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!
Who’s “we”? I’ve heard plenty of peeps out of Eccleston (sic), who’s played the lead in several high-profile one-off dramas and series since 2005.
Granted, they didn’t attract the same tidal wave of hype that Doctor Who did, but things like Accused, The Shadow Line and the current Blackout weren’t exactly ignored, and neither was his performance as John Lennon in Lennon, Naked.
In fact, if you take the anomalous Doctor Who out of the equation, he’s doing pretty much exactly the same kind of thing that he did in the 1990s and early 2000s, when he also strongly favoured serious dramas aimed at intelligent adults. Which is where I suspect he’s happiest.
Oh, this is priceless. What have we been telling the trolls who lumber through here complaining about how they don’t get to fuck supermodels? We remind them that they can do what women are constantly told to do — lower their standards.
This shit just boils down to your anger that women get to decide who they’re going to have sex with. No, you aren’t entitled to sex. No one is. Women aren’t entitled to it, either. And there is a huge swath of women who continue to be invisible to you because they don’t conform to your standards.
Woo, Doctor Who derail! Not my favourite sci fi show of all time, but it’s near the top.
I’m another Tennant fan, but I do like all the “new” doctors. I haven’t seen much of the classic ones, they’re waaay before my time, so I can’t really comment on those. I only vaguely remember seeing some reruns when I was a kid, and my only memory of that involves Daleks.
Hafta say I’m a Smithite…
Fembot:
Case in point: when I got mugged, I was jumped from behind and forced to the ground – but it never occurred to me for a millisecond that my assailants’ motive might be rape.
Unless men are unlucky enough to have actually been (or know a man who’s been) raped, I genuinely don’t think they believe it can happen to them.
Where’s the one about the vaginismus crotch shot?
Also, if they’re claiming vaginismus is female privilege they are welcome to my failgina. I’d like to be able to use something bigger than a toothpick for penatrative pleasure.
[/TMI, grouchy]
No, the privilege is being able to go home with someone at all…and NOT be denigrated as a slut/skank/”hoor” (and all other derivatives of “the W word”).
I take it you mean on that sort of subconscious visceral level? I’m sort of consciously aware of the possibility, but it doesn’t really feel like something that’d happen to me; I can’t really imagine what it’d be like to feel otherwise.
Male privilege at the deepest sorta level there…
Re: The Doctor and Gandalf: I think any of the modern incarnations of the Doctor would just go total fan-boy. Ten especially would be all grins (Tennant has a wonderful smile). I think many of the classic Doctors would react in a bit more of a subdued manner. Three and Six would attempt to relate to him as fellow ancient-creatures-of-creation.
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead were wonderful episodes when they were first broadcast, and they only get better as the irony mounts and the positions are reversed between the Doctor and River.
Ten’s prolonged wallowing in his impending regeneration got a bit tiresome. Perhaps it was the limited running time of the older show, but the older Doctors faced it with more dignity (except Two, who went out cebgrfgvat jung jnf rffragvnyyl na rkrphgvba).
Unfortunately, I think Word of God is that Romana was President of the Council at some point during the Time War. Until The End of Time, there was a good chance she was dead or caught behind the time lock. I thought the woman condemned (to become a weeping angel?(!)) may have been the Doctor’s mum, for some reason, but Romana makes sense, too.
As far as the Doctor appealing to the inner child, I agree, but I think he’s more like an indulgent uncle than a direct parent. One is very grandfatherly (in fact he seems to be a grandfather, the question of his relationship with Susan is still open to interpretation), but Two and Three are very much uncles who’ll give you treats and take you on adventures (Two is more likely than Three to actually help you make stink bombs and get into mischief). Four’s mood swings make him less loving, but he’s kind of safely dangerous in that he might get angry but he won’t get violent with you, and in the meantime he’ll take you to do dangerous things that would make your parents have a fit (but Four will certainly bring you back safely). Five is like an older sibling or a cousin (he’s certainly got that “why did mum make me take my annoying little sister with me to hang out with my mates” vibe going with Tegan) who takes his responsibility to watch out for you seriously, but adventures still happen.
Six has mood swings like Four, but he’s physically dangerous and you never know when he’s abandoning you because he’s briar-patching the bad guy and when he’s running off because he thinks you can watch out for yourself and he saw something shiny that needs to go be poked.
Seven is very much occupying a teacher position, especially with Ace (it’s only reinforced because she insists on calling him Professor).
Getting married and settling down is the natural end of many stories, but the man Leela fell in love with lives on Gallifrey, in one of the most stultifying cultures bound about by rules and customs the show has ever put on. It’s the “I’ll just throw over all my Amazon wildness and stop being a tomboy armed with poisonous thorns and a knife and be a good little girl and wear a corset and get my hair did” aspect of it that rankles me. Kind of reminds me a little of what the English did to Pocahontas (in real history, not Disney).
