http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2013/05/03/gender-pay-gap-is-myth/?intcmp=fbfeatures

Quote :

"Every year around this time we’re treated to the same eyeball catching headlines about the stubborn persistence of the gender pay gap. The White House has an entire website decrying how “women are still paid less than men,” 77 cents on every dollar, according to the Census Bureau. Indeed, President Obama is putting his political clout behind the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation intended to address the age-old income disparity between men and women that everyone assumes is a result of discrimination. There’s only one problem. It isn’t true. If you can get past all the populist media headlines, the politicians pandering for the female vote, and the big bucks behind all the lobbyists, feminist groups, and women’s councils and just look at the facts, you’ll learn that the wage gap is not the result of discrimination. There’s a mountain of data, research, and studies from sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, even a 2011 White House report prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce for the White House Council on Women and Girls, that all say the same thing. The gender pay gap is not a result of discrimination, coercion, or anything like that. To put it simply, it’s a matter of women’s choices. Many women sacrifice pay for all sorts of reasons including security, safety, flexibility, and fulfillment. Their priorities are vastly different than men’s. And when you account for that, when you compare apples to apples, when women actually make the same career choices as men, there is no gap. Men and women earn the same. Moreover, treating women as victims, which they are not, instead of empowering them, which we should, does nothing but hold them back. It does not serve their interests one bit. And the legislation will likely do more harm than good, as is usually the case when government overreaches and overreacts to satisfy special interests. To dispel this age-old myth once and for all, just take a quick look at the unbiased facts, objective data, and conclusions of the studies: An in-depth, 93-page U.S. Department of Labor study came to the “unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers." Indeed, the primary reason for the wage disparity is that men choose higher-paying fields and occupations. According to the White House report, "In 2009, only 7 percent of female professionals were employed in the relatively high paying computer and engineering fields, compared with 38 percent of male professionals." Professional women, on the other hand, were far more likely to choose careers in lower paying fields such as education and health care. Even within the same field or category, men are more likely than women to pursue areas of specialization with higher levels of stress. Within the medical field, for example, men are far more likely to become surgeons while women tend to choose lower stress and lower paying specialties like pediatrics and dentistry. Another major factor is that many women have different priorities than men do. They tend to value factors like job security, workplace safety, flexible hours, and work conditions much higher than they value compensation. For example, Department of Labor surveys show that men work an average of 9% more hours than women. Demanding jobs that command higher pay naturally require longer hours. Men are also far more likely to choose careers that involve physical labor, overnight and weekend shifts, dangerous conditions, as well as uncomfortable, isolated, outdoor, and undesirable locations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the top 10 most dangerous jobs are all male-dominated. These occupations also pay more than less dangerous and taxing careers. All that notwithstanding, a 2010 analysis of Census Bureau data showed that young, single women who’ve never had a child actually earned 8% more than their male counterparts in most U.S. cities. The findings seem to be driven by an ongoing trend: more and more women – now more than men, in fact – are attending college and going on to relatively high-paying professional careers. Now, I can probably just walk away from the keyboard and call it a day, but I won’t, and here’s why. Even though the facts are clear, I’m not going to sit here and ignore the one ginormous difference between men and women that obviously affects our choices: the baby elephant in the room. I’m pretty sure that women still have all the babies and still do most of the child rearing and housework in America. Clearly, there are biological and societal factors that contribute to their personal career choices. Not only that, but having been an executive in corporate America, I know that, while gender discrimination is illegal and women have cracked the glass ceiling, for whatever reason, a lot of board rooms still resemble good old boys clubs. I’m not entirely sure who needs to do the work to change that – the women climbing the corporate ladder, the men and women in charge of hiring and promoting them, or both – but one thing’s for sure. That’s not a job for Congress – or President Obama. "

5/5/2013 10:23:49 PM

5/5/2013 10:31:24 PM

Quote :

"According to the White House report, "In 2009, only 7 percent of female professionals were employed in the relatively high paying computer and engineering fields, compared with 38 percent of male professionals." Professional women, on the other hand, were far more likely to choose careers in lower paying fields such as education and health care."

