I do not understand this “male privilege" bullshit.
What. Fucking. Privileges. Do. Men. Have.???????
Name them. I swear, I challenge you to name these “male privileges" and be able to prove them.
Come on, I fucking dare you.
Name them!
Oh boy. Well, as a man, I’ll tell you my male privilege.
- 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.
- I can be confident in the fact that my co-workers won’t think that I was hired/promoted because of my sex – despite the fact that it’s probably true.
- If I ever am promoted when a woman of my peers is better suited for the job, it is because of my sex.
- If i ever fail at my job or career, it won’t be seen as a blacklist against my sex’s capabilities.
- I am far less likely to face sexual harassment than my female peers.
- If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job.
- If I am a teen or an adult, and I stay out of prison, my odds of getting raped are relatively low.
- On average, I’m taught that walking alone after dark by myself is less than dangerous than it is for my female peers.
- If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be questioned.
- If I do have children but I do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be questioned.
- If I have children and I do care for them, I’ll be praised even if my care is only marginally competent.
- If I have children and a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home.
- If I seek political office, my relationship with my children or who I deem to take care of them will more often not be scrutinized by the press.
- My elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious the position, the more this is true.
- When i seek out “the person in charge", it is likely that they will be someone of my own sex. The higher the position, the more often this is true.
- As a child, chances are I am encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters.
- As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for it; male protagonists were (and are) the default.
- As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often.
- If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether or not it has sexist overtones. (Nobody’s going to ask if I’m upset because I’m menstruating.)
- I can turn on the television or glance at the front page of the newspaper and see people of my own sex widely represented.
- If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex.
- If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex.
- I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial.
- Even if I sleep with a lot of women, there is little to no chance that I will be seriously labeled a “slut,” nor is there any male counterpart to “slut-bashing.”
- I do not have to worry about the message my wardrobe sends about my sexual availability.
- My clothing is typically less expensive and better-constructed than women’s clothing for the same social status. While I have fewer options, my clothes will probably fit better than a woman’s without tailoring.
- The grooming regimen expected of me is relatively cheap and consumes little time.
- If I buy a new car, chances are I’ll be offered a better price than a woman buying the same car. The same goes for other expensive merchandise.
- If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore.
- 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 can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)
- I can be confident that the ordinary language of day-to-day existence will always include my sex. “All men are created equal,” mailman, chairman, freshman, he.
- My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.
- I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if I don’t change my name.
- The decision to hire me will not be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon.
- Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex. Even God, in most major religions, is pictured as male.
- Most major religions argue that I should be the head of my household, while my wife and children should be subservient to me.
- If I have a wife or live-in girlfriend, chances are we’ll divide up household chores so that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks.
- If I have children with my girlfriend or wife, I can expect her to do most of the basic childcare such as changing diapers and feeding.
- If I have children with my wife or girlfriend, and it turns out that one of us needs to make career sacrifices to raise the kids, chances are we’ll both assume the career sacrificed should be hers.
- 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.
- In general, I am under much less pressure to be thin than my female counterparts are. If I am over-weight, I probably suffer fewer social and economic consequences for being fat than over-weight women do.
- If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover.
- Complete strangers generally do not walk up to me on the street and tell me to “smile.”
- Sexual harassment on the street virtually never happens to me. I do not need to plot my movements through public space in order to avoid being sexually harassed, or to mitigate sexual harassment.
- On average, I am not interrupted by women as often as women are interrupted by men.
- On average, I will have the privilege of not knowing about my male privilege.
And lastly, I am taken as a more credible feminist than my female peers, despite the fact that the feminist movement is not liberating to my sex.
This is male privilege.
THIS. THIS IS HOW YOU BE A MALE FEMINIST.
Category: General
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I can’t quite or my finger on it, but I think my record deck is missing something. on Flickr.
I can’t quite or my finger on it, but I think my record deck is missing something.
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Brrm, brrm.
So, yesterday being Friday, and the scheduled car-purchase day, Kathryn dropped me at the (conveniently close) Amtrak station and I got my first experience of US trains. Yes, it started from the station 20 minutes late, but it was a pretty relaxing ride, and some of the scenery was just beautiful. Despite many promises along the way we arrived… 20 minutes late. Still.
It was also, unsurprisingly, raining*. Which whilst some of it was very pretty (the mist rising off foothills), much of it was somewhat obscured. Mind you, it was nothing as to the journey back. Anyhow, I made it down to Portland, OR. Now why travel out of state for a car? Well, after much debate we’d decided that we’d get a first generation Honda Insight. These are kinda cool insofar as they’re Honda going ‘oh look we’ve got this great research project on hybrids, let’s see how many people will buy one’. It’s about the nearest thing to a hand built car we’ll ever own. All aluminium and all the tech they could throw at it.
They’re not quite collectable. Some people think they might be one day, others argue they won’t. Ours definitely won’t because it was much lower in price than others as it’s been rebuilt from a write-off (or ‘Totaled – Rebuilt’ as it says on the title). The thing is, the value of these cars is low enough that even a fairly minor prang can kill them – looking it over, it all looks pretty straight underneath and on-top. You can see where it’s been repaired – the metalwork at the front has a slight twist where the paint’s just cracked ever so slightly.
Having seen a few of them accident damaged, the toughened ally wings (fenders?) tend to crack rather than bend. So I expect it looked pretty terrible after whatever happened to it. Anyhow, it looks fine now, and has a startling 38,000 miles on the clock (for a 10 year old car, that’s pretty impressive).
