My new favorite terrible Tumblr blog is this is female privilege, a blog that posts user-submitted examples of, well, female privilege. It’s a pretty MRA-adjacent idea for a blog, seemingly designed to be appreciated only by those who can use the word “misandry” without giggling. The woman who runs the blog seems to be fairly MRA-adjacent type herself; she recently responded to one critic with a sarcastic “Wow waahhhh it’s so hard to be a woman wahhhh!” (Literally; that’s an exact quote.)
So it’s hardly surprising that many of the posts seem to have been cut and pasted straight from the Men’s Rights subreddit – at least figuratively, if not literally. (Click on the pics to see the posts in context at this is female privilege.)
But a lot of the alleged privileges are a bit, well, odder than that. The blogger says she posts everything she gets, so either a lot of people have pretty cockeyed notions of just what privileges are, or some feminists are trolling her blog by sending along the dumbest non-privileges they can think of to make the blog even more ridiculous than it already is.
Some suggest that biological differences are “privileges.”
Some of the so-called “privileges” are the results of traditional gender roles that box both men and women in:
Dude, if you want to shave your body hair, shave your fucking body hair. There are lots of guys who shave or wax.
Some are comically delusional:
Chance this last one was submitted by a guy: 110%.
Some are just kind of whiny.
You know, there’s an easy solution to this: wait for a fucking stall, like women do.
Some are kind of weird:
And some are just, well, beyond hope:
Seriously, if you see these things as female privilege, you really, really shouldn’t be talking about privilege in public on the internet. You’re just making a fool of yourself.
The one redeeming thing about the blog: people argue back in the “notes.”
EDIT: Another redeeming thing: It’s inspired the response blog Actually This is Male Privilege.
EDIT 2: Amanda Marcotte riffs on the one about women having the wonderful privilege of sex any time they want!
These blogs will provide me with much needed entertainment over the next day or so.
Hey! I play croquet in public all the time, but I get made fun of! Especially when I miss and the ball rolls into someone’s foot. Also that police officer tried to confiscate my mallet. It was very sad.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Aww, you can’t ask anonymously. 🙁
Oh for the love of…
It’d be a nice privilege if women could turn it off occasionally.
Also, if you look female but not “sexy,” you get to hear passerby’s opinion on that, too.
It is sort of a silly blog but it should be titled “How gender roles hurt men as well”. Men die earlier than women as a result of the stress to not show emotion and “handle it like a man”
If a woman cries and gets emotional it is okay but if a man does he is considered a “sissy”. A man that stays home and takes care of the children while his wife works is still considered weird.
The current Mens Rights Movement is all about Mens Liberation from the constraints of their gender role.Men are still required in America to register for the military draft and risk their lives while women are not.
By the way I happen to go to Hooters not for the female waitresses but I like their chicken wings. Their food is darn good,Good burgers too. I have seen women eating at Hooters as well.
A lot of the MRM stuff really doesn’t look like it’s interested in building equality… I do believe that rigid gender roles are shitty for everyone. Let’s take the draft as an example! It’s a frequently-pointed-out point that a lot of feminists argue that that the draft should be abolished or universalised; in my country, women aren’t allowed to serve as front-line infantry, and feminists here are working on changing that so women would be allowed to take their share of the load there, too.
Seriously? I’ve been to a Hooters restaurant. I’d never go back. That food was terrible. Who likes making a living serving awful food?
I thought “Female privilege is BOOBS” was the ultimate, but then I saw “Female privilege is multiple orgasms.” Why must we oppress men so?
Somewhere in there is a potentially useful conversation about how Patriarchy Oppresses Men Too, and feminists want men to feel more comfortable knitting, doing housework, and going dutch on dates. But, given that the recent posts are all the same boring child custody/abortion rights/circumcision is oppression/women never want to date me and it’s not faaaair stuff we’ve seen a million times here, it looks like the MRAs drowned it out pretty much immediately.
As to the military: As a woman I wouldn’t join until 1. the whole incidence of rape/sexual assault and harassment goes way down and is better-dealt-with. 2. I could serve on the front lines (such as they are in current wars. Let’s say infantry). Naturally, my somewhat-traditionally-minded partner (who is a recruiter as I’ve mentioned) goes off on long rants about the trubbles of wimminz in combats.
As to Hooters? I know some Hooter’s girls who absolutely hate where they work, and get harassed a lot, but are sort of stuck cause the money is decent, and where else can some of them find comparable pay in this economy, OR, can’t get places to take them seriously as job candidates with Hooter’s Girl on their resume. And some of these girls have their bachelor’s degrees. Does this completely cancel out her example of Happy Hooters Girls being female privilege? (Also does it not occur to them that companies like Hooter’s and Tilted Kilt exist mainly for Teh Dudez? WHOLE COMPANIES CATER TO STEREOTYPICAL MALE DESIRES.)
2-D Man – I would guess that the tips at Hooters are way better than at your average restaurant in that price range, so long as you’ve got the right body type and can fake the persona convincingly.
(Yes, female privilege to get better tips, whatever, just think of how much more power the guys paying those tips have.)
MGTOWMRA: Yes, gender roles hurt men too, and feminism addresses that too (if only indirectly: as a byproduct of their work in addressing the gender roles that hurt women). Gender roles hurt men, but they hurt women more. Hence, priorities; hence the term “feminism”.
The Men’s Rights Movement, in practice, is about opposing that; it’s about those who benefit from the status quo defending the status quo under the pretense of activism. It’s MRAs who make a point of enforcing the very man-harming gender roles you (and they) claim they fight against.