How is that not still a gender gap? That's like saying that the difference in pay between Americans and Somalis is because Americans choose to go in to high paying professions while Somalis choose to be child soliders or sheep herders.

5/5/2013 10:33:40 PM

personal choices.

5/5/2013 10:37:02 PM

Quote :

"In 2009, only 7 percent of female professionals were employed in the relatively high paying computer and engineering fields, compared with 38 percent of male professionals." Professional women, on the other hand, were far more likely to choose careers in lower paying fields such as education and health care"

I might be incorrect, but I though that when they did the "77 cents per dollar" comparison, they looked at apples-to-apples. AKA they compared pay for women in computer science to men in computer science. If that is true, the article providing this information would be irrelevant and just trying to take a cheap shot. I only bring this up because there are a couple of other lines that also feel like they are taking cheap shots at women in the workforce in general.

5/5/2013 10:59:08 PM

^ Correct, the 'wage gap' is when a female makes less than her male counterpart for the same position. This is often twisted because the discrepancies in are usually tied to their exit of the workplace due to childcare/birthing which limits their time in the workplace. So, due to a lower experience level considering age and the industries they choose to enter, it is perceived that they're getting an unfair shake. When you factor in education, experience, job, sex, and income, females with like-for-like jobs/experience/education are actually supposed to make a few percent more than males.

5/5/2013 11:26:44 PM

Wow, you actually ARE this stupid. Amazing.

5/5/2013 11:34:21 PM

thanks for your thoughtful contribution to this discussion. You've really helped us all better understand your point of view with you well-stated points and avoidance of personal attacks. Thank you!

5/5/2013 11:41:34 PM

Quote :

"personal choices."

So kids over there choose to be child soliders instead of going to school and having a more productive career?

5/5/2013 11:55:15 PM

Quote :

"thanks for your thoughtful contribution to this discussion. You've really helped us all better understand your point of view with you well-stated points and avoidance of personal attacks. Thank you! "

thanks for your thoughtful contribution to this discussion.

5/6/2013 12:00:51 AM

Well at least we know what Smath74's first source for news is. Now when we see his name we can automatically place him at the same level of credibility as aaronburro.

5/6/2013 12:02:36 AM

Quote :

"I might be incorrect, but I though that when they did the "77 cents per dollar" comparison, they looked at apples-to-apples."

That's actually the gap in median annual incomes across all industries (in 2011, see pages 7-9): http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf


Adjusting for some other characteristics of women vs. men in the workforce, the adjusted overall gap falls to 9 percentage points (this was taken from 1998 data, probably because it takes longer to do such a sophisticated analysis); that is, if women had the same choices of occupations and industries, labor-force experience, distribution of race and union status, and level of educational attainment (one factor that in reality works in women's favor) as men, the effects of discrimination (including "chilling effects" like reluctance to negotiate for higher pay) would still lead them on average to make 9% less than men: http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/_media/pdf/key_issues/gender_research.pdf


It turns out that a lot of financial occupations have a large gender pay gap; these however are unadjusted, so once again only part of it is likely to have resulted from discrimination. Still, notice that these occupations tend to be high-paying overall, and yet in 4 of them, the median earnings for women is less than the overall median earnings (in 2011) of $756 per week.


A few occupations have a small gender pay gap, and notably even the biggest negative ones (where women make on average just over 6% more than men) are not as big as the effect of greater average educational attainment (about 6.7%); still, there's not much gender pay discrimination in TEK SAPORT and generally the most equitable occupations tend to be low-paying, with women and men making less than $756 per week on average in 4 of them.



tl;dr: The gender pay gap is not a myth, even though it's not as severe as "A QUARTER OFF EVERY DOLLAR" makes it sound.

