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!
This is stupid, not just because it assumes all dudes always want teh secks all the time, but because it seems to erase every “non-hot” lady. I’ve walked into plenty of bars plenty of times and never once had complete certainty that I would go home and have sex with someone. In fact, I knew I’d be lucky to get a guy’s digits, not just because I’m a feminist hag by arbitrary standards (though I’ve known that’s a big part of it), but because I don’t generally revel in talking to strangers and hey, guys, believe it or not, even very “hot” ladies do not magically summon dudes to their vaginas by sheer force of their magical hot-ladyness. I’ve had a lot of arbitrarily “hot” friends who rarely get approached. When they do wind up getting a guy’s number or going home with a new guy (has happened once in the entirety of my ten years of drinking) it’s usually because they approached the the guy. So even “hot” ladies gotta work for it, yanno? There are no sure things in life, no matter who you are. Heck, I can’t even walk into a bar with complete certainty that I’ll be able to get as drunk as I want to. Not all bars have equal beer selections, sadly.
I can’t help but feel that a lot of so called “female privilege” detailed in that blog is more like the things they imagine women get and love getting, rather than any actual thing that happens on a consistent basis in the real world.
Anybody else having trouble logging in to Tumblr?
That was an interesting episode. The head of Hooters also wanted to start an ad campaign to make the restaurant more “family friendly” and was so confused about why people on the street thought the place was gross. It’s like, dude, ya’ll basically named your restaurant “TITTIES” and your icon is a pair of boobs — er, owl eyes, yeah, that’s right. They’re owl eyes. But sure, family friendly.
Amanda Marcotte has some thoughts on all this:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/18/female-privilege/
Ha ha ha! Hooters is about as “family friendly” as a Las Vegas nightclub. They should just stick with marketing the restaurant towards obnoxious frat boys.
@MorkaisChosen
“That was making the point that the first sentence was pretty much in line with stuff MRAs might say.”
I have found that MRAs would probably say something along the lines of “Such a small percentage of men commit rapes, that when a woman DOES exercise hypervigilance in a dark parking lot, she is committing misandry, and perpetuating the stereotype that men are bad.” That’s what I’ve heard MRAs say about the dangers women face.
MRAs always confuse the privileges that come with being an extrememly hot young woman with female privilege. They should try being an older woman, or an unattractive or overweight one, and see how invisible they become.
Gawd, I’ve made so many typing errors today. I’m really not this stupid. 🙂
… I forgot how bizarre MRAs get.
Some form of What About The Men? type commenty person is what I was aiming for.
Gawd, I’ve made so many thinking errors today. I’m probably about as stupid as I seem. 😉
You’re not stupid Morkais 🙂
@blitzgal
“Women who do not conform to standard beauty expectations also face rejection and also find themselves going home alone after a night at the bar.”
She might not be able to go home with a man of her choosing, but she can go home some man. A man doesn’t have that option to even go home with some woman. The privilege is being able to go home with someone at all.
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@Discorda
“ummmm men can work at hooters”
That would make it a gay hooters. Women wouldn’t go, straight men wouldn’t go. If there was any kind of draw to such an establishment, it would be common. Money talks.
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@Fembot
“When half of the population can physically overpower and rape you”
I realize rape is the holy grail of feminism but it isn’t a privilege. If rape was a privilege any man could rape any woman and society would nod it’s head and endorse it.
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@MorkaisChosen
“The obvious solution is to balljazzle.”
In the all important game of reproduction, Men value beauty, women value wealth, abiltiy and power. Balljazzling doesn’t improve a man’s status of wealth, talent or power which is why women wouldn’t care about it.
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@Cliff Pervocracy
“(Yes, female privilege to get better tips, whatever, just think of how much more power the guys paying those tips have.)”
The power is the accumulation of wealth for allowing a man to look at you.
———
@Alantas
“Yes, gender roles hurt men too”
Gender isn’t a role, it’s inherent. There are two genders, man/woman. The hurt comes from trying to play at being the gender you can never be.
“Do you know the difference between a nice guy and a Nice Guy?”
A nice guy is a man who accepts only the inherent attributes of a man. A Nice Guy TM. is a man acting like a woman. He shows no leadership skills, which are inherent for a man, which is why he’s so violently hated by women. He’s not acting like a man.
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@Polliwog
“it’s absolutely true that, if I cry in public, I will not be accused of being a “sissy.”
