omegawyrm said:
This is going to be a long one, so here it goes:
I've heard about the statistics of women makiing less then men, something I'm willing to accept may be true, but since no one appears to wish to post where these statistics come from, I can only base my understanding on how money is divided based on the women I know, and the women I do know seem to make as much as a man would in the same field. So unless I see the statisitc (I'll look for it tomorrow seeing as how it's midnight right now) I will currently reserve my full judgement, erring on the side of what women tell me about it being equal pay till then.
As for the lack of representation of women in politics, I mentioned before in a thread about Feminism in Gaming that whether this is indicitive of gender discrimination isn't based on the full percentage, but rather why the percentage is like that. After all, percentage wise men are very under-represented in all my classes this year, but that in of itself isn't indicitive of some underline misandry, but may be due to simply other factors, such as the field of study in question or even the amount of men applying for school. There may indeed be the underline issue of gender affecting being considered to be brought in to the political sphere, which if shown to be the case as to why there are few women in politics would make me put my hands down and agree with you that there is some serious gender discrimination going on. But there's the problem, as far as I can tell no one has spoken out about not getting a position because of gender, and as far as I can tell there hasn't been a released study to show that it is in fact gender discrimiation that keeps most women out of politics (although if you are aware of such studies, post them in a reply and I will consider changing my view upon reading), which means there is probably another answer that may easily affect percentage that, much like studying if gender does affect position, can be studied by looking at the amount of women who do go through the procedures of getting into politics: not alot of women apply for jobs in politics. I have no proof of that mind you, but rather the point I'm making is that untill one studies the reason why women are under-represented in politics, one can't really make the argument either way that the percentage is proof of discrimination or (in the mind of a mysogynist) is proof of privelage without the context as to why the percentage is like that. Gender discrimination could be a factor, but so could other factors, such as personal interest of those who do and don't apply, both of which are views that can only really be taken once the context has been provided.
In regards to abuse, I know an equal amount of men and women who haven't been abused as children but have been abused by their partner. Want to know what the kicker is? Not only have some of these women been abused by other women. but most of the men I know who've been abused are either too ashamed to come forth or have tried to rationalize the abuse in an unhealthy way, because they know that they will never be taken seriously, by both men and women alike. Hell, I knew one TA (who according to her was one of the more level headed Feminists at the school, her words not mine) who sincerly believed that men can only be raped by other men, and that women can never really rape, or at least when they do it's only through what she considers the "male" form of sex (i.e. using artificial or surrogate dicks). That in my opinion is not only degrading to male rape victims, but also insulting to women, as it suggests that women can only be victims in situations of rape, never the rapist.
Hell when I was living on campus last year (at York University in Toronto which if anyone knows is often known for higher numbers of rape than other campuses in the city) the only thing both guys and girls were mostly worried about when walking alone was possibly being robbed or mugged, rape often being low on their mind.
As to answer your question about what evidence or proof of men having privelage just for being men, well as mentioned about the pay and politics distribution, links to either studies or whistle-blowers on the subject would certainly give me cause for change, but one thing that would probably solidify that is if you could find reported situations from the past 5-10 years of men who were incredibly un-qualified getting positions or getting ahead of women who were qualififed or more than qualified would certainly convince me that gender did play a role of privelage for males (although any link would do, a reported history would certainly have more validity than a single incident)
To answer the question about privelage, the idea about women only being the victim in abuse or rape cases while it is only the the male who can be the agressor or instigator is a pretty privliged view-point. When one considers that victim-survey reports often show that men and women are equally at risk to abuse and rape, both from the same sex and the opposite sex, while the actual amount reported would imply that mostly women are at risk (both the victim-survey and crime statistics are things I will link here when I wake up tomorrow), there seems to be a very glaring issue here, either that men are seen as always wanting sex or deserving the abuse or that women can never stoop to such low levels, both of which are viewpoints that certainly privelage abusive women the same way "She dressed like a slut, she asked for it" often privelages abusive men. While things such as payment in divorces has been equaled out over the past while, custody of the children is still something that often privelages women, giving them the benefit of the doubt that they'll be better parents or care-givers than the father, something that may or may not be true in each situation, but is still something that still is based on preceived notions about ability, something which in this case would certainly privelage women if the father was just as competent to raise the children and was denied custody out of the sole fact that people believe that the woman whill be the better parent (something which could've happened to me if it weren't for the fact that my parents were sick of the system at that point and decided to solve the issue themselves rather than go through the courts and make a messy situation) And if we're going to use media as a medium for privelage, just as several narratives feature attractive men and passive women, there is an equal amount where women are seen as the only voice of reason and men as either the naive or stupid ones. Now arguably one should be able to write a story once in a while where the man is attractive and the woman is passive and can also write a story once in a while where the woman is always the voice of reason and the man is always naive or stupid. So lets look at another way privelage comes up not so much in the making of narrative, but the criticism of narrative. Take the movie Drive for example. The movie, while receiving outstanding reviews, has been called a male-oriented film, something that I would agree with and would also agree that the female characters were'nt really all that developed. What do I disagree with though? The argument made that the movie is male-oriented not only because of how the characters are portrayed, but because MAJOR SPOILER HERE, DON'T LOOK IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN DRIVE Christina Hendricks character gets slapped around and then killed SPOILERS END HERE. Why is this considered a pro-man thing when throughout the movie there are men who are also slapped around (if not worse) and then killed as well? Because there is a general view that some take in which they belive violence against women of any kind when not used to explore and discuss violence against women is an act of trying to make women in film or literature subservant, even when violence and death is present in the narrative heavily with male characters. The idea that violence for no reason against women is somehow negative while violence for no reason against men is neutral (both of which I may add are just lazy from a creative point of view) is certainly something that could be argued to be a privelage if one connects it too the privelage of women not desrving violence while men deserve violence. And again, as I said before, as I have never felt any of the privelages that apparently come with being a man: when I hve been paid, I have been paid the same amount as my female co-workers. When in a store, I am given the same amount of attention from the workers there that is given to the female shoppers there. When receiving grades on assignments, my marks are roughly the same as other female students who do either as well or as bad as I usually do in the class. When in class, my opinions and my thoughts are respected as much as my female classmates opinions and thoughts are respected. When out in public, I am not talked to in a way that is different to how other women around me are talked to. I personally have not seen any of this privelage I apparently have.
And like you yes, I too would like to see a world where gender equality is the norm, where discrimination is an act of those who are just plain mean and not because of societal beliefs, but what I don't believe is the idea that accomodation=fixing. We can accomodate women all we want to make up for the short-comings they are faced, but that would lead nowhere as sooner or later things have to be fixed, not delayed. Sooner or later those accomadations have to be taken away as the measure of equality rises. I should make it clear, it's not the act of accomodating that worries me, what worries me is that if things take too long to fix that what we view as accomodations end up becoming a part of the norm.