[Edited on May 6, 2013 at 2:18 AM. Reason : Instead, discrimination effectively allows men to make an extra dime for every dollar a woman makes.]

5/6/2013 2:17:43 AM

Just compare recent male versus female graduates going into the same jobs. The pay gap commonly quoted includes 50 year-olds. People that old grew up in an overtly sexist world. It's mindbogglingly stupid to include those people in a metric and pass it off as reflecting current success. It's intellectually completely indefensible.

As for the recent grads, I've heard people say that studies found that women make more and I've heard feminists tell me that studies found the opposite. When the data's conclusion starts to align perfectly with people's preconceived notions, then it's probably been eliminated to margin of error.

5/6/2013 7:50:39 AM

Quote :

"personal choices."

Weird how women's personal choices have changed so much over the past 50 years. Surely done, though, we've settled into a post-sexist world where the lopsided distribution of women in various professions truly reflects their natural, instinctual ovaries' commands and aren't shaped by social expectations anymore.

5/6/2013 9:05:48 AM

My experience in a STEM career path is this: There are always fewer women, always, but the women who are there have nearly flawless histories, academically and professionally. My girlfriend is a Mechanical Engineer who just got her Masters and she falls into this category. When she messes anything up it's the end of the world, she's not used to failure at all.

My theory? Girls who fail a math test in high school are more likely to be told "Maybe you should try something else, maybe this isn't for you..." than boys who do, who are usually told the usual motivational lines to try again, try harder, etc. It's an example of the tyranny of low expectations. The only girls who make it through to the end are the ones who never fuck up and consequently aren't met with these lopsided motivation networks.

[Edited on May 6, 2013 at 9:10 AM. Reason : .]

5/6/2013 9:10:20 AM

^ and ^^^

Both of these are very reasonable explainations for the gender gap. Smath's article tries to explain it away by saying "women choose to get paid less", which is should be obviously wrong to anyone.

5/6/2013 9:22:11 AM

Quote :

""women choose to get paid less""

that is grossly inaccurate, and not what the article is saying at all.

5/6/2013 9:25:22 AM

Quote :

"Surely done, though, we've settled into a post-sexist world where the lopsided distribution of women in various professions truly reflects their natural, instinctual ovaries' commands and aren't shaped by social expectations anymore."

The Fox News link argued against anti-discrimination legislation. So you agree wholeheartedly with them!

Quote :

"My theory? Girls who fail a math test in high school are more likely to be told "Maybe you should try something else, maybe this isn't for you..." than boys who do, who are usually told the usual motivational lines to try again, try harder, etc. It's an example of the tyranny of low expectations. The only girls who make it through to the end are the ones who never fuck up and consequently aren't met with these lopsided motivation networks."

The theory has merit but it's certainly not because of a single line spoken.

I've noticed that women engineers often have a "crash" at a certain point. They've gone through the educational system with extremely good grades. Then they get to upperclassman engineering classes and that's just no longer tenable, so then their self-image absolutely eats away at them.

I honestly don't know how my parents/environment cultivated the mentality I had. In HS math class, I knew the teacher didn't think I was brilliant, and I knew that they were wrong. It didn't matter if I failed a test, I was too busy being creative and brilliant to worry about their flawed evaluation system.

5/6/2013 9:26:18 AM

The pay gap and the gender gap are different issues. Good to see the pay gap closing though.

Lol @ OP

5/6/2013 9:27:51 AM

^wat?

5/6/2013 9:42:34 AM

My problem with this entire issue is that it is setting the metric for life success at wealth acquisition and not happiness. Maybe there's something besides "people telling women they're not good at math" stopping women from taking high-paying, high-stress, no-family-time jobs.

The suicide rate is 4 times for men than that of women for a reason.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf

5/6/2013 9:45:35 AM

Quote :

"I knew the teacher didn't think I was brilliant, and I knew that they were wrong. It didn't matter if I failed a test, I was too busy being creative and brilliant to worry about their flawed evaluation system."

