Explaining "Privilege' to Straight White Male nerds....

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This article does a pretty good job:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/s ... -there-is/

Not that it will remove any heads from any asses here, but still........

Some cracked articles along similiar lines:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-8-stupi ... ns-sexism/
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-gamer-com ... -bad-name/

Frankly, these are the types who can make me embarassed to be a gamer geek. They give all socially awkward men a bad rap..........

Here's the thing about privilege, there's more than one kind of it and one group does not have a monopoly on it.

I don't disagree that there are advantages, some of them very big, to being male. But I believe that there are also advantages, just as big, to being female.

And I believe that emphasizing the privileges that benefit one gender, while ignoring those that benefit the other, breeds resentment and prevents people from recognizing the very existence of certain issues that desperately need to be addressed.

There are no more 'privileged' people than the self hating hipster dorks that write on those Gawker websites and whatever blog websites. These are the same people that rail on capitalism from MacBook Airs, these are the same people that live as far as possible from these people they supposedly care so much about, they don't send their kids to the same school. So I don't really hold much value in the opinions of these people. They don't live in reality, they didn't grow up where I did or go to the schools I went to.

This whole idea of 'white male privilege' is ridiculous , we're all individuals born into our own unique situations with our own abilities and limitations most completely beyond our control. Physically, mentally, materially, family, whatever. We don't control that and you can't break that down into a white or male thing. Does anyone here want to seriously argue that I am more privileged than the Obama daughters?

Straight, white, upper class, able bodied male is the easy-EST setting.

There are entire communities in the United States where you can find wholesale, empirical evidence to the contrary.

It's an interesting article, but I'd point out that "straight, white male" is an overbroad description. Lots of people in this category have issues held against them based on heritage (who their daddy and granddaddy were) and race/ethnicity as well as locale of birth/upbringing.

More so, in life, you should never feel guilt or remorse for winning the genetic lottery in where you were born and with what attributes you were born with.

Only feel guilt and remorse when your gains come from willfully choosing to hurt others to achieve them.

It's not as much of a male privilege as it's a white privilege. For instance, you'll see far more college girls who live in houses and drive late model cars because a man pays for it than the other way around. It's also socially acceptable for a woman to cheat on a man (because then it's romantic and exciting), but if a man cheats on a woman, everyone cheers for his girlfriend when she scratches his car or destroys his Playstation.

Last edited by Kurgan on 07 Nov 2013, 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So, you could be a quadriplegic, but because you are a strait white male life is easy . The author of that websites mind must be fu@kt.

It isn't better being a white male, but it is easier.

I don't think he's saying that either. Its unfortunate that he chose to neglect social class and able-bodied-disabled status but i think he means comparatively speaking, you're better off being a white quadriplegic than say, a black quadriplegic.

Then only a fool would say that Morgan Freeman, Denzil Washington or Will Smith is less privileged than an old white homeless guy living on the concrete.

True. That's where intersectionality comes in, where you can't really compare an old white homeless guy with Freeman, Washington, or Smith.

So he is are saying is at least the guy is not black. Dang man that's racist.

Can you show me this evidence and what does it prove? Last I checked there are more poor whites than there are poor blacks and Hispanics. We all have different life stories and face our own unique challenges in life. Some might be born into poverty, some may face discrimination for one reason or another, some people might grow up in abusive homes, some people may suffer from illness. There are an infinite amount of challenges an individual can face in life no matter what race, sex, sexuality, or creed you are. Some by our own creation but most are out of our control. People that try make it into a white/black man/woman expose their own prejudices and agendas, people that do this because they need someone to blame for their own shortcomings and inadequacies in life.

By total number, yes.
By demographic percentage, no.