Feminists fight primarily for women, but their brothers are not forgotten. Their work in fighting for women can also benefit men; this is a feature, not a bug. MRAs fight only for men; for them, any benefit for women is a bug, not a feature.
Do you know the difference between a nice guy and a Nice Guy? Likewise, there’s a difference between Men’s Rights Activists (who call themselves MRAs) and men’s rights activists (who call themselves feminists).
I stand with men by standing with women. That’s how I see it, anyway.
I should add that said catering is not, well, very *flattering*? But still. There are dudes whole sign onto those stereotypes wholesale and are all sorts of excited about Hooters, etc. And it exists for them to go and enjoy in that way.
Cliff: Some of the Hooters girls I know make *really* good money. BUT. they also get most of that from their “regulars”, and they sort of have to put up with some very weird, condescending crap from them. Their weight, level of tan-ness, hair, and makeup are also very policed. I mean, they make money, yeah, but the guys giving those tips had the money for it in the first placed, plus, the girls can get kind of a rough deal from the managers, and people also treat them like they’re stupid a lot, too. One of the girls I know who bartends there ended up starting therapy and a course of anti-depressants to deal with the stress of it. It’s intense.
While I don’t disagree with your basic premise – enforced gender roles absolutely do hurt men, too – I think you may underestimate how much crap is dished out to women in the same vein. Using your examples here, it’s absolutely true that, if I cry in public, I will not be accused of being a “sissy.” I will instead be accused of being hysterical, irrational, and a “typical woman,” and have this used as a reason to dismiss anything I say. It’s absolutely true that, if I choose to become a stay-at-home mom, I will not be considered “weird.” I will, however, frequently be considered stupid and useless, not to mention being blamed for anything less-than-perfect about my hypothetical children.
The thing is, almost all the gender-policing crap inflicted on men – and don’t get me wrong, it IS crap and it absolutely sucks – boils down to “don’t act like a GIRL, because girls are terrible.” Which means that women deal with the exact same crap, but for us, it’s “don’t act like YOU, because YOU are terrible, no matter what you do.”
When I knit in public, I tend to get reactions, particularly from men. Often, they take the form of “oh, you women and your silly, frivolous woman things. You’re so cute!”
Or, put another way: a man might be laughed at for doing needle/textile crafts in public, because he’s perceived to be behaving in a shallow, vapid, womanly way; instead of a serious, manly way. I get condescending approval for the same behaviour because I’m meeting the expectation that I will be vapid and shallow, and spend my time doing useless things.
It’s worth noting that hobbies less associated with women are not judged to be useless in this same way.
Cliff – The rhetorical question was more centered around professional pride than ‘how much money does it take to get you to put up with that’. Working at Hooters could only be a female privilege if women, when asked, ‘where do you work?’ proudly responded with, ‘Hooters.’ I don’t think that actually happens very often.
I suppose I could be wrong about that. (And I kinda hope so.)
ummmm men can work at hooters……they have male bussers, cooks, managers, they just can’t be servers. But you know what…let them! IF men want to wear short shorts and a shirt that says hooters across their chest..let them do it! Somehow, I doubt there would be many volenteers=P Also, to counter her antedotes I had a friend that worked at hooters. She burned her lip on a tanning bed and they told ehr she couldn’t work like that….This would NEVER happen at any other resteraunt. The Hooters in West Covina, CA also gets sued a lot for sexual harrasment…not seeing any female privlage there
On a slightly more happy note: my mum’s quite keen on knitting (and has learnt to spin fleece into fibre), and frequently points out that should the zombie apocalypse come and civilisation collapse, she can still make clothes.
Knitting is awesome.
“Please wait an hour before submitting any more posts.”
Aw man. 33:
Well, that was fun. Hopefully an hour will have passed by the time I get back home.
I wonder which ones will be posted, and what will happen to my black and disabled “privilege” submits????????
@alantas
it’s weird, there’s a dude who’s leaving the organization i work for to do a phd with a masculinity studies focus, and not only are none of the feminists here (which is to say, everyone) criticizing or belittling him, everyone has pretty universally said ‘your ideas sound cool as shit’
I mis-read that as “has learnt to spin fleece into fire” (maybe influenced the appearance of the words “zombie apocalypse” later in your comment, and thought THAT IS SO AWESOME.
It IS still awesome, though, and potentially just as useful when civilization collapses.
@Polliwog:
“The thing is, almost all the gender-policing crap inflicted on men – and don’t get me wrong, it IS crap and it absolutely sucks – boils down to “don’t act like a GIRL, because girls are terrible.” Which means that women deal with the exact same crap, but for us, it’s “don’t act like YOU, because YOU are terrible, no matter what you do.””
A-fucking-men.
Looking back, I can trace my feminist stance today to being friends to guys years ago (some I’m still friends with) who very much want/ed to do things and live outside gender norms. Trying to be supportive of them made me realize how asinine and arbitrary the gender boxes are in the first place.
Now I’ve kind of “circled back,” as it were, to focusing on women and women’s experiences as a part of supporting my friends (male and female) in bucking gender roles.
@MorkaisChosen-
Knitting is awesome, particularly when having knitted wool socks is the difference between getting your foot cut off from frost bite or not. No zombie apocalypse needed where I’m from to be grateful to people like your mom. Tell her she’s awesome!
😀
Where we live it’s less likely to save limbs, but I’ll pass that on.!