Are you male? Society in general encourages such self-confidence. Young girls are instead generally taught to be/feel vulnerable and helpless in comparison...

Quote :

"The suicide rate is 4 times for men than that of women for a reason."

Might be that learned helplessness. I think a lot of men would commit suicide too if they were subjected to the same social treatment as women.

[Edited on May 6, 2013 at 10:02 AM. Reason : .]

5/6/2013 10:00:53 AM

^is he not implying that men already have a higher suicide rate?

[Edited on May 6, 2013 at 10:06 AM. Reason : ]

5/6/2013 10:04:47 AM

Oh right, read it wrong. Maybe high expectations can be crushing as well? Don't get me started on how patriarchal culture isn't healthy for males either.

[Edited on May 6, 2013 at 10:08 AM. Reason : .]

5/6/2013 10:08:13 AM

This could be open to interpretations about dependency as well

5/6/2013 10:09:47 AM

Quote :

"My problem with this entire issue is that it is setting the metric for life success at wealth acquisition and not happiness."

I don't think wealth is a bad metric for happiness, we don't have a lot of other options. If you give someone money you make them more happy, and when you take it away you make them less happy.

Quote :

"The suicide rate is 4 times for men than that of women for a reason."

I'm sure there is a reason, but I doubt it's because they have more money.

"most research on the relationship between income and suicide rates indicates that higher suicide rates correspond with lower incomes "
http://www.sras.org/how_does_income_affect_suicide_rates
(This article also discusses the gender gap in suicides, which makes it very interesting on this sub-thread that has come up)

5/6/2013 10:19:24 AM

I recently had a female friend of a friend attempt (and fail) to kill herself.

The statistical picture is that women attempt suicide more often than men. It sounds like a clear-cut picture, but less-so when you put it in a real-life anecdotal context. The higher male mortality from attempted suicide is somewhat due the suicide method. If you cut your wrist, honestly you probably won't die, and if you shoot yourself in the head, honestly you probably will die. Then again, I've known a guy or two who kill themselves by "girly" methods... usually drugs. Guys are pretty good at dying.

Justified or not, I have an image that if I try to kill myself and fail, I'll be in a prison, not in an institution. If you consider failed shooting-through-the-mouth, those people have to live with permanent deformity. I think it's great that women can seem to fall back on a social support network in the case of a failed suicide, but for men I don't think the perception of a genuine support network is there... although I do not know what the reality is.

Even in the case of women, it's hard to actually know someone who tried and still believe they didn't mean it. Sure, you might be able to Google it right now and find that wrist-cutting only has a 6% lethality, but that's not what they thought. They think to themselves "even if most people don't succeed, I'll do it well because I'm ready to die". They probably don't look up the stats either. It's hard to explain the gender suicide difference by a difference in intent. Maybe men are just better socialized to violence and self-hate. I think that a form of self-loathing and "otherness" probably contributes to softer forms of suicide attempts. The emotions have to be different from the get-go.

5/6/2013 10:22:26 AM

Quote :

" I think it's great that women can seem to fall back on a social support network in the case of a failed suicide, but for men I don't think the perception of a genuine support network is there... although I do not know what the reality is."

You mention how men usually try "less girly" suicide methods, which makes sense, but the lack of support network also makes sense since men anything short of independence and emotional stalwartness is treated as weakness, shamed, etc.

5/6/2013 10:45:14 AM

Quote :

"I don't think wealth is a bad metric for happiness, we don't have a lot of other options. If you give someone money you make them more happy, and when you take it away you make them less happy."

<shrug> I happen to think suicide rate and overall life expectancy are better indicators than salary. I also think homelessness by gender paints a different picture than a blanket men vs. women by salary.

5/6/2013 1:23:27 PM

Homelessness and suicide rates, if meaningful in the first place, can only tell you about the least happy cohort within the group.

