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This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege". http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklis

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege". http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek. Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the idea that geeks have male privilege does not exclude the possibility that there is another form of privilege that they lack that others have. Some other types of privilege that are sometimes considered are white privilege, class privilege, heterosexual privilege, etc. You can have male privilege but not white privilege, etc. In other words, privilege isn't simply a binary have/don't have thing such that geeks have it and women don't. You could make an argument that there is some sort of gender-stereotypical privilege that, say, football players share in but geeks do not. Is that where you were going?

rayiner 15y ago
That's a shockingly insightful list. I love #30: I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch. I've found that I can entertain a much broader range of personality tones than my female friends. You have to be an order of magnitude more aggressive to be an "asshole" than you do to be a "bitch." "Pensive" is a word you might use for a man, "moody" for the equivalent in a woman. I've never had to fight a socialized urge to defer to anyone in conversation, and certainly not to someone of the opposite sex.
- neutronicus 15y ago
  I don't disagree with your examples, but I do think that men are more common targets for the "creepy / sketchy" nexus of slurs, including the not-particularly sexualized varieties. The same goes for the "loser / choke artist" family, I think.
  - rayiner 15y ago
    Oh definitely. But when was the last time having a reputation as a "choke artist" negatively impacted someone at work?
    - neutronicus 15y ago
      Having a few indicators of being a "loser" on you resume - like, say, being unemployed, can put a damper on your career.
- Goladus 15y ago
  Men who are inappropriately aggressive get kicked in the balls, then get called a bitch (by men) or loser (by women). Alternately they are simply considered irritating and are ignored until they go away. If there's an equivalent insult in this case, it's "aspie." Men might be able to be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch, but that's minor compared to the other consequences that face by being aggressive. > You have to be an order of magnitude more aggressive to be an "asshole" than you do to be a "bitch." One caveat being that for men, balancing aggression and restraint tend to be learned early and if there's no reason to challenge the hierarchy there's no reason to be aggressive. Women, on the other hand, who are thrust into male-dominated environments without understanding the rules may fail in a variety of ways. They may fail to use appropriate body language. Their voice might betray too much emotional investment in the outcome. They may persist on unwinnable points where men would back down (iow fail to choose their battles effectively). If you've dealt with successfully aggressive women, they are rarely called "bitch" unless they are truly hostile or by angry people who have lost control and pick the first insult that comes to mind (see the movie 'Crash' for some excellent examples of this phenomenon as it applies to racism). Typically you will notice that these women are comfortable adopting male body language, probably have a deep and confident voice, and are far more emotionally restrained than average women. They are typically physically intimidating (a saleswoman or CEO). They are capable of aggression and assertiveness without being called a bitch because they have learned to do it in a masculine way. What women can't do is be aggressive without sacrificing femininity. > I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew Women who are loud in the way that men are loud are never called shrews. They are maybe called unfeminine but usually it's just something like "she's type A." Women who are loud in the sense that they complain constantly about small things and provoke arguments which they try to win by shrieking as loud as possible is the definition of a shrew. I think you'll find that's far rarer for men to behave that way.
burgerbrain 15y ago
Hmm, there are a few things on that list that don't seem to ring true, or at least seem to be leaving out large portions of the picture. For example: "41. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer." The last issue of Playboy that I have seen had more topless men in it than women. Perhaps the author is better at visually tuning out advertisements than I. Of course the same is true of the last... dozen? action movies I've seen. And then there are the issues of reproductive/child rearing rights, which are currently heavily skewed against men. A woman who has unprotected sex (or for that matter sometimes protected sex) is in a much better position than a man who does the same. In fact, in nearly anything concerning children in the slightest men are decidedly discriminated against. What is my point here? Real life is more complicated than a list or two might suggest.
- waqf 15y ago
  Right, and "22. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex." Supposing you are caught speeding down the freeway at 110mph on Saturday night. What sex is everyone going to expect you to be?
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    Or this one "25. I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual availability." Compare: A woman wearing pants. A man wearing a dress. One person is going to have their sexuality judged. And it's not going to be the woman.
    - skore 15y ago
      That's funny, but not insightful. I assume that with pants, you don't mean plain jeans, but a pantsuit (because this isn't the 60's). There are pantsuits designed for women, but no dresses designed for men. Even further than that - a dress is very specific to female anatomy in a way that a suit isn't, to male anatomy. The real issue, however, is that a woman wearing a suit is perceived in a certain way (as aggressive and, funnily enough, "only imitating men") while a man wearing a dress happens to be an often frequented motif in comedy. Finally, a man can wear a dress specifically to underline just how male he is, because "even a dress can't take that manliness away".
da_dude4242 15y ago
Males have the "privilege" of being the "stronger" sex. If you're not collected and emotionally unreactive you are abnormal/weak. Any emotional expression that deviates from a narrow acceptable range is abnormal. You do not need the same reaching out or emotional support of the "weaker" sex because you are strong. It's no wonder males have the privilege of being more likely to be isolated. Have the privilege of being 5 times more likely succesfully commit suicide. Being 10 times more likely to die on the job. Our "strength" gives us the privilege to be drafted into wars and be generally disposable to the hazards of society. None of this captured by your list though so I suppose it's irrelevant. "Weakness" in females signals a socialized response to reach out and support. "Weakness" in males signals a socialized response to stigmatize. Because after all you are privileged, why don't you just "man-up"? "Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the idea that geeks have male privilege does not exclude the possibility that there is another form of privilege that they lack that others have." That's my point. When is the last time you read an article about leveling the field of female privilege? In theory the idea of privilege is inclusive but in practice it's not.
