[da_dude4242]

"Some of us, however, remember the torment, the humiliation, the violence, the scorn and the ostracism of finding science, electronics, and computers fascinating. There was, indeed, such a time. Many nerds who endured poor treatment at the hands of their peers developed deep emotional traumas that, to this day, exist to some extent or another. One of these traumas is borne of the experience of being not merely rejected, but openly mocked by girls during the most critical time in a young man's life when he is supposed to develop his sense of social status and sexuality. Frustration and humiliation is quick to turn to anger, and from anger, a deep rooted misogyny."

The irony here is that the stigmatization of "nerds" was/is a product of males falling outside acceptable gender roles as well. Calling these males "privileged" is a way to dismiss and marginalize them.

Why is it that the majority of feminist articles I run into feel the need to dismiss the problems of "privileged" in making an argument for their perspective? They are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps it's selection bias and only controversial articles float to the top but it really seems like this is the norm.

[wanorris]

This is a pretty good starter inventory for what feminists mean when they talk about "male privilege".

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/

You may disagree with the analysis behind the list's construction, but I see little if anything on that list that obviously gets crossed off the list by virtue of being a geek.

Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the idea that geeks have male privilege does not exclude the possibility that there is another form of privilege that they lack that others have. Some other types of privilege that are sometimes considered are white privilege, class privilege, heterosexual privilege, etc. You can have male privilege but not white privilege, etc.

In other words, privilege isn't simply a binary have/don't have thing such that geeks have it and women don't.

You could make an argument that there is some sort of gender-stereotypical privilege that, say, football players share in but geeks do not. Is that where you were going?

[da_dude4242]

Males have the "privilege" of being the "stronger" sex. If you're not collected and emotionally unreactive you are abnormal/weak. Any emotional expression that deviates from a narrow acceptable range is abnormal. You do not need the same reaching out or emotional support of the "weaker" sex because you are strong. It's no wonder males have the privilege of being more likely to be isolated. Have the privilege of being 5 times more likely succesfully commit suicide. Being 10 times more likely to die on the job. Our "strength" gives us the privilege to be drafted into wars and be generally disposable to the hazards of society. None of this captured by your list though so I suppose it's irrelevant.

"Weakness" in females signals a socialized response to reach out and support. "Weakness" in males signals a socialized response to stigmatize. Because after all you are privileged, why don't you just "man-up"?

"Social justice theorists also talk about different kinds of privileges, so the idea that geeks have male privilege does not exclude the possibility that there is another form of privilege that they lack that others have."

That's my point. When is the last time you read an article about leveling the field of female privilege? In theory the idea of privilege is inclusive but in practice it's not.

[jcnnghm]

Wouldn't it be trivial to create a female privilege checklist? For example, while women may be asked to smile by random people (44), they are murdered by random people far less often than men, representing only 21% of victims. Or, while females spend more time grooming than men (27), they are much less likely to have their genitals mutilated as infants by mothers who do not like the way they look.

There can be some things in society that do not appeal to women. There are certainly things that women find appealing that most men are not at all interested in.

I always kind of thought that young geeks used comic books to escape their reality. This is just a guess, but could it be that some geeks are awkward around women because females weren't nice to them during their adolescence? Sex hormone levels peak at around age 17 for men, senior year of high school. Is it really that unexpected that men that get no positive female attention during their sexual prime don't embrace women exploring geek hobbies?

Perhaps the focus of all these stupid gender articles should be on encouraging young women not to alienate a large subset of people. I would be willing to bet that if geeks were more accepted at an earlier age, many of the perceived gender issues would disappear.

[burgerbrain]

Hmm, there are a few things on that list that don't seem to ring true, or at least seem to be leaving out large portions of the picture.

For example:

"41. Assuming I am heterosexual, magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media is filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are rarer."

The last issue of Playboy that I have seen had more topless men in it than women. Perhaps the author is better at visually tuning out advertisements than I. Of course the same is true of the last... dozen? action movies I've seen.

And then there are the issues of reproductive/child rearing rights, which are currently heavily skewed against men. A woman who has unprotected sex (or for that matter sometimes protected sex) is in a much better position than a man who does the same. In fact, in nearly anything concerning children in the slightest men are decidedly discriminated against.

What is my point here? Real life is more complicated than a list or two might suggest.

[mayanksinghal]

> 1. My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed. > 2. I can be confident that my co-workers won’t think I got my job because of my sex – even though that might be true.

I remember a discussion on HN where many of the comments have said that the best way to bring women into the industry is to bring women into the industry. Quite true, I definitely agree to it. And so does most of the companies - they all try to maintain a gender ratio that is not too skewed to make the firm look sexist. But, when one tries to bring a category X into a field where X is rare, to bring them in - it results in lowering expectations from them. I just had my placement season on campus (I am a final year student) - the difference was visible. Of course, that makes me look sexist (I possibly am) when I say that the expectations from male students to get a job was higher than female students. Female students are, at least now, rewarded for being rare and because women are required to be brought in the industry. Unfortunately, there are pros and cons to this approach. These steps result in unavoidable animosity because of scarcity of resources - in this case, a lucrative job. My point is that you cannot have the best of both worlds: any corrective action has consequences.

[rayiner]

That's a shockingly insightful list.

I love #30: I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch.

I've found that I can entertain a much broader range of personality tones than my female friends. You have to be an order of magnitude more aggressive to be an "asshole" than you do to be a "bitch." "Pensive" is a word you might use for a man, "moody" for the equivalent in a woman. I've never had to fight a socialized urge to defer to anyone in conversation, and certainly not to someone of the opposite sex.

[einhverfr]

I am not a social justice geek, much less a theorist in that area. I think a lot of times we see a lot of hogwash coming out of that area and I think this is impossible to resolve because social justice theorists tend to deny basic aspects of human nature, despising sexuality (which is a necessary part of life), social divisions and hierarchy (socially necessary) and the like.

I think when we look at these things something more objective and less judgemental (like anthropology) is a better starting point. I.e. it is better to criticize from a standpoint of functional understanding than from functional ignorance (seeing only portions of a dynamic that bother one and not seeing how something benefits the target group).

As far as the checklist, it's fairly rife with definitional problems (sexual harassment has a very narrow legal definition for example but I doubt that's what the blogger means, and even terms like rape are more and more frequently subject of definitional problems, as jurisdictions pass laws saying that drunken sex is rape regardless of how the intoxicant was administered).

Moreover I think one could turn this on it;s head and come up with a female privilege checklist too as unpopular as that would be (particularly important in areas of parenting, child support, and the like).