From there, any coherent feminist stream of logic then putters off pretty quickly. If you postulate that there is a minority of men who are privileged, don't have to work hard, and are given undue power... then it's no longer a feminist issue. It's just a run-of-the-mill economic inequality argument. If you've painted society as a plutocracy, then who the fuck cares that our feudal lords aren't often women?

5/6/2013 1:41:41 PM

Cool. Glad to hear that women are finally equals in America. Now we just need to eradicate racism, cure homophobia, win the war on drugs, eliminate homelessness, and celebrate diversity and everything will be juuuust dandy for everyone

5/6/2013 1:54:32 PM

Quote :

"From there, any coherent feminist stream of logic then putters off pretty quickly. If you postulate that there is a minority of men who are privileged, don't have to work hard, and are given undue power... then it's no longer a feminist issue."

Privilege doesn't mean you're always at the top of the heap. If homeless women get more more help because they're generally perceived as being weaker and more helpless, that's not something to celebrate, because it means that when they do get out of homelessness they're going to be subjected to those lowered expectations in all of the other aspects of their life anyway.

I'd wager there were more homeless white men than blacks in the antebellum south, that doesn't say a thing about the system of privilege.

[Edited on May 6, 2013 at 2:11 PM. Reason : .]

5/6/2013 2:08:09 PM

Listing cases that are not valid examples of privilege just reinforces the complete uselessness of the concept. As long as we're using the only reasonable concept of privilege, which is that group A is privileged in category X then it follows that every individual has a set of things that they're privileged in and a set of things that they're oppressed in.

In the extreme form of group-based roles, imagine that you're born into the world with a profession and role predetermined for you by society. If they tell you to be a shoemaker, then that's a great privilege under the extremely specific set of circumstances that you genuinely want to be a shoemaker. As ridiculous as that sounds, it fairly closely approximates old caste systems with the only exception of certain castes genuinely believing they're better than others. If you were going to be reborn into feudal Japan, it might not be so clear whether you'd rather be born into the farmer, merchant, or samurai caste. I sure as hell can't remember which is preferable from my classes, and they might honestly all suck.

It might sound good in theory that we'll just never pigeonhole anyone into a role, not a single person on Earth does so in practice, or even remains consistent in their positions. It devolves into philosophical drivel.

5/6/2013 2:44:52 PM

Quote :

"As long as we're using the only reasonable concept of privilege, which is that group A is privileged in category X then it follows that every individual has a set of things that they're privileged in and a set of things that they're oppressed in."

Okay. Every single white male who is given a shave and a nice suit will have a better chance of getting a random job than a black male with the same, all else (educational qualifications, etc) being equal. Done. Explain to me how that's not privilege. What does that black male have that they're privileged in? People assuming him to be good at basketball?

You don't get what privilege is, that's why you think it's a useless concept. Privilege isn't (just) about what you have, it's also about how you are perceived.


[Edited on May 6, 2013 at 3:14 PM. Reason : .]

5/6/2013 3:09:29 PM

On that point of overt discrimination society's agreement was elicited decades ago. So what route is this going down?

It's either telling people:
- You don't think you're racist... but you are
- Most people you know are racist but won't admit it

Either of these will be a deep, convoluted, theory of mind proposition. You probably take away agency from the actors, and in fact, your audience. Now, if the goal was to convince someone to act differently, then telling them that their actions don't align with their thoughts is self-defeating.

Sexism is probably a easier problem to solve than white-black relations, since the groups won't go entirely insular. In either case, appealing to overt discrimination is the tactic used to bring the conversation back to something universally agreed upon. I don't think there's much of anything in the modern discussion that's universally agreed upon. We moved past those things we all agree upon long ago.

5/6/2013 4:36:37 PM

Quote :

"Okay. Every single white male who is given a shave and a nice suit will have a better chance of getting a random job than a black male with the same, all else (educational qualifications, etc) being equal. "

ha do you really think that's true???