- wanorris 15y ago
  > None of this captured by your list though so I suppose it's irrelevant. They're not on a male privilege checklist. A catalog of gender differences would be a different list. > When is the last time you read an article about leveling the field of female privilege? In theory the idea of privilege is inclusive but in practice it's not. I think most feminists would discount the idea of "female privilege" per se as a false equivalence similar to a hypothetical "black privilege". > "Weakness" in females signals a socialized response to reach out and support. "Weakness" in males signals a socialized response to stigmatize. The fact that there is a societal preference toward masculinity, which underlies many of your points, is definitely a topic that gets brought up in feminist/gender studies circles. This is why it's comparatively okay for women to be tomboys and such, and highly frowned upon for men to be effeminate or show what are considered feminine traits. Many feminists call this general societal enforcement of gender roles part of patriarchy, and seek to remove the stigma associated with violating these roles. So if that's something you're interested in, there's no reason you can't find common cause.
jcnnghm 15y ago
Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist? For example, while women may be asked to smile by random people (44), they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Or, while females spend more time grooming than men (27), they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by mothers who do not like the way they look. There can be some things in society that do not appeal to women. There are certainly things that women find appealing that most men are not at all interested in. I always kind of thought that young geeks used comic books to escape their reality. This is just a guess, but could it be that some geeks are awkward around women because females weren't nice to them during their adolescence? Sex hormone levels peak at around age 17 for men, senior year of high school. Is it really that unexpected that men that get no positive female attention during their sexual prime don't embrace women exploring geek hobbies? Perhaps the focus of all these stupid gender articles should be on encouraging young women not to alienate a large subset of people. I would be willing to bet that if geeks were more accepted at an earlier age, many of the perceived gender issues would disappear.
- zasz 15y ago
  Eh, just because females have advantages in some domains doesn't mean that their overall advantages in life are outweighed by the overall male advantages in life. Stuff like the salary gap, stereotype threat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat), and being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids affect most adult women for most of their lives. Murder is a pretty rare event, and men, as the traditionally more risk-taking sex, could be bringing quite a bit of it down on themselves. I'd take the increased chance of murder, personally.
  - spindritf 15y ago
    > the salary gap Men don't earn more money for being men (not any more at least, if it was ever true): > according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00....
mayanksinghal 15y ago
> 1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed. > 2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true. I remember a discussion on HN where many of the comments have said that the best way to bring women into the industry is to bring women into the industry. Quite true, I definitely agree to it. And so does most of the companies - they all try to maintain a gender ratio that is not too skewed to make the firm look sexist. But, when one tries to bring a category X into a field where X is rare, to bring them in - it results in lowering expectations from them. I just had my placement season on campus (I am a final year student) - the difference was visible. Of course, that makes me look sexist (I possibly am) when I say that the expectations from male students to get a job was higher than female students. Female students are, at least now, rewarded for being rare and because women are required to be brought in the industry. Unfortunately, there are pros and cons to this approach. These steps result in unavoidable animosity because of scarcity of resources - in this case, a lucrative job. My point is that you cannot have the best of both worlds: any corrective action has consequences.
- demallien 15y ago
  There are many reasons for women being difficult to recruit in tech. Here's one - if you are an intelligent young woman having just finished high school, and about to choose your university courses you might have a look at the expected pay that you will receive in different industries. You note that in medicine and law women are no longer a minority, and that they receive equal pay, and nearly equal social power as their male counterparts. You note that in engineering this is not at all the case. Studies repeatedly show female engineers receiving less than their male counterparts[1]. Women are rarely promoted up in engineering organisations and engineering organisations are unusually hostile to flexible work arrangements[2]. The result is that unless you are absolutely passionate about engineering, the reasonable thing to do is to take a pass on engineering, and go for one of the many other rewarding careers available to you. If you want to bring women into the industry, you need to make the industry appealing to women. With current discriminatory practices that is just not the case, and until that changes, there won't even be an opportunity to recruit women, because those with anything less than a burning passion for the career are going to look elsewhere. [1] http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/engineering-pay-gap-glassdoor-reveals-many-women-engineers-earn-less-than-men/ http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/engineering-pay-gap-glassdoor-... [2] http://www.studyofwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/NSF_Women-Full-Report-0314.pdf http://www.studyofwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/NSF_Wo... page 27
einhverfr 15y ago
I am not a social justice geek, much less a theorist in that area. I think a lot of times we see a lot of hogwash coming out of that area and I think this is impossible to resolve because social justice theorists tend to deny basic aspects of human nature, despising sexuality (which is a necessary part of life), social divisions and hierarchy (socially necessary) and the like. I think when we look at these things something more objective and less judgemental (like anthropology) is a better starting point. I.e. it is better to criticize from a standpoint of functional understanding than from functional ignorance (seeing only portions of a dynamic that bother one and not seeing how something benefits the target group). As far as the checklist, it's fairly rife with definitional problems (sexual harassment has a very narrow legal definition for example but I doubt that's what the blogger means, and even terms like rape are more and more frequently subject of definitional problems, as jurisdictions pass laws saying that drunken sex is rape regardless of how the intoxicant was administered). Moreover I think one could turn this on it;s head and come up with a female privilege checklist too as unpopular as that would be (particularly important in areas of parenting, child support, and the like).