Leela’s character has a bit of “tame the savage,” Pygmalion teach-Eliza-Doolittle-to-speak-good to it, but Leela is honestly uneducated (she’s sharp as a knife, though) and the Doctor doesn’t make her dress up (except the once), so I think she’s better off with the Doctor than running around, shocking the Time Lords.
I haven’t watched Blake’s 7, I’ve heard it’s good, but I got spoilered on it a long time ago.
Shutting up now.
There’s so much love when you go check out comments about something random and then find a discussion about Doctor Who. Once you start watching Doctor Who, this seems to happen much more often, isn’t that interesting?
WE ARE WHOVIANS.
YOUR DISCUSSION THREADS WILL BE DELETED AND UPGRADED WITH OUR OWN.
UPGRADE OR BE DELETED!
NWO: 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.
Yeah, I “shook off” a broken bone. I thought it was a sprain. The, “shaking off” was temporary.
As to the, “level of pain”. I’ve had broken bones (three), kidney stones (twice), almost lost the tip of a finger to a knife. Had a finger crushed in the loading carousel of a Fadal once.
And I’ve been hit in the nuts a few times. The thing I can say about it… surprise matters. The paintball I took to the right testicle while I was almost flat to the ground, took me out for about a minute.
The guy who kicked me in the groin so hard it lifted my heels an inch off the ground… it took about a minute for that to set in. Because I was amped for a fight.
The look on his friends’ faces when he tried to hit me again, the same way, (they’d seen me rise up from the ground) and I stopped his foot, and lifted it straight up in the air (happily I didn’t know any La savatte yet, or I might have really hurt him) and his head bounced off the sidewalk… that was the end of the fight.
About two minutes later I was doubled up, but it was over in another few minutes. The kidney stone… laid me out for hours, both times. And the aftermath made me good for nothing for the next day.
A shot to the nuts is unpleasant, but not as bad as all that.
No love for Ace? Nitro-9 and a Dalek killing baseball bat.
Ok guys, I dare you, let’s pretend there’s a magical feminist potion I’ve got in my stores that’ll turn you into an arbitrarily unattractive woman for just one night, and one night only. 12 Hours, take it at 7pm with dinner. It’ll be a Cinderfella story, if you will, so when the clock strikes 7am, you’ll turn back into yourself. But that night – oh that night. You have the whole night to bat your lashes and flirt and get conventionally attractive guys to laugh at you for daring to have the gall to approach them.
Then later you’ll get “some guy” who you aren’t at all attracted to, who doesn’t give a shit if you have any fun in the sack, hell, might not even care if you say “no” when he tries to do something you don’t want to do, to take you home to have non-pleasurable, possibly non-consensual sex with. Doesn’t that sound like FUN? Doesn’t it sound FUN to just have “some guy” you don’t like by any stretch of the word to just grunt over you and maybe sorta hit a few buttons just by accident and after two anti-climatic minutes just collapse his sweaty body on top of you? Maybe afterwards he’ll leave you alone. Or maybe he’ll make fun of you for being fat and arbitrarily plain looking. Even though he’s no looker himself, maybe he’ll feel the need to tell you just how damn lucky you are for him gracing you with his man-meat and tell you you’re such an ugly hag, he only fucked your pussy because at least it’s farther away from your face and the least you can do is give him a blow job. You don’t want to, but he’s starting to get frighteningly insistent, and it’s late, you figure it’d be just as dangerous, if not more to try to make your way home in the dark city alone at this hour, so you let him stuff his weird smelling dick down your throat for a few minutes until he finally leaves you alone.
The next morning, you get to make your way home, squish your way through the subway between dudes who think they’re being sneaky by pinching your ass as you walk by and/or guys who tell you to move your fat ass over on the seat. Then you get called a “bitch” if you try to slap anyone’s hand away.
Sadly, by the time you get home, you’ll turn into a dude again, so you won’t get the privilege of overhearing the whispers of “slut” from your girlfriends. You won’t have the privilege of worrying about running into that guy again and his friends making fun of him in front of you for fucking such a fat, ugly, whore. You won’t have the privilege of worrying that other guys will expect you to be easy, especially if you went home with “that guy” and did all that nasty shit for him. You won’t get to worry that if you get alone with one of his friends, they’ll start doing something you don’t like, but won’t take “no” for an answer, because you’re a slut, right? And besides, it’s a PRIVILEGE to be viewed as a fuckhole who’s pleasure during the fucking is only an afterthought! It’s a PRIVILEGE to have some greasy guys assume you have no right to consent! And it’s a PRIVILEGE to get treated with derision by the police, the courts, and probably a lot of people who know the guy who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer if you report him for rape. Because, I mean, everyone knew you were a slut, right? And besides, why would he bother raping an ugly hag like you? If you don’t report, but tell a few select friends you trust, you’ll have the PRIVILEGE of maybe some of them refusing to believe you, or blaming you, because it’s your fault you were such a slut, you had it coming.