5/6/2013 4:41:06 PM

Is it surprising to anyone that I'm a:

-skpetic
-atheist
-liberal
-humanist
-in favor of "socialist" policies like welfare, benefits for illegal immigrants, taxing the rich, etc.

but opposed to modern feminism as I believe it embraces unskeptical claims such as pay discrimination, rape culture, false rape statistics, patriarchy as a catch-all problem creator to further the oppressed victim narrative?

5/6/2013 6:59:11 PM

Quote :

"I believe it embraces unskeptical claims"

so did I

then I learned the truth

5/6/2013 7:07:19 PM

^^^
It is true, and this is backed up by pretty much every single study or research into the issue.

5/6/2013 7:32:10 PM

[citation needed]

In before African-sound names on resumes; a clear moving of the goalposts.

But honestly what does any of this have to do with the gender-based wage gap theory? Does one group of discrimination somehow prove another?

[Edited on May 6, 2013 at 8:27 PM. Reason : .]

5/6/2013 8:13:00 PM

Quote :

"but opposed to modern feminism as I believe it embraces unskeptical claims such as pay discrimination, rape culture, false rape statistics, patriarchy as a catch-all problem creator to further the oppressed victim narrative?"

Shit.

The MRA's have made their way to tdub.

5/6/2013 9:11:16 PM

I don't buy it, at least not the "apples-to-apples, women are paid less" argument. If that were the case, wouldn't businesses overwhelmingly hire women in favor of men in order to cut labor costs?

5/6/2013 9:19:27 PM

You're confusing women with Asians.

5/6/2013 9:50:20 PM

not really related to the main topic. but i'd be curious to see that suicide stat controlled for gun ownership

5/6/2013 11:49:28 PM

Quote :

"The MRA's have made their way to tdub."

They've always been here, you don't remember Wolfpack2K? I'm worried the tumblr SJW's are making their way here. I don't see the point in "privilege". Discrimination is something you can fix, privilege is just something you can whine about.

5/7/2013 9:39:44 AM

Quote :

"Shit. The MRA's have made their way to tdub. "

Hey, don't defend your dogma; just demonize any dissent. It works for other religions, right?

I'm not an MRA, unless that's your code word for anyone who doesn't buy Feminist claims without question.

5/7/2013 9:56:45 AM

Quote :

"But honestly what does any of this have to do with the gender-based wage gap theory? Does one group of discrimination somehow prove another?"

No but I think you'll find that people who deny one will tend to deny the other...and all others, because it's a defense mechanism for them, and not based on anything resembling knowledge about the world they live in. Not that they need that knowledge anyway. When you're at the top of the heap in terms of prejudicial ladders, knowing about the poor treatment of the rest is knowledge you take on as a hobby at best, whereas for them it's a daily part of life.

Quote :

"I don't buy it, at least not the "apples-to-apples, women are paid less" argument. If that were the case, wouldn't businesses overwhelmingly hire women in favor of men in order to cut labor costs?"

By this logic, pre-Civil Rights Act discrimination against blacks, for instance, could have never happened unless they were literally inferior by all counts. It's almost as though prejudice can color your perceptions (aka bias) of someone's performance. When a woman messes up a spreadsheet, perhaps it's because you're asking too much of her in terms of math, that's why you pay her less. When a man does it, he's just being lazy. He's still worth the money, you just gotta tighten the leash a bit so he earns it. Black guy late to work? Well figures, that's what I get for hiring one. White guy late? Idiot needs to straighten his act out.

Quote :

"Discrimination is something you can fix, privilege is just something you can whine about."

Actually, to put it really, really, really basic: privilege is just freedom from discrimination, and you can't fix one without fixing the other. It's a condition where discrimination isn't visited upon you, and so the experiences of everyone who is discriminated against are an abstract, second hand story not actually confirmed by your daily life unless you're this guy http://www.amazon.com/Black-Like-50th-Anniversary-Edition/dp/0451234219

Quote :

"ha do you really think that's true???"

