brynndragon | Invisible Privilege OTD

"Mainly people are just excited about the idea that men can have a group as well"

This says to me a certain amount of it is just children feeling left out. There are all those women's groups and women's issues and wah it isn't fair!

Something like that.

I'm sure you're right though - that there would be an undercurrent of "oh no they're taking away our privilege, help!".

If all the gender-neutral groups were predominantly female, maybe they'd have a point. But even then they're not getting any sympathy from me - I've only ever had one work environment that even approached gender parity (much less was predominantly my gender) and that was only on the bio side - chem side had a single woman.

OTOH, maybe a male-oriented group will prepare them for the real world where they still get to assume that their worldview is more important (I assume that's why there are a few women in the group, so the men can practice patting themselves on the back for being inclusive while not having to actually give up any privilege while the women get to practice dealing with that sort of jackass).

Oh, they aren't getting much sympathy from me either.

I do think men aren't treated well by many social expectations and gender roles.

I also think women tend to be treated worse, and so it makes sense to concentrate on fixing the worse problem. I don't feel particularly hard done by as a man by that. I guess they do.

Valuing the feminine will lead to treating women better even when we're not doing masculine things like sacrificing family intimacy for career paths and breaking through glass ceilings. I'm sick of only having worth when I'm as good as a man while men have worth just for being male, you know?

(I'm not saying we didn't need to work on the concept of "women are as good as men", but I don't think we will have succeeded as a movement until "men are as good as women" is a viable statement rather than a joke.)

Agree on all points!

I was noodling out loud about how it seems I started in a similar place to these men's groups ("social memes about gender roles hurt everyone, so by definition hurt men too") yet ended up in a very different place.

There are many ways today I very seriously wish men were as good as women. I suspect that's a kinda geeky thing though and definitely isn't widespread.

I share some of the sentiment.

It's more than a little annoying that women are encouraged to form safe spaces for themselves in the absence of men, and that any group of men attempting to do so automatically looks like a bunch of douchebags.

I mean, down the street from me there's a gym that's nice and convenient, that I can't go to because it's for women only - which is acceptable, but a men only gym isn't.

It's funny you say that when you are working in a profession that is considerably tipped in favor of men in terms of socializing (images of my youth where the closest I got to a Magic game in high school was looking in on a group of all boys playing - when they noticed me they gave me the Evil Eye and I left). I'm all but positive it would never occur to you to think that that's an example of male privilege. That's why it's invisible privilege - when "nomal" means "male-oriented" you don't notice such things, but when something that's specifically not male-oriented happens it seems abnormal, like the gyms you mention. When any woman can walk into a co-ed gym and not be looked at either like a sex object for wearing what is still more clothing than many men work out in or like a freak of nature for using free-weights that aren't candy colored, that's when women's-only gyms will cease to exist.

I was raised on the concept of white and male privilege.

I don't object to women-only gyms, I object to women-only gyms being acceptable when men-only gyms aren't. If they were both okay, I'd be fine with that. If they were both not okay, I'd be fine with that. It's the double standard that gets me.

I realize that lots of X-only spaces exist because our culture is implicitly tilted towards white guys, and those spaces are frequently useful to people who are X. It sucks that they're as needed as they are, and I wish they weren't. But it goes right up my craw that someone can shout out "we need equality, and now!" at the same time as they say "...but you can't do this thing I'm doing."

Despite being raised with the idea of privilege apparently it failed to sink in that co-ed spaces are actually male-oriented spaces. Thus men don't need to specifically create male-oriented spaces - they're not merely common but so normal that you fail to see them. Creating a women-oriented space is far more tricky because as soon as a man goes into a space it becomes male-oriented (women are no less subject to societal programing than anyone else) so the only way to pull it off is to make the space women-only.

I sincerely wish that wasn't the case, but it still is. I'd love to be able to say that everyone is all equal so we don't need to do such things anymore, but real life has this unfortunate habit of proving me wrong on that score repeatedly. So we have this nasty kludge of women-only spaces in order to practice living in a world where men are not privileged over women - men seem to object to this for some reason. . .

As long as you acknowledge that it's a nasty kludge and hopefully temporary while we sort things out, my objection pretty much disappears.

I don't think that I agree with the blanket statement that "co-ed spaces are actually male-oriented spaces," but I do think it's true more often than not.

Addendum:

"Temporary" may not get sorted out until we're both dead and gone. I mean, I hope it doesn't, I hope we all wake up tomorrow and everything is fixed, but this is not a small problem and will not be fixed quickly.

Agreed to both of your comments - I'd much rather have a safe diverse space than a safe undiverse space, but I'd also rather have a safe space than an unsafe space.

Your average gym has a "male only" section called "free weights." Talk to many women who've spent any time there and you'll find they have to be "one of the boys" to do it.

That probably explains why I said that co-ed gyms have an old-boys-club feel - I tend to gravitate to free weights for non-cardio stuff because I was taught you get a more well-rounded workout that way (something I believe even more strongly now that I'm working on folks with musculoskeletal pain issues - it's the little muscles that fuck you up like woah).