Sound good, guys? Great! Stop by to get your bottles of “Privilege Night”, only $19.99! And during my special offer, if you buy right now, you’ll get a second bottle for FREE! Relive the whole experience again! Act fast, this offer won’t last long!
All my love for Ace and her Dalek killing baseball bat.
And the miracle about love is, giving all my love to Ace and her Dalekbane bat doesn’t actually use any of it up, and so I’ve still got it around to give it all to Leela or Sarah Jane or Donna or Rory.
Quit putting Steele off of writing with your misandry, Argenti. It’s not like the man can just start up a tumblr and immediately begin posting short stories or poetry for public consumption!
The feminists and manginas have created a culture in which white men- due to their alleged privilege and horribleness- can never have anything meaningful to say. I disagree, of course, but the vile, revolting, disgusting feminists consider white men to automatically be unable to offer anything of “artistic” value, again due to their “privilege”.
So I cannot do that, at least with any success.
@SteeleTroll: but the vile, revolting, disgusting feminists consider white men to automatically be unable to offer anything of “artistic” value, again due to their “privilege”.
Dat’s OK, diddums, there mainstream media privileges straight, white, cis men out the wazoo in all forms of popular culture, including offline and online publishing.
The net is full of blogs and sites and publishing opportunities where cis, straight, white men publish their work, oftentimes for $$$.
Your failure to do anything creative and post it has nothing to do with feminists.
But isn’t it nice to have them to blame? You never have to take a chance, never have to put your work up to face the world, and possibly not get your ego massaged by every passing stranger.
My heart bleeds, BLEEDS, for you (NOT!).
Well, this makes perfect sense. Particularly in a thread in which pretty much the entire last page consists of feminists discussing their deep love for a television series created by, written by, and starring a bunch of white men. Yeah, nothing at all stupid about that.
/so much sarcasm
Seriously, dude, if you are somehow under the impression that all feminists hate, say, Neil Gaiman, or Terry Pratchett, or Joss Whedon, you have been hanging out with very, very different feminists than the rest of the world.
Hey, remember all that poetry that broke out in the comment threads a while back? And how much we all hated the ones written by white guys such as myself? Oh wait, that second part didn’t happen. Funny that.
,em>Dat’s OK, diddums, there mainstream media privileges straight, white, cis men out the wazoo in all forms of popular culture, including offline and online publishing.
If only. Unfortunately, the feminists and manginas have control over the larger culture as well, and so their values are transmitted and magnified.
http://antimanboobz.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/men-as-the-architects-and-the-oppressed/
Your sarcastic response, in fact, is a perfect example; you don’t consider white men’s work of artistic value. Just like the rest of society.
Steele: Again with the “vile” Really there is not excuse but cussed-sloth to explain why you continue to use a that world, dulled from your, hackneyed from overuse, faded of all effect from sheer repetition.
As to the “argument”. What do you care what “feminsts” say. Robert Parker was a white dude. Got rich writing hard-boiled detective novels. John Grisham is a white dude… he’s making lots of money selling books about lawyers. Tom Clancy is a a white Dude. Rich as all fuck writing thrillers.
Don’t write for us, write for you. Write for all the white dudes who have no one to speak to their interests. It’s obvious that white dudes (like Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, James Patterson, Patrick O’Brian: two of whom are hacks) are suffering so from the feminist oppression.
Think of how rich they could have been if only they weren’t denied their dreams of creative writing.
I just finished re-reading Tolkien’s The Silmarillion for what was probably the fifteenth time, and as I was casually looking through the index of names in the back I thought to myself, “Boy I sure don’t think white men’s work has any artistic value.”
*Gets out the list of stuff that Steele doesn’t understand*
*Adds “sarcasm”*
I mean dude… I’m a white male. I have a published book, on photography. I’ve been paid to travel across the country to speak (on torture, and military history and how to survive an apocalypse). There were lots of feminists at those talks. They didn’t bemoan my presence.
I, of course, don’t limit myself to just writing and speaking and taking photos. I spin, I write the occasional poem, I sing, I cook (I’m a really good cook), I teach, I do bonsai, I practice aikido.
To amuse myself I take walks, sharpen knives, sell cookware, do photography, play the pennywhistle (and try to learn the banjo), brew mead, garden and make fun of idiots (I do that on the internet, and in meatspace. You can click on my handle and it will take you to more of my wiritings).
The only thing stopping you from doing any of that … is you.
(Glances at bookshelf)
Nope, no straight white men there! I mean, I have some books by women, and some books by POC, and a couple of white men who’re gay, so that means that all the straight white guys whose books I own are being devalued and dismissed in that they have to share shelf space with other people, right?