I wont engage this at all unless you agree to go 1 for 1 on posting studies and sources, okay? I'm not going to play the game where I post 10 links and you winge about sample size or nitpick the methodology and pretend like doing so somehow supports your claim to the contrary.


[Edited on May 7, 2013 at 10:35 AM. Reason : .]

5/7/2013 10:30:38 AM

Quote :

"Hey, don't defend your dogma; just demonize any dissent. It works for other religions, right? I'm not an MRA, unless that's your code word for anyone who doesn't buy Feminist claims without question."

An MRA is a specific type of anti-Feminist that some Feminists use to caricature anti-Feminists in general. Kind of like how you use dogmatic, unyielding Feminists who can't handle dissent as a caricature of Feminists in general, so you can use that to demonize any dissenters to your anti-Feminism. Grow up, please and thank you.


[Edited on May 7, 2013 at 10:39 AM. Reason : .]

5/7/2013 10:38:14 AM

Talk of privilege reminds me very strongly of the ridiculous shaming and self-mutilation that was rampant in the old Catholic church.



The idea is logical from an organizational standpoint. People can't just come in to church, get eternal salvation, and walk out. That would diminish the importance of the church. So it's simple - everyone must feel bad, constantly, and there's nothing they can do to rid themselves of the shame. In fact, the act of feeling this shame is righteous because we can never be fully rid of our sins. We have no choice but to acknowledge them and beg for forgiveness.

Quote :

"Actually, to put it really, really, really basic: privilege is just freedom from discrimination"

Not it's not. In a fully equitable and non-discriminatory society the people wouldn't be privileged. Privilege is specifically possessing an advantage over other people that you didn't work for.

And let's be perfectly clear, modern privilege in this sense would not exist if not for an insidious racism/sexism/bigotry that isn't even overtly acknowledged. Feminist (and other) literature is rife with arguments to this tune. So even if they say privilege is just acknowledging your own unfair benefits, it's not. It's intertwined with your own oppression of other people as anyone with a brain can see. This is exactly what any religion demands. Feel shame, always. Receive your penance. And keep giving money to the cause.

[Edited on May 7, 2013 at 11:25 AM. Reason : ]

5/7/2013 11:22:52 AM

Quote :

"Not it's not. In a fully equitable and non-discriminatory society the people wouldn't be privileged. Privilege is specifically possessing an advantage over other people that you didn't work for."

When others are discriminated against, it is an advantage you have that you didn't work for. Every resume that gets thrown in the trash pushes yours closer to the top, it's that simple. Every time someone gives you the benefit of a doubt or higher expectations because your skin color and your genitalia, that's an advantage you didn't work for. It's really not hard to understand: the existence of discrimination against some people, in a competitive world, equates to advantage for all others.

Quote :

"And let's be perfectly clear, the modern privilege in this sense if not for an insidious racism/sexism/bigotry that isn't even overtly acknowledged. Feminist (and other) literature is rife with arguments to this tune. So even if they say privilege is just acknowledging your own unfair benefits, it's not. It's intertwined with your own oppression of other people as anyone with a brain can see. This is exactly what any religion demands. Feel shame, always. And keep giving money to the cause."

It has nothing to do with feeling shame at all, this is textbook MRA defensiveness. Shame is a self-centered, self-indulgent reaction that solves nothing. The point of understanding privilege is to recognize it, spread knowledge of it, and fight against all systems that create it, not feel bad because maybe you had an unfair advantage from time to time. Maybe try to modify your behavior to mitigate it, such as by lecturing/mansplaining to the less privileged a little less and listening to them a bit more, or by generally doing your best to be sensitive (aka FUCKING CIVILITY).


[Edited on May 7, 2013 at 11:32 AM. Reason : .]

5/7/2013 11:28:37 AM