The privilege isn’t the act of crying. Women have less emotional control and do cry more often and more readily. The privilege is being consoled. Just as men are looked up to for their control. Women like the fact they can be consoled by a man and men like the fact they can be turned to to console. The yin and the yang is perfection. Stuffing yourself into a genderless box destroys the yin and the yang, the perfection is now imperfection.
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@boxofcrates
“I find it strange that “getting kicked in the genitals” which can happen to anyone, by the ways, is presented as the ultimate pain.”
I’ve seen men shake off even broken bones. Soldiers take bullets and continue. Boxer go round after round of punishment, but a shot to the family jewels stops em cold. Perhaps that’ll help clarify the level of pain.
Stuff like this makes me want to go out and buy one of those itty bitty video cameras and just wear it while I am out in public and then post the harassment I get from men on a regular basis (even though I am both fat and pregnant) just to prove these assholes wrong. No one wants to be sexually harassed by people they are not sexually attracted to, not even guys. Just set them up in a bar with a bunch of aggressive non- stereotypically attractive women and most of these whiners will complain and freak out.
*sigh* It is not a privilege to live in a world where people assume you ought to be treated like an object before you can be treated like a person.
PS: my husband can cook like a fucking genius chef. No one has EVER made fun of him for it. Come up with better excuses for why you suck at everything and don’t want to lift a finger to learn skills or hobbies.
Amanda Marcotte’s thoughts on, “female privilege” are right on.
Ya gotta wonder, why is the anti-male aspects of society are always “actually” misogyny? Why not the other way around?
Logic bomb.
@fembot- it is obvious how invisible non young stereotypically hot women are because these jokers obviously don’t seem to see all us normal looking ladyfolk who also deal with going home alone and not getting regular enjoyable sex.
Of course, your invisibility conveniently gets revoked the second one of these MRAholes decides to be cruel and target someone with shitty insults.
I would not actually mind perma-invisibility from creeps. Just block them from my reality like spambots and never have to interact with them again. I am sure that we would all be better for banishing these fucktards from our day to day lives.
@Steele
Do enlighten us. Which of the above quoted “privileges” do you find oh so salient?
Also, please enlighten me as to how this clusterfuck of a comment thread is allowed to happen by the all inclusive, totally about equality MRM.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/07/13/another-idea-on-feminist-men/
Why do all but one MRA remain silent (or agree) on this bullshit?
@hershele
i kind of find it hard to believe, but actually, my brother also swears by hooters wings. and my brother takes wings very seriously.
he’s kind of an asshole, and he’s is a dude who generally has no problem admitting when he does things for the t&a, so the fact that he swears the t&a has nothing to do with it tends to make me believe him.
@Torvus
“Ya gotta wonder, why is the anti-male aspects of society are always “actually” misogyny? Why not the other way around?”
Logic bomb? Um, no. More like an incoherent fizzle.
I’m also one of those invisible women, and before upgrading to invisibility status, I had the privilege of men calling me fat and ugly. Now I have the privilege of being accused of getting all the sex I want when that is clearly not the case, but not bacause I exist to them, its because the only women exist are conventionally attractive…you know the ones with a gap between their upper thighs!!!
Only seeing hot women and complaining that they can get laid- male privilege and entitlement at its finest!
Fembot: I will now be one of those obnoxious literal-meaning people on the Internet that everyone finds annoying.
“As stupid as I seem” is, apparently, not stupid! Yay! 😛
Steele: I take it you missed the bits where some of us bemoaned things that are shitty for everyone and expressed a hope that they could be removed from society so things are better for everyone.
people have talked a lot in this thread about how female behaviors are coded weak and male behaviors are coded strong, but dont let them stop you from whining about how feminism made you a shitty writer
its kind of adorable tho that you call it a ‘logic bomb’ as if you can’t possibly imagine how one explanatory framework could be superior to another, and yet your shtick is still complaining about how you dont have a career describing things
Sharculese wrote:
“people have talked a lot in this thread about how female behaviors are coded weak and male behaviors are coded strong…”
Men and women are punished when they exhibit behaviors of the opposite sex. When a man exhibits female behaviors he is called weak, a p*ssy, a mangina, a crybaby, etc. You would think a woman would be rewarded for exhibiting male behaviors (strength, confidence, efficiency, etc) since male = good, but actually they are punished harshly for it, and get called bitch, shrew, thunderc*nt, ballbuster, etc. So basically, regardless of how they behave, women will be punished somehow for being women.