Tag Archives: male privilege

Guest post: Without a happy ending: what to do when no one else does

This is a guest post from Kelly of Underbellie.

Without a happy ending: what to do when no one else does

My husband works at an institution as a Big Important Computer Guy. Over the last week he’s been getting calls from one of the librarians that a computer user had been repeatedly caught viewing pornography on the computers (this is illegal use of state facilities). The librarian had kicked the young man out, but he kept coming back – only to view more porn. What disturbed the librarian was the (seemingly) unflappable repeat offenses despite what was obviously against the rules. The fellow just kept doing it.

Today my husband was able to take “snapshots” of his browser history without actually visiting the sites — not only sites like pussy.com but, in my husband’s view, more disturbing Yahoo Answers submissions. (As my husband put it: “Lots of entitled, frustrated male stuff.”)

Having finally received enough information to document the violation of policy, he locks the user account and instructs the staff to have the man contact him when he next tries — and fails — to log on. The fellow is soon escorted into my husband’s office, where, confronted in dry, by-the-book lingo about his policy violations, he asks “what’s the problem?”, showing no remorse or even understanding — and waits for things to go back to the way they were.

When my husband informs the Chief Information Officer of the offense, she reams the young man extensively, but then gives the go-ahead to reinstate his log-in.

While investigating the man’s IDs in the process of reinstating the account, one of which has been obviously modified, he learns that another lab worker, E., a woman, had a creepy encounter with this same young man just a few days ago.

My husband goes to head of security and relates the details of both the internet history and the incident with the lab worker. The head of security seems to take this very seriously and discusses the measures he’ll take; he informs my husband that when it comes to safety it is no violation on my husband’s part to discuss details of the user’s computer history.

******

And that — so far — is that.

I don’t want to get into discussing pornography and whether it is some kind of litmus to the harmful objectification (is there any other kind of objectification?) of women which is in turn correlated to the support of violence against them. Briefly, it’s my opinion that in a “perfect world” porn would be mostly sex-positive and rather fun; but in the world we live in porn is corrupted by kyriarchal and oppressive memes; there is a strong correlation between many straight men who consume typical porn and attitudes of oppositional sexism and rape apologism¹.

But please don’t let this be a derail: the fact is my opinions on porn aren’t necessarily central to this story because in this case what my husband and I found most disturbing were his repeat offenses, his Yahoo submissions, his lack of remorse or even comprehension when confronted, and the fact at least three women who’d had experience with this individual were disturbed and agitated by his behavior.

And what does my head in is how many, many men (and women) would have done so much less than my husband in a case like this.

So now my husband is home and he’s worried. He’s thinking of the George Sodini case.² He’s taken entirely appropriate and protective measures and put things in the hands of his superiors — but he’s not sure that’s enough. He’s conducted himself admirably (to my view), but he’s thinking of E. and wondering if he should talk to her. He’s worried it would be “creepy” (to E.) if he did.

At this I disagreed; my advice was to talk to E. and tell her briefly there was an investigation; then to offer – in a non-professional capacity — that if she ever felt uncomfortable and wanted an escort or any help, to call him and he’d come right over.

And then I thought of the times I’d been coerced and violated and the many men (and women) who knew or were there — and did nothing. I don’t think in my entire life any man, besides my husband and father, have ever offered their assistance in the way my husband is thinking of offering it to E.

And I thought of those horrible stories where — afterwards — people wring their hands and say, “He seemed like such a Nice Guy!”³

And I thought of America’s horrific track record of sexual assault, coercion, and rape.⁴

Entitled assholes (or Nice Guys™, see above footnote) are not the same as rapists (although some of them are, in fact, rapists). But, I’m sad to say, rape and sexual assault affect us all – even the genuine nice guys – and our silence and discomfort only serve to maintain the status quo.

So, do we like the status quo?

Can we live with it?⁵

I’m not holding up my husband as a hero and, on the flipside, I’ll be pretty pissed if anyone accuses him of not doing enough to stop a (potential) monster. I don’t particularly want advice given on what, if anything, my husband should do next – or if he should have never taken things as far as he did – because my trust in his awesomeness is pretty solid. But I note he took this more seriously than the other six employees yet (with, I hope, the exception of head of security), while still acting in his professional capacity — which is a fine line. Tonight my husband and I both feel a bit worried, unsettled, upset. But I’m impressed with him.

It worries me to think others — many, many others — might be exposed to information like he was — and do nothing.

“rape apologism”, Google search ↩
see: Collier Township shooting; for more analysis Kate Harding’s piece is stellar as is the brief piece on Soc Images noting that massacres of women are generally not considered hate crimes. ↩
“Explainer: What Is A ‘Nice Guy’?” at Shakesville ↩
Some statistics from RAINN. ↩
More rape statistics. ↩

11 Comments | Posted on 22 October 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy | Tags: Gender, male privilege, rape culture, violence against women

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The problem with “the problem with men”

This is how feminists get a reputation for being humorless: we fail to laugh at jokes or quips that serve the kyriarchy. Like the one I heard yesterday, from D, an otherwise dear friend, spouse of my sister-in-all-but-genetics-and-law.

