Can I be privilege deny dude for a moment?
Let me get this in here. I'm not denying privilege exists. I'm not denying that there's a glass ceiling or that shit sucks for women. I'm not. But, I've been pondering dating a whole lot ever since in the last few months, I've been hearing about my a bunch of my friends scoring huge successes in their own dating lives, and the whole notion of privilege seems... more complicated than what social justice activists want us to believe.
There's a book I'm pondering reading, Self Made Man, by Norah Vincent. I'm not sure if I want to actually read this book because I'd rather not know for certain that I've given up a significant portion of my social male privilege(I know my professional male privilege is intact; I'm tired of hearing the phrase, "Can I talk to a man?" being uttered to my fellow tech support reps of the female persuasion). She goes undercover as a man for a period of a year, and during that time she tries dating. Well, surprise, women in her sample tended to not want an emotionally aware, sensitive guy. They wanted Men. Someone who fits the gender stereotype.
Which, I'm pretty sure I'm not.
I don't grunt, I'm not aggressive, I'm not into penis waving contests, I'm bi, and on and on and on. I'm pretty sure there's a flaw in that her sample size is tiny. 32 women. But even considering that, it's been my experience that is true. When you're awkward, geeky, queer and sensitive, something shuts off for most women and I don't think it's psychological in the evolutionary psychological sense(evo psych is a huge rant for later; yay post-hoc logical fallacies!), if it were, then the odds for people like me would have to be *much*, *much* lower.
However the mechanisms that enable male privilege only enable it in so far as how close you are in the "man" zone. If you're gay? Minus points. If you're a transman? Minus *lots* of points. If you're a awkward geeky type? Minus points. if you're not aggressive and macho? More points off. This zone isn't static either, it's been moving closer and closer in my direction; but I still feel really outside of it. It feels like a slow moving ship coming in over the horizon that may not even come anywhere close to where I'm at and it feels really stupid and frustrating.
It's really on this ground I feel like a failure. I stepped out of the "man" zone. Things are going to be tough. I failed at a game that's basically rigged against me because the whole concept of what masculinity is kind of disgusted me on a very deep level. I guess that's not my fault.
This also feels like a learning moment for intersectionalism, but, finding out that stat penalties stack up isn't particularly new(especially if you play RPGS; tabletop, pen and paper or video game wise) or particularly philosophically or politically useful; unless white, cisgendered, male, WASP privilege is so thick to some people that they really honestly do not know that. I am an optimist. I would like to think this is not true.
There's a book I'm pondering reading, Self Made Man, by Norah Vincent. I'm not sure if I want to actually read this book because I'd rather not know for certain that I've given up a significant portion of my social male privilege(I know my professional male privilege is intact; I'm tired of hearing the phrase, "Can I talk to a man?" being uttered to my fellow tech support reps of the female persuasion). She goes undercover as a man for a period of a year, and during that time she tries dating. Well, surprise, women in her sample tended to not want an emotionally aware, sensitive guy. They wanted Men. Someone who fits the gender stereotype.
Which, I'm pretty sure I'm not.
I don't grunt, I'm not aggressive, I'm not into penis waving contests, I'm bi, and on and on and on. I'm pretty sure there's a flaw in that her sample size is tiny. 32 women. But even considering that, it's been my experience that is true. When you're awkward, geeky, queer and sensitive, something shuts off for most women and I don't think it's psychological in the evolutionary psychological sense(evo psych is a huge rant for later; yay post-hoc logical fallacies!), if it were, then the odds for people like me would have to be *much*, *much* lower.
However the mechanisms that enable male privilege only enable it in so far as how close you are in the "man" zone. If you're gay? Minus points. If you're a transman? Minus *lots* of points. If you're a awkward geeky type? Minus points. if you're not aggressive and macho? More points off. This zone isn't static either, it's been moving closer and closer in my direction; but I still feel really outside of it. It feels like a slow moving ship coming in over the horizon that may not even come anywhere close to where I'm at and it feels really stupid and frustrating.
It's really on this ground I feel like a failure. I stepped out of the "man" zone. Things are going to be tough. I failed at a game that's basically rigged against me because the whole concept of what masculinity is kind of disgusted me on a very deep level. I guess that's not my fault.
This also feels like a learning moment for intersectionalism, but, finding out that stat penalties stack up isn't particularly new(especially if you play RPGS; tabletop, pen and paper or video game wise) or particularly philosophically or politically useful; unless white, cisgendered, male, WASP privilege is so thick to some people that they really honestly do not know that. I am an optimist. I would like to think this is not true.