That’s a very good article, @ucbalumnus .
If I start to think of the many times I was overlooked during my career because of my gender, I become furious. Thank goodness that’s all behind me. I really hope it’s better for young people today, but I’m not optimistic.
Another factor: people tend to be more attuned to unfair disadvantages that they encounter than unfair advantages that they encounter, because unfair disadvantages are more commonly visible incidents, while unfair advantages are often merely the lack of anything bad happening, so they tend to be less visible.
There is no job as dangerous (except for certain military jobs during certain wars) as working as a female prostitute. Estimated number of female FSSWs (full service sex workers, aka in-person prostitutes) in the US is 1-2 million. Death rate is ~200/100,000. For comparison, the #1 and #2 highest death rates of typically male professions of loggers and commercial fishers is ~100/100,000. Police officer does not make the top 10 of most dangerous professions.
I was focusing upon men taking dangerous jobs with societal benefits such as maintaining “an orderly society” and “critical for the economy”.
I won’t opine about the societal benefits of female prostitution, but I will readily acknowledge it’s a dangerous job.
“Wife Completely Fine with the Patriarchy as Long as it Mows the Lawn Every Weekend”
— Babylon Bee
I don’t care if guys acknowledge privilege, that’s not necessary for me to have to talk about it. But what drives me crazy is the constant reference to “woke” or “DEI”, which most distinctly means giving advantage or recognition to anyone other than white guys. My definition fits in almost every situation.
We have a friend, whom I love dearly otherwise, who often makes these comments about “woke”, and it’s really hard to not get into it, though he generally says it under his breath to other guys, not me. He is an accomplished man, and I want to ask him if he’s ever been held back from something because he’s a dude. No? How about your successful and accomplished son? No? Would you like people to complain that your extraordinary daughter got advantage because she was female? No? So why are you constantly complaining about this?
While there are benefits to being a woman, as hebegebe noted, when we speak of privilege it is typcially in a societal context. Men still dominate in politics, in the C-suite, and law firm partners, despite the higher number of college degrees earned by women. There is still a perception that women cannot do certain jobs. Some leadership traits are valued in man and derided in women.
There is also often (but not always) male privlege in family structure. While not always true, woman, even those who work outside the home full time, shoulder more of the work inside the home: housework, childcare, social calendar and just plain keeping track of everything. Some of this is by choice: many women take a step back from work to raise their kids because they want to.
Yes, women are less likely to be the victims of homicide because they are also less likely to be violent in general. Women are kept out of some “dangerous” positions because they are perceived as weaker. Yes, women are more likely to get a college degree but men who get those degrees are more likely to end up in leadership positions.
As so often happens, I cringe at the word choice made in some of these efforts to enlighten people. “Privilege” is a word that provokes strong defensiveness, and it can be hard to get past that. I wish a different phrasing had been adopted.
I tried to explain the concept to a male relative by asking him how often he fears for his physical safety if he enters an elevator with a woman or walks to his car in the dark. He admitted that he hardly ever gives a second thought to such actions. I told him that many or most women give them a lot of thought. His “privilege” in this case is not needing to be constantly aware of his physical safety in routine activities. (And let’s not go down the rabbit hole of whether women should be fearful, OK? Some of us are, and having someone a foot taller and 75 pounds heavier than I am try to tell me that I don’t need to be physically cautious is not OK.)
You’re describing my brother. To him anyone who isn’t a white male is a DEI case, unless its a low paying job.
This peeves me to no end. As I see it, all that is meant by woke is to be aware, which shouldn’t be considered a bad thing.
Ditto this for the word entitlements, when used to describe earned benefits such as Medicare and Social Security. People are entitled to them; it doesn’t mean they’re entitled jerks.
Yes, I never liked “privilege” to describe this concept, since the word in other contexts often comes with the implication of being an undeserved advantage, when actual examples are often more like the absence of unfair disadvantage (e.g. not encountering stuff like non-recognition of ordinarily recognized achievements in work or school).
Put it another way, describing it as “privilege” can make it seem like the goal is to take it away from those who have it, rather than extend it to those who are unfairly denied it.
The only way that someone can explain that to themselves is that they think being a white male automatically gives them some sort of higher qualification, and not being that automatically means you have a lesser ability in some way. I think many would deny thinking that, and really don’t think that they believe it. But that’s what it does come down to.
Look at the hubbub over the Secret Service agent that immediately flung herself onto the former president, protecting his vital organs and offering up her life to take the bullet, if there was a next one. The critiques against her, in the guise of pretending to not be sexist, but oh, she was just too short. Forget all the other Secret Service agents that are shorter than the former president, we won’t talk about them. And then the usual suspects saying that women should not be Secret Service agents, because they weren’t the most qualified for the job. Seriously? Nowadays, some don’t even try to pretend they’re not sexist any more.
In my opinion the more we castigate one gender/race/religion etc the further divided our country will become. Since humans have inhabited the earth inequalities have been part of the fabric of society. Humankind has come a long way in the last 100 years, yes there is still much to do, but at some point it would benefit everyone if we could find more ways we are connected.
Women can definitely be secret service agents… I do not think the controversy was the gender, more like a 5"4" person trying to physically cover a 6’4" man. If you noticed the next time the former presidents detail was noticed they were all tall people. If the female secret service agent had been 6’ tall I doubt anyone would have thought that an issue.
Just as long as they meet all the same physical qualifications required of the personal security detail. Oops.
And you know exactly what those requirements are, no doubt.
Qualifications for USSS special agents are listed at Qualifications: Special agent .
Here are the physical requirements for special agents. I would have thought physical requirements would be the same to protect the President.