He and The Man were outside with the Boychick and his cousin, watching them run through the sprinklers (well, encouraging them to, anyway: the Boychick was standing at the edges saying it was “too cold!”, while his cousin happily ran around getting soaked). D came in, and my sister asked if they had towels out there for them. D’s reply was “Of course not: we’re men, we don’t think that far ahead!”

He didn’t understand why I raised an eyebrow and rolled my eyes, and nor did anyone else in the room.

The Man would have gotten it.

The problem with “the problem with men” type “jokes” is that they serve to support the patriarchy-assigned sexist gender-roles. Although directed at men, and not women, and supposedly OK and “not sexist” by being at the expense of men, and not women, by supporting the limiting and dehumanizing gender roles of the patriarchy, they ultimately hurt women. Not to mention being incredibly insulting to men who have worked hard to get past said limiting stereotypes.

These jokes are especially problematical when about the incompetence of men in the domestic sphere, for by casting men as bumbling idiots in the home, it falls on women to pick up the slack there, keeping us tethered to the domestic sphere, leaving the public sphere, with its associated privilege and power, exclusively the domain of men.

So call me a humorless feminist all you like, but I fail to see why I should laugh at tired old sexist tropes that dehumanize and underestimate the capabilities of my best beloveds, many of whom are male, while ultimately reinforcing my own oppression.

It’s not that I don’t have a sense of humor, it’s that I’d much rather laugh at the patriarchy rather than with it, and that requires thinking for yourself instead of regurgitating the partriarchy’s old standbys.

You can do it. I believe in you.

20 Comments | Posted on 5 July 2009 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy, Parenting | Tags: domesticity, fathering, feminists don't laugh, Gender, gender roles, male privilege, men, patriarchy, Privilege, the double standard

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Raising a not-rapist

This post is dedicated to Ruth Moss, who put up two posts both of which prompted and contributed to this one.

In her most recent (because, of course, I never quite managed to finish my response to the older), she poses the question:

…surely in that Glorious Utopian Future gender won’t matter at all anyway? Why would I treat my kid any differently than a girl if he turns out to be making the journey along the “path to manhood“?

And the answer is, of course, that men rape (among other things; in this post I will primarily be focusing on rape, although this argument is equally applicable to the fact that men beat, murder, attack, and abuse).

Not all men, of course, or most men, not even only men; but, in overwhelming majority, rapists are men, and far too large a minority of men prove they are capable of rape.

As Ruth put it so well in the older post, the only way to stop rape is: “Men refusing to rape. That will stop rape.”

I have a son. He is a boy, who will grow in to a man.* He will have the potential to rape. The only way to be sure he does not become a rapist is to make sure he learns not to rape.

That is the difference between raising boys and raising girls: we need to raise both of them free of gender stereotypes and arbitrary gender roles, but to ignore their sex and the roles their gender will push them toward in society is as ridiculous a proposition as raising children “colorblind” in regards to race: all it does is reify the dominant paradigm, prop up racism and sexism and the entire kyriarchy, because we cannot fight what we do not acknowledge exists. In this case, that is the truth that some boy children will grow up to be rapists.

This is something a lot of parents don’t want to think about — I know I would really rather not. This is my perfect little baby we’re talking about! And he is; he is beautiful, and sweet, and loving, and empathetic, and caring, and absolutely perfect.

Of course, every baby is perfect. And yet, some men are rapists. Somehow, perfect babies grow up in to men who rape. It would be so easy, so reassuring, to hide behind the lie that it couldn’t happen to my baby, that I don’t have to think about that, that that only happens to those other people and their defective children. But that line of thinking is just another tool of the patriarchy, trying to defend itself; if it can just make us blind enough, we’ll do all the defending it needs for it.

No, the only way to make sure that my boy does not become a rapist is to teach him not to rape. And that starts now.

Ruth also asks:

…I do think we have influence. Or at least, I hope we do. Because I don’t want my kid to grow into One of Those Men. So where to start?

It starts with teaching him that no means no, and that only yes means yes. It means that even though his best friend is almost a year older than he is (just-3, to his over-2), and taller, and larger, and more energetic, and arguably more aggressive — even though she is all that, he is male, and she is not, and while I don’t encourage her to walk all over him either, I do insist that he really listen to her noes, or make sure he gets yeses, when he wants to hug and kiss and touch and play with her.

It starts with teaching him that I have boundaries and limits and needs, too; this is a tough one, because I also believe that the more a child’s needs are unconditionally met now, in infancy and toddlerhood and childhood, the better off they are for a lifetime. I encounter this conflict primarily when he needs to nurse (often it is a true need, whether for nutrition or liquid or comfort or sleep) and my body is feeling touched out. I’m not sure where the best balance is between these two needs, but I know we will both be better off for trying to find it together, rather than subsuming myself entirely to his demands.