rayiner 15y ago

That's a shockingly insightful list. I love #30: I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch. I've found that I can entertain a much broader range of personality tones than my female friends. You have to be an order of magnitude more aggressive to be an "asshole" than you do to be a "bitch." "Pensive" is a word you might use for a man, "moody" for the equivalent in a woman. I've never had to fight a socialized urge to defer to anyone in conversation, and certainly not to someone of the opposite sex.

neutronicus 15y ago
I don't disagree with your examples, but I do think that men are more common targets for the "creepy / sketchy" nexus of slurs, including the not-particularly sexualized varieties. The same goes for the "loser / choke artist" family, I think.
- rayiner 15y ago
  Oh definitely. But when was the last time having a reputation as a "choke artist" negatively impacted someone at work?
  - neutronicus 15y ago
    Having a few indicators of being a "loser" on you resume - like, say, being unemployed, can put a damper on your career.
Goladus 15y ago
Men who are inappropriately aggressive get kicked in the balls, then get called a bitch (by men) or loser (by women). Alternately they are simply considered irritating and are ignored until they go away. If there's an equivalent insult in this case, it's "aspie." Men might be able to be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch, but that's minor compared to the other consequences that face by being aggressive. > You have to be an order of magnitude more aggressive to be an "asshole" than you do to be a "bitch." One caveat being that for men, balancing aggression and restraint tend to be learned early and if there's no reason to challenge the hierarchy there's no reason to be aggressive. Women, on the other hand, who are thrust into male-dominated environments without understanding the rules may fail in a variety of ways. They may fail to use appropriate body language. Their voice might betray too much emotional investment in the outcome. They may persist on unwinnable points where men would back down (iow fail to choose their battles effectively). If you've dealt with successfully aggressive women, they are rarely called "bitch" unless they are truly hostile or by angry people who have lost control and pick the first insult that comes to mind (see the movie 'Crash' for some excellent examples of this phenomenon as it applies to racism). Typically you will notice that these women are comfortable adopting male body language, probably have a deep and confident voice, and are far more emotionally restrained than average women. They are typically physically intimidating (a saleswoman or CEO). They are capable of aggression and assertiveness without being called a bitch because they have learned to do it in a masculine way. What women can't do is be aggressive without sacrificing femininity. > I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew Women who are loud in the way that men are loud are never called shrews. They are maybe called unfeminine but usually it's just something like "she's type A." Women who are loud in the sense that they complain constantly about small things and provoke arguments which they try to win by shrieking as loud as possible is the definition of a shrew. I think you'll find that's far rarer for men to behave that way.

