choices involve prioritizing one thing over another, even if we may desire and value both equally. But whatever you believe, the wage gap has been narrowing and will continue to narrow, because feminists decades ago believed it was a problem, and other people believed them and did something about it.


Feminists may scoff that it's no great shakes to have gender privilege when they are being victimized, raped, beaten or going through the difficult and emotionally devastating process of negotiating custody agreements. I find it quite alarming that they don't seem to be able to look at the situation from the other side. That female privilege, by the very nature of what privilege is, lies in direct, proportional opposition to male disenfranchisement in these very same areas. The greater the female privilege, the greater the male disenfranchisement. And female privilege in these particular areas--sexual assault, domestic violence, divorce and child custody--is HUGE. And in some areas, it's only going to get huger as due process in rape cases erodes at the behest of feminists.


So in these areas where lives are often shattered, where people suffer enormous physical and emotional pain, where their relationships with their partners are dissolved and their lives turned upside down, and the their relationships with their children under threat, where they are charged with crimes or are the victims of them--where they are going through an already horrible experience--these are the very areas where men suffer the greatest disenfranchisement in our society. 

Way, way, way up at the beginning of the post, I mentioned privilege in regard to an Asian applying for a tech job. It's foolish to think that if he beat out a black or white candidate who was better qualified for the job, even if he knows it's due to stereotyping and the privilege that derives from that, that he will he will take the boss aside and say, "Hey, you know, I think that other guy is actually better than me. Just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I'm great at fixing computers. You should probably hire him instead." The more of a positive effect a privilege has on an individual, the less they are inclined to give it up. 


And in horrible situations, like divorce, DV or rape, how likely is any individual to say, "Hey, I think you're making your judgments of the situation based on gender privilege. I'd like you to be more fair to the man I say raped me and respect his due process rights"? How likely is an individual to say, "Well judge, you know, I realize everyone assumes mothers should get custody, and as a feminist I find that stereotypes based on socially constructed gender norms are harmful. So I'd like you to forget all that, even if it means I may lose custody of my children"? How likely is an individual to say, "Listen officer, I actually hit first. Arrest me too, please"?


Individuals take advantage of their own privilege. They do. And they do it all the more when the stakes are very, very high. Feminists--hell, all women--would be advised to consider what it would be like were the gender privilege reversed in these situations, if they suffered the same level of disenfranchisement men currently suffer in cases of rape, DV, and family law. 


If women were assumed by the authorities to be making it up when they make a claim of rape, and predisposed to believe the accuser if they themselves were charged; if women were assumed to always be the aggressor in domestic violence situations and treated accordingly by the law, and if women were turned away from shelters because those shelters only serve DV victims of the opposite gender; if the family court system tore children from their mothers because the default assumption was that custody should go to the father and your rights as a parent--even a weekend one--didn't matter to anyone... ?


If women suffered this obscene and unconscionable level of disenfranchisement in these terrible and potentially life-destroying situations, and weighed it against the current wage gap, which would feminists consider the bigger problem?