Anyhow, Nikki + Kids met me at the station and we headed in to a public charger for her Leaf. Off we went for coffee and came back to find the charger had got bored at 60% for no obvious reason. After brief debate we headed off anyway, and made it over to Willsonville, where the car was waiting for us. Nikki’d already given it a test drive, but I took it out for a second survey. Nothing hugely untoward came up – although the CVT was maybe a touch noisy. Although it’s hard to tell. These cars are built for efficiency, not quiet, so that might just be the way it’s meant to be. Also, it turned out there was not much oil in the CVT.
After a bit more gentle prodding, Nikki headed off with the Leaf to find a proper charge, and I made my way through a US car purchase for the first time in my life. Not complex, but weird not knowing which bits of paper to sign and where. The plan was for us to meet up at the charger, but first I had to sort insurance. After several failed phone-calls and failed payment attempts we got that done, and then I trundled off.
Unfortunately, the charger Nikki was meant to be going to, for some reason didn’t show up on my map. Well, not until I got much nearer having visited two others. By which time she’d finished and moved off to her next errand. Thankfully I found her looping the car park outside the electronics store she’d messaged me to say she’d be in. Given the low oil in the CVT I was reluctant to make the 130 mile journey without a top up – and headed over to the local Honda dealer who were *lovely*. I pulled in and went to buy the fluid, assuming there was a filler I could reach – then asked the nice chap a the counter who explained that no, there wasn’t.
So then I asked if they could squeeze in a top-up and they sorted it, topped up the transmission fluid (for free) and sent me on my way. Parker Honda, Wilsonville. That’s ace customer service :)
Now, I kicked back at my friends for a while, petting their dogs, where it slowly became apparent that I’d not taken my antihistamines in my rush for the train. It turns out I *am* allergic to dogs still – and as my eyes worked up to itching and I went forth sniffling I cursed my idiocy. Still, after rush-hour(s) was (were) done I girded my loins and stepped in the car. Many-a-time I’ve dragged cars back hundreds of miles, but this was the first time I’d be crossing state lines…
…and some how it felt a little more unnerving.
Actually though, the journey back was uneventful. Apart from the *fucking hideous rain*. This bit of the country, it knows how to rain, yes it does. But the little Honda did its thing admirably. We trundled home, 130 miles isn’t loads here, but it felt like a lot in a
brand newdecade old car and in the dark. Creeping in at around 2230, having set off from home 14 hours earlier I was very, very pleased to get in to bed.It’s yet another trophy of moving country. We’re here, we own a car.
And today we spent time looking and land and houses**.
Hopefully soon our stuff will arrive and then we’ll feel more rooted. I hope.
* Did I mention that it rains twice as much here as in Bristol?
** And watching Philomena, because it was raining and hailing and… because we were tired. Basically. -
i’ll stop dressing in black when they invent a darker colour

finally something to match my soul
If you haven’t seen this, it’s actually so black that if they made clothing out of it, it would just appear as though there was a photoshopped hole where your clothing is.
good
NICE
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That was a very long day.
So we own a car.
I guess it’s another sign we live here now :)
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New study shows that Disney princesses don’t get to talk in their own movies
[Top image is from Beauty and the Beast, of Belle and Gaston. Gaston is talking and has his feet up on the table, directly on Belle’s book. Belle is looking at his muddy boots on her book, clearly unhappy.
Text below:
In Disney’s modern princess movies, men often speak more than women. The films from the ‘90s were particularly male-dominated.
Second image is of a chart comparing the percent of words spoken by women and men in Disney princess movies.
Snow White (1937)
Women: 50%
Men: 50%Cinderella (1950)
Women: 60%
Men: 40%Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Women: 71%
Men: 29%The Little Mermaid (1989)
Women: 32%
Men: 68%Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Women: 29%
Men: 71%Aladdin (1992)
Women: 10%
Men: 90%Pocahontas (1995)
Women: 24%
Men: 76%Mulan (1998)
Women: 23%
Men: 77%Princess and the Frog (2009)
Women: 24%
Men: 76%Tangled (2010)
Women: 52%
Men: 48%Brave (2012)
Women: 74%
Men: 26%Frozen (2013)
Women: 41%
Men: 59%Third image is a chart listing the number of speaking roles for men and women in the same movies (unlike chart 2, the figures may not be exact, as they are not directly listed within the article)
Snow White (1937)
Women: 2
Men: 10Cinderella (1950)
Women: 7
Men: 7Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Women: 6
Men: 7The Little Mermaid (1989)
Women: 7
Men: 12Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Women: 17
Men: 28Aladdin (1992)
Women: 2
Men: 21Pocahontas (1995)
Women: 3
Men: 12Mulan (1998)
Women: 10
Men: 21Princess and the Frog (2009)
Women: 7
Men: 24Tangled (2010)
Women: 4
Men: 16Brave (2012)
Women: 10
Men: 17Frozen (2013)
Women: 17
Men: 33Sources for both are Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer]
Although they’ve been criticized for reinforcing conventional gender roles, Disney’s princess line is nevertheless the most high-profile female-led franchise of all time. And while Disney has gotten praise for creating more progressive princesses starting in the ’90s, a new study complicates the idea of Disney’s evolution: In almost every Disney princess film since 1989, the study finds, male characters get significantly more speaking time than female ones. The data comes from linguists Carmen Fought and Karen Eisenhauer, who previewed their ongoing study at recent conference. The Washington Post has a detailed breakdown of their findings.
Some of them don’t even get to be human in their own movies but you know
To be honest, my first reaction is to try and defend Disney princesses because they’ve many so much to me over the years, but there is rarely anything defensible.
Even in media about and for girls, male characters are treated as the default.
Literary dialect analysis and sociolinguistic analysis is so frickin important and here is why! This is the kind of research I live for and actually have contributed to on a somewhat professional level!
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The pretty is out in force today, and the air smells amazing… on Flickr.
The pretty is out in force today, and the air smells amazing…