burgerbrain 15y ago

Hmm, there are a few things on that list that don't seem to ring true, or at least seem to be leaving out large portions of the picture. For example: "41. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer." The last issue of Playboy that I have seen had more topless men in it than women. Perhaps the author is better at visually tuning out advertisements than I. Of course the same is true of the last... dozen? action movies I've seen. And then there are the issues of reproductive/child rearing rights, which are currently heavily skewed against men. A woman who has unprotected sex (or for that matter sometimes protected sex) is in a much better position than a man who does the same. In fact, in nearly anything concerning children in the slightest men are decidedly discriminated against. What is my point here? Real life is more complicated than a list or two might suggest.

waqf 15y ago
Right, and "22. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex." Supposing you are caught speeding down the freeway at 110mph on Saturday night. What sex is everyone going to expect you to be?
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Or this one "25. I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual availability." Compare: A woman wearing pants. A man wearing a dress. One person is going to have their sexuality judged. And it's not going to be the woman.
  - skore 15y ago
    That's funny, but not insightful. I assume that with pants, you don't mean plain jeans, but a pantsuit (because this isn't the 60's). There are pantsuits designed for women, but no dresses designed for men. Even further than that - a dress is very specific to female anatomy in a way that a suit isn't, to male anatomy. The real issue, however, is that a woman wearing a suit is perceived in a certain way (as aggressive and, funnily enough, "only imitating men") while a man wearing a dress happens to be an often frequented motif in comedy. Finally, a man can wear a dress specifically to underline just how male he is, because "even a dress can't take that manliness away".

da_dude4242 15y ago

Males have the "privilege" of being the "stronger" sex. If you're not collected and emotionally unreactive you are abnormal/weak. Any emotional expression that deviates from a narrow acceptable range is abnormal. You do not need the same reaching out or emotional support of the "weaker" sex because you are strong. It's no wonder males have the privilege of being more likely to be isolated. Have the privilege of being 5 times more likely succesfully commit suicide. Being 10 times more likely to die on the job. Our "strength" gives us the privilege to be drafted into wars and be generally disposable to the hazards of society. None of this captured by your list though so I suppose it's irrelevant. "Weakness" in females signals a socialized response to reach out and support. "Weakness" in males signals a socialized response to stigmatize. Because after all you are privileged, why don't you just "man-up"? "Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the idea that geeks have male privilege does not exclude the possibility that there is another form of privilege that they lack that others have." That's my point. When is the last time you read an article about leveling the field of female privilege? In theory the idea of privilege is inclusive but in practice it's not.

wanorris 15y ago
> None of this captured by your list though so I suppose it's irrelevant. They're not on a male privilege checklist. A catalog of gender differences would be a different list. > When is the last time you read an article about leveling the field of female privilege? In theory the idea of privilege is inclusive but in practice it's not. I think most feminists would discount the idea of "female privilege" per se as a false equivalence similar to a hypothetical "black privilege". > "Weakness" in females signals a socialized response to reach out and support. "Weakness" in males signals a socialized response to stigmatize. The fact that there is a societal preference toward masculinity, which underlies many of your points, is definitely a topic that gets brought up in feminist/gender studies circles. This is why it's comparatively okay for women to be tomboys and such, and highly frowned upon for men to be effeminate or show what are considered feminine traits. Many feminists call this general societal enforcement of gender roles part of patriarchy, and seek to remove the stigma associated with violating these roles. So if that's something you're interested in, there's no reason you can't find common cause.

