eta: Apologies if my tone seems harsher than necessary. I find I come across as more of a dick than intend to.

I constantly worry about this on the internet, so I end up overusing the exclamation mark to avert it!

I'm on Midnight Tides now. Ugggh, too much Edur.

Yes, each word a weapon and all of that.

As I said, I think the mysogynistic male knows that you're not prepared to walk away, and they'll call that bluff. When haggling, why lower the price when you know the other person wont walk (as I said before - in a romantic context, yeah, then maybe you'd lower the price - but you obviously can't love all men into peaceful submission)? It's possibly the key stone to patriarchal society existing for so long.

Probably. Once reduced, this narrative seems no different from any other play for rights throughout history.

I also wonder if crackedmoon and the requires only hate crew are essentially supporting the patriarchal by calling it privilege - not only do the mysoginistic males use ROH and such as a rally cry, it's also ultimately an advocation for their hating. A concession, like 'boys will be boys' is a concession.

Indeed, the most efficient way to change opinions on a mass scale includes a coolness and subtlety not found with some proponents of progressive thought, and, indeed, the "wildness" does provide fodder for the opposition to construct their strawmen. The "inefficient" passion has other effects, though. Everyone needs an outlet to vent, sometimes, even if it hinders somewhat their main goal of change opinions. We are rarely capable of taking the shortest path to any singular purpose, a concept we here think about.

I think it's interesting how the suffragettes would stand in the gutter to hand out their pamphlets (after laws were written to stop them handing out information on the footpath! FFS!) - they were willing to step outside of the tribe, in order to further their cause (tie it into my penguin analogy, they were willing to walk a bit further into the blizzard for their cause. They were willing to walk away)

I dunno - I think about it like a big chess game...and I think 'male privilege' is simply a bluff move that will be circumvented readily by the opposing player and even weaponised by them. It's my tactical estimate, for what it's worth, anyway.

It's more like the bishops are unhappy that the rooks are treated as more valuable simply because the subjective rules have given the rooks a move-set that, all other variables constrained, is objectively more advantageous to "chess-tern" society. The revelation is this: having a rook is more advantageous to a player in real-world chess than having a bishop -- but most people who know the rules of chess don't know that. Only those who are interested in the game and have looked into chess theory and want to approach the game with a serious and humble demeanor will learn that fact. And, only those who show an even greater interest will go beyond just knowing that fact; they will actually comprehend it and see it for themselves.

Ask someone who knows the rules of chess but doesn't really care which is better to have, a rook or a bishop, and they might say, "Well, the rook can move any number of spaces up / down or left / right, and the bishop can move any number of spaces on a diagonal, so they're basically equal. Whatever." Insist that the rook has an objective advantage, and they might challenge you, especially if they've already taken a stance on it.

"But what matters is the player using the pieces," you might say. "A bit of effort will allow a successful bishop." The point, though, is that the rook advantage exists. The fact that a bishop can still be successful is only a testament to how subtle the advantage is. That shouldn't be good enough, though.

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Males have it, it's bad that they have it, and they must accept this badness, but even if they do their opinion about women's rights carries no weight.

Like 'Mansplaining'? Such a hypocritical term - because some men demand to be heard but wont listen, this abhorent term advocates for women demanding to be heard, but women not listening at all to men (not even a little bit). Two wrongs making a right, all wraped up into one stupid made up word. Of course it started with some men being belligerant and not listening, I totally grant. I guess I should blame the most those who started the fire, rather than those who fan it. I guess that the term will potentially lock me out from putting out fires shits me as well.

"Mansplaining" follows the same basic script of rationalization that humans as a whole love to partake in, again, especially if they've already taken a stance.

But it seems to me that once you begin a gesture it's fatal not to go through with it.

It's a buzzword, sure, meant to appeal to the logical fallacy of "it's witty so it must be true." It serves its use as part of venting, as I mentioned above.

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The "male advantage," whatever that may be, is still being realized. The "privilege" part, to me, resides in the fact that so many people, male and female alike, participate in it without even realizing it.

For me, as I read it, it doesn't tie down to nitty gritty practicalities. If you were to ask women what they want, described in physical terms, I see a gap between the notion that extinguishment of this 'privilege' is good and how what women want (in physical terms) is achieved. It's like one of those "1. Do X, 2. ?, 3. Profit!" jokes. There's some gap between the notion that it's just this privilege thing that needs to be sorted out (and then women who are carrying barrels of water for X kilometers each day will be fine, will they?)

Are there documents by feminists that tie down this dislike of privilege down to nitty gritty day to day practicality? Such that it refers to the water carriers, for example?

If the water carries would happen to want not to carry each day and it helps with getting to that goal, cool. Otherwise for myself I don't really care what people do without realising it.

Ah, well, pinning down details of cultural concepts is exceedingly difficult, especially when it's your own. This whole issue is still in its infancy, relatively speaking, so it'll all resolve eventually. I know this sounds like a cop-out, but it is indeed a complex thing you've brought up just now and I don't have an answer at the moment; I've just been playing chess and have seen some things 

In our culture, as it stands having evolved to the point it is now, we still see an ingrained superiority of men over women. Granted, it has evolved past, for example, women not being able to vote or hold positions of responsibility because of made-up reasons, but what remains is a subtle dominance/submission dynamic. Women are expected to respond a certain way in the face of the initiation of this dynamic. There is a lack of empathy towards the submissive, and because the expected roles are different "just because", they become unempathizeable. Women can't be respected until this area of culture evolves past the point of this dynamic.

Your comparison to bullying is apt, I think, Callan, at least in some respects. That is another area that is changing.

I used to think that the concept of "male privilege" was a bit kooky, but, nowadays, not so much. In the future, certain practices that are now dismissed, for example, as "boys being boys" will, in retrospect, be looked at with disgust. Riling up the "extreme", outspoken feminists and then pointing out how "extreme" their viewpoints are is strawman. In any movement, there will be extremists. In this case, where we have an issue at an active locus of cultural evolution, it can be good to have more extreme voices, as it then requires a smaller shift in that direction to get to where we "should" be.

In short, our culture is moving in a direction where "male privilege" is now ready to be seen as a problem. Soon, the issue will be grasped on a larger scale.

Welcome back!

Hellooooo.