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

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.

Re: Missing a good opportunity

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

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.