jcnnghm 15y ago

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist? For example, while women may be asked to smile by random people (44), they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Or, while females spend more time grooming than men (27), they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by mothers who do not like the way they look. There can be some things in society that do not appeal to women. There are certainly things that women find appealing that most men are not at all interested in. I always kind of thought that young geeks used comic books to escape their reality. This is just a guess, but could it be that some geeks are awkward around women because females weren't nice to them during their adolescence? Sex hormone levels peak at around age 17 for men, senior year of high school. Is it really that unexpected that men that get no positive female attention during their sexual prime don't embrace women exploring geek hobbies? Perhaps the focus of all these stupid gender articles should be on encouraging young women not to alienate a large subset of people. I would be willing to bet that if geeks were more accepted at an earlier age, many of the perceived gender issues would disappear.

zasz 15y ago
Eh, just because females have advantages in some domains doesn't mean that their overall advantages in life are outweighed by the overall male advantages in life. Stuff like the salary gap, stereotype threat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat), and being expected to give up your career to be the one to raise the kids affect most adult women for most of their lives. Murder is a pretty rare event, and men, as the traditionally more risk-taking sex, could be bringing quite a bit of it down on themselves. I'd take the increased chance of murder, personally.
- spindritf 15y ago
  > the salary gap Men don't earn more money for being men (not any more at least, if it was ever true): > according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00.html http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00....

mayanksinghal 15y ago

> 1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed. > 2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true. I remember a discussion on HN where many of the comments have said that the best way to bring women into the industry is to bring women into the industry. Quite true, I definitely agree to it. And so does most of the companies - they all try to maintain a gender ratio that is not too skewed to make the firm look sexist. But, when one tries to bring a category X into a field where X is rare, to bring them in - it results in lowering expectations from them. I just had my placement season on campus (I am a final year student) - the difference was visible. Of course, that makes me look sexist (I possibly am) when I say that the expectations from male students to get a job was higher than female students. Female students are, at least now, rewarded for being rare and because women are required to be brought in the industry. Unfortunately, there are pros and cons to this approach. These steps result in unavoidable animosity because of scarcity of resources - in this case, a lucrative job. My point is that you cannot have the best of both worlds: any corrective action has consequences.

demallien 15y ago
There are many reasons for women being difficult to recruit in tech. Here's one - if you are an intelligent young woman having just finished high school, and about to choose your university courses you might have a look at the expected pay that you will receive in different industries. You note that in medicine and law women are no longer a minority, and that they receive equal pay, and nearly equal social power as their male counterparts. You note that in engineering this is not at all the case. Studies repeatedly show female engineers receiving less than their male counterparts[1]. Women are rarely promoted up in engineering organisations and engineering organisations are unusually hostile to flexible work arrangements[2]. The result is that unless you are absolutely passionate about engineering, the reasonable thing to do is to take a pass on engineering, and go for one of the many other rewarding careers available to you. If you want to bring women into the industry, you need to make the industry appealing to women. With current discriminatory practices that is just not the case, and until that changes, there won't even be an opportunity to recruit women, because those with anything less than a burning passion for the career are going to look elsewhere. [1] http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/engineering-pay-gap-glassdoor-reveals-many-women-engineers-earn-less-than-men/ http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/engineering-pay-gap-glassdoor-... [2] http://www.studyofwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/NSF_Women-Full-Report-0314.pdf http://www.studyofwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/NSF_Wo... page 27

einhverfr 15y ago

I am not a social justice geek, much less a theorist in that area. I think a lot of times we see a lot of hogwash coming out of that area and I think this is impossible to resolve because social justice theorists tend to deny basic aspects of human nature, despising sexuality (which is a necessary part of life), social divisions and hierarchy (socially necessary) and the like. I think when we look at these things something more objective and less judgemental (like anthropology) is a better starting point. I.e. it is better to criticize from a standpoint of functional understanding than from functional ignorance (seeing only portions of a dynamic that bother one and not seeing how something benefits the target group). As far as the checklist, it's fairly rife with definitional problems (sexual harassment has a very narrow legal definition for example but I doubt that's what the blogger means, and even terms like rape are more and more frequently subject of definitional problems, as jurisdictions pass laws saying that drunken sex is rape regardless of how the intoxicant was administered). Moreover I think one could turn this on it;s head and come up with a female privilege checklist too as unpopular as that would be (particularly important in areas of parenting, child support, and the like).