And yes, as Ruth points out, it also starts with teaching him that his own feelings matter, that his own noes are respected, that those who are bigger and stronger do not get what they want through force and committing violence upon those who are smaller and weaker. Remember, the patriarchy creates rapists by raping them; it creates soldiers who can look at a person and see only a soulless enemy by first dehumanizing them; it creates bullies by bullying them when they are younger. The most revolutionary thing when raising a boy, then, is to protect and respect his humanity; not place his right to personal agency on a pedestal, or place him at the center of the universe, as the patriarchy does, but to ground him in soul-full humanity, help him grow up centered in his own being, capable of saying “namaste” to others because the divine is still in him to honor the divine in others.

In short, and coming back down from my culturally-appropriating neo-Pagan high, raising not-rapists means raising our boys womanist/feminist, protecting them to the best of our power from the damage the patriarchy would do to them.

I’m not saying I know exactly how to do all this. I don’t know exactly how to balance his needs for me and my need for me, or wanting to encourage him to be friendly with wanting to ensure he gets permission from others first, or his need to be fully human with recognizing the ways in which male privilege structures only him-as-male as fully a person. And I’m sure there are more aspects of this endeavor that I haven’t figured out yet. But I do think these are good places to start.

*Probably. The odds are certainly enough slanted to him being a cissexed male that I must, in this post and in parenting him, take certain actions based on that assumption.

10 Comments | Posted on 14 June 2009 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy, Parenting | Tags: attachment parenting, Best Friend, male privilege, patriarchy, Privilege, societal pressures, violence against women

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Men in massage school

Men are a minority in the massage profession, and in massage school. In my first class of 16, there was one male student (another one joined halfway through the class), and a male TA. Last quarter, there was one male student in each of my classes of 7 and 16 students. The teacher for the class of 16 was male as well.

This quarter, there are 4 and 3 male students in my classes of 16 and 14 (with one male TA in the 3/14 class), respectively.

Think “minority in a specific situation” equals “oppressed”? Think it can counter-balance privilege? Think again.

The school itself was founded and is owned by a straight white male. The number of (white — all instructors I’ve encountered so far are white) male instructors, and the positions of power they hold within the school, are disproportionate to the percent of male massage therapists there are in the general population. In our class of 14, when we self-selected (rather than going in a circle) to introduce ourselves, all three of the male students were among the first 4 to speak (I went third). When the instructor asked for volunteers to be on the table for a demonstration, one of the three male students was half a second faster in raising his hand than I, not hesitating in his assertion, if not aggression, that he deserved it.

There was nothing particularly sinister about either of these examples, nothing intentional. But their speaking first speaks to their presumption of importance, of, yes, supremacy. There was no deference, no fear of reprisals or of shaming. They spoke first because it never occurred to them not to. He raised his hand without a glance around because his internalization of his own importance is complete. It is oppression through ignore-ance, ignorance and arrogance. Thoughtless. Nothing. A lack of thought, of sympathy, rather than a presence of antipathy.

This is privilege at work.

7 Comments | Posted on 4 April 2009 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Kyriarchy | Tags: Gender, male privilege, massage, Privilege

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Why “presumably-straight”?

My friend Lisa asked in a comment on another post:

Why do you say your son is “presumably straight”?

It’s a good question, one I realized I haven’t explicitly answered anywhere yet. In thinking about it, it seems to come down to three things:

He probably is (going to be) straight. Even with a queer-identified mother (which may or may not affect the odds, and if so, doesn’t very much), he has, what, a 90-99% chance of identifying as heterosexual, depending on whose numbers you believe? So, simply, I use “presumably” because it sounds better than “probably”, and he probably is.

Although he probably is (going to be) straight, he might not be. Saying he “presumably” is straight is opening up the door to the idea that he might be something other than straight, and hopefully challenges people’s assumptions. Which brings us to:

In our heterosexist, heteronormative society, he is presumed by the wider culture (to the point of few even being aware of the presumption) to be straight until proven otherwise. While I do my best to resist this presumption, or to counter it when we encounter it, I cannot entirely do away with it, as much as I might wish. I sometimes feel I can hardly do away with it at all. The vast majority of interactions he has with others are and will continue to be based on the presumption that he is (going to be) straight, and this assumption/presumption colors far more than we are usually aware. Whether or not it turns out to be who in fact he is (he might turn out to not be a “he” at all; I could easily add “presumably” in front of male as well), he will be seen by most in his life as a straight white male (yes, even as a toddler; even at birth!), with all the privilege and roles and stereotypes thereof; and it will affect him, subtly and profoundly; and my only hope of countering the damage those role assignments bring lies in first recognizing them.

Thus presumably-straight.