It is the home, and demesne of the brotards, and even those of us who don't fit that demographic often feel like interlopers. This is, of course, amplified by the bizarre societal belief that a woman who touches a free weight will instantly explode into She-Schwarzenegger.

There's a bit of a difference between "everyone will look at you funny and you are likely to feel uncomfortable" and being asked to leave before the police are called.

Yes. There's also a difference between getting leered at and not. And being afraid for one's personal safety and not.

I think you're both right and wrong with respect to gyms. I think one could reasonably extend your argument to say that if there were a high-enough level of societal equality between women and men that not only would the women-only gyms disappear, gyms would no longer need single-sex locker rooms. I actually think that neither of these are completely true. I am only speaking for myself here, but I can say that if I had access to two gyms which were equally convenient and of equal quality and one was co-ed and the other was men-only, I would prefer the men-only one because I feel somewhat less self-conscious working out without there being any women present[1]. Of course, I would really like a gym in which I was guaranteed to be the only person there, but that desire is unreasonable. I know there are many people who feel otherwise, but I think that just argues in favor of the existence of both co-ed and single-sex gyms.

[1] Maybe this is unusual but I can't imagine that it's terribly rare.

Actually, there are men's only gyms.

I didn't mean to imply that men's only gyms don't exist - they are a rarity though and most of those that do exist are the sort of place I wouldn't even consider joining for reasons that I probably don't need to enumerate here[1]. I should also add that I'm a little uncomfortable (what I said previously notwithstanding) with the fact that single-gender gyms exist from the standpoint of gym-as-business (as opposed to gym-as-place) and gender discrimination. It is, in general, in the US, considered counter to public policy for a business to have discriminatory practices in who it allows to be its customers. Gyms can get away with this (actually, I am unsure whether it has ever been adjudicated - but one would think so) because they are generally "private clubs" and as such mostly have the law on their side in terms of discriminatory practices (in choosing who can and cannot be members, though not, in most jurisdictions, with respect to hiring). That still bothers me a bit, as most gyms (of the sort that people like you and I use) are really more (for-profit) businesses than they are clubs as such. If e.g.- BJ's or Costco decided to have discriminatory membership practices, it would appear to be the case that, legally, they could. I know I would be bullshit about it if they did, though.

[1] Ok, I will, a little. It is my perception that such gyms are usually "old boys' clubs" and I find that sort of thing distasteful.

I could explain the issues of physical safety associated with women's only gyms vs. co-ed gyms (in short: if I was going to go work out late at night, I'd much rather go to a women's only gym, with one reason being if I went to a co-ed gym and something bad happened to me *I* would be blamed for it). I could attempt again to explain the privilege that men have, which applies to the gym as well (starting with the time I attempted to tell a (male) trainer "no, really, I want to be stronger and have more endurance, I don't give a fuck about weight and would like to develop muscles" repeatedly and still got a lose-weight-look-trim-no-muscle-growth regiment). I could even point out the irony that you see men's only gyms as "old boy's clubs" when every single frickin' co-ed gym I've ever walked into has been such (complete with female eye-candy for them). But I don't think it'll make much of a difference.

I don't think that all coed gyms are old boy's clubs. The ones I've been in certainly have not been, and the eye candy factor was exactly zero. (For reference, most of those are corporate.) Nor do I think that an all male gym necessarily needs to be.

I have *nothing* against all-female gyms, because people *do* need a safe space to work out.... but seriously, guys need that too. And not all guys consider either the testosterone-filled competetive environment that's what *i've* heard about from all-male and mostly-male gyms, *or* the more casual just-in-here-to-get-in-shape environments all that welcoming.

Sexist jerks do exist in gyms, but really, they're not the only people in them. Nor are all men who would prefer to have a place that *they're* not self-conscious about their bodies in front of people they might otherwise like to impress (like girls) inherently sexist jerks. There really are shy guys, and I *know* you know some. The safety issue is certainly less of a concern, and I'm not playing it down, but when it comes to willingness-to-come-and-work-out, I know plenty of guys just as uncomfortable with "standard" gym culture as you seem to be.

I don't think anyone is arguing against women's only gyms being a needed thing in today's world, much as we might wish they weren't. But given that... no, I don't actually have any problem with a guy's space.

I don't mind the existance of men's only gyms. I'm really OK with them. But it's almost never "let's go have men's only gyms!", it's usually "hey, you get to have your own gyms, that's not fair!". Remember, this started with "I mean, down the street from me there's a gym that's nice and convenient, that I can't go to because it's for women only". It really looks like no one stopped to see if there were any men's only gyms before bitching about the women's only gyms, and that's a huge problem with this thread that I should have pointed out several comments ago.

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Oh, don't even get me started on a "women's gym" that actively supports removing rights from women. Curves is a fucking travesty on so many levels. . .

