Invisible Privilege OTD

[brynndragon]

Men in Power - Men's advocacy group at U of Chicago, which amongst a slew of privilege observation fail notes that women earn more college degrees than men yet fails to notice that women still make less money than men. This does not assure me that they're anything more than a group of guys who are afraid of losing their privilege in the exceedingly gradual evening of the playfield between the genders.

Comments

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

"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!".

[londo.livejournal.com]

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.

[ultimatepsi.livejournal.com]

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.

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

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.

[abilouise.livejournal.com]

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.

[damhan-alluidh.livejournal.com]

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.'

Missing a good opportunity

[lionofgod.livejournal.com]

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.

[brewergnome.livejournal.com]

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.