I'm so not in the mood to poke at this anymore. I've tried several ways of explaining it and I don't feel like coming up with yet another attempt to get through to yet another guy who doesn't get it. Especially when single sex gyms are entirely not the subject of this post to begin with. Go read this instead.

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You are treading on exceptionally dangerous ground, not just in terms of this discussion but in terms of how you are interacting with me as a womab. The next step is breaking out the haiku. You've been warned.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. I don't think there is an inherent problem with a "men's issues" group in today's world.

The name's a little off, at the very least.

It sure isn't the one I would have picked.

It sounds like something drunk fratboys thought of.

I think the idea of things like mentoring being with awareness of social and cultural factors, as they exist, and making sure that people are aware that they have been, and can be challenged is good. Still, as a subset of males who are in collage, they may not be involved with and understanding of the ones who are the missing males in their statistics. I know there are major efforts to support and encourage women in engineering. Are they supporting men to enter the underrepresented field of elementary education?

As to the gym discussion, I am curious if the long term existence of Women-safe-spaces is altering the feel of co-ed spaces.

The name is a pretty good indicator that they're doing it wrong.

Your link text says "Men's advocacy ground"; I think you meant "group"?

Even the group's name is a *facepalm*. Why, yes, men kind of are "in power" already; hadn't they noticed the gender breakdowns of the Senate, the House, and the C-level executives of the largest N companies or the Fortune N, for any value of N you want to pick?

There are a few issues where men are lagging behind women*, but "power" is certainly not one of them. The undertones I get from this group's name are very much "We're in power, and we damned well want to maintain that power."

* Obviously, those few don't compare to the huge number of ways in which women still get the short end of the stick.

Thanks for catching that typo, and thanks for understanding what I'm still trying to find the words to express.

I think that there is a place for men to come together and form groups to talk about men-stuff without women present. I think about what consciousness-raising groups did for women in the 70s, and I wonder if a lot of men I know would have more interesting thoughts re: patriarchy and awareness of their own thoughts, feelings, crap, etc. if they could have the kind of conversations about masculinity, sex, work, identity and what their own personal desires might be that women like my mom were having 40 years ago. I think that our society already has plenty of "rah rah go dudes" but if men wanted to find safe spaces to be un-patriarchal together, that could only make the world better. But no, that's not what these UChicago dudes are doing.

Yes, I agree - tying it into

earthdragon's comment above, men having conversations about being males in traditionally female jobs and roles and how masculinity works in a world where men are not privileged for being male is pretty damn vital and if that's what this group was about I'd support it. But it's really not - it's a bad joke getting out of hand.

The interview doesn't really go into much...
I can see a reason for some advocacy groups, but the name of that one puts me off pretty much immediately.
Father's rights, for instance.

As to single sex gyms, I think they should be doable. I get self conscious, personally. Well, a lot of it's the same reasons women prefer women's gyms.

Some of the things are odd, like the guy denying that white male privledge exists.
All I can think on that is 'Try being a native cripple some time, asshole.'

Now, I'm going to withhold complete judgment because I *know* how newspapers like to spin things, and this *screams* "opportunity for a newspaper to make college students look like privileged idiots" piece. On the other hand... privileged idiot is definitely the vibe.

And what makes me so annoyed here is that I *do* think there *is* a place for discussion of things like "How can we encourage guys to consider careers like teaching and nursing?" and "Why aren't boys doing so well in school, and how can we help them achieve, and how can we get both boys and girls into alternate career paths like the vocations that might suit them better?"

I hope that at least they can make something worthwhile (i.e. not just the white professional men's organization) of it. I'm not surprised the name is so bad given that this really does seem to have grown out of somebody's joke.

That's a good point about the newspaper spin, but yea, if you call your group Men in Power you are likely itching for a fight.

It would be a damn shame if they don't tackle the very real and overlooked issue of how men can express aspects and attributes considered feminine without having them be considered lesser men (probably focused on career paths for this particular group, as you noted). This is a significant task that feminism (if'n that term makes someone's skin crawl, substitute "gender equality movement") needs to tackle in general - how to value the feminine in both genders. It's been almost entirely focused on giving women access to male privilege, which is vital but only half of the problem.

Incidentally, we had a men's group at Carleton. It was run by a friend of mine and was created not as a counterpoint to the women's group, but as a unique entity. It was used to talk about exactly things like the fact that many "men's spaces" like gyms are really "certain type of men's spaces" and Fatherhood and euch.

That sounds pretty darn awesome, actually. So what did you call the group anyway? ;P

::frowns::

AH right.

Men's Issues Awareness... M.I.A.

Now *that's* how you name a men's group! Although the acronym could be considered unfortunate. . . ;P

It was purposeful. Pointing out that a real discussion of Men's Issues (rather than WAH WAH) has been, in fact, missing in action.

Invisible Privilege OTD

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The name is made of fail.

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Missing a good opportunity

Re: Missing a good opportunity

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