I think attractiveness plays a large part in a lot of this, too, for anybody.

Iftfy

Now as a man I struggle to notice when I'm getting special treatment. Even with my prior experience.

Thank you for sharing this. I'm usually in communities where - as far as I know - people treat women equally. (Or in different culture communities, so that's a whole different area.) So I tend not to notice if there's special treatment for men. This will remind me to be more aware.

I think people get defense around the idea of “male privilege” because they think it’s getting them something extra. It’s more all of the shit you don’t have to deal with.

But if you can turn that shit on like a tap why not do for everyone?

I would think because they aren't aware of it.

Sometimes we should just, I dk, listen to what people that have different experiences to us say. I figure, I have no idea what it is like to question my gender, so maybe I should shut the fuck up and listen to what people who do tell me. The problem is, a lot of men do not listen.

Is there one gender friendlier to trans people? Just wondering. I feel like women may be, but that is my bias from my attitude towards men lol.

I think this is a huge problem even with people that would say about themselves that they respect women, or even that they are feminist. A lot of men on the left suffer from a total absence of introspection. They may not want to treat women differently, but then they just repeat patterns they have learned without any reflection, and end up doing just that - talk over women, mansplaining to them and so on. It's the same with any privileged group of people.

Men/white people/other privileged groups: if you do not reflect your actions and question your own thought patterns and influences, you will likely discriminate against others. Because the wold that influences us is total dogshite. Strife to be better.

Can't believe you're being downvoted.

I share what others have said about your likely difficulty in seeing what's going on around you. However.

I have a couple of female friends who moved as adults to US from Russia in the 80s. Both said they were shocked when they found out the things that weren't soviet propaganda, like how women were treated day to day, and the systemic discrimination against racialized people. Neither of them is immune to racist or sexist bevahior, and now having lived here for so long even moreso, but there is a difference in baseline expectations at the macro scale. Years later they still express surprise when even the pretense of attempting equality is absent or made a joke.

That said I've met women and men from elsewhere in the former USSR (both older and especially younger than the above) who are very heteronormative and accept their "place" in hierarchy. I understand there was post-soviet backlash culturally. How do you view that? In the past 2-4 decades is there progress, regression or what? My point of view could be tainted by selection bias in terms of who chooses to move countries, and where they land.

The fact that Russia underwent a revolutionary transformation in the 20th C, from serf to industrial, when it could benefit from an existing articulation of gender inequalities, must take some credit for present equality, no? To have such a big material shake up, and at least with the goal of addressing the patriarchy. I dont think in the anglosphere we ever had that.

Something in me refuses to believe that these people knowingly and intentionally harm women. But it sure as hell looks intentional.

Most people don't do any of this "intentionally" in the sense that they are aware of the harm they cause. It doesn't even enter the realm of moral consideration.

To many, there is a genuine belief of superiority that is entirely subconscious. The easiest example is classic mysogyny in a relationship - the woman is "emotional" and therefore the man should be the one to handle "business". That's not just 1950s oppression. Some variation of that thought process is shockingly prevalent across generations.

That man doesn't really think he's harming his woman. He thinks he's helping, by being the man of the house. That same logic applies outside of romance. "I am more rational than she is, therefore I should talk now and she shouldn't."

That's not a thought. That's just a foundational belief that spawns all the other thoughts.

Ever been in an argument with another adult, and a child joined in with some naive half-informed emotional take on society?

An adult usually placates the child - explains, briefly, why they're wrong - and returns to arguing with the other adult.

That's how a lot of men see women by default. As inferior, naive, ill-informed, emotional creatures. Not consciously. Not intentionally. Many mysogynists genuinely seem to have the same intentions as the adult to the child - to placate and educate.

But its fucked up, and it's important to acknowledge that it simmers under he surface. The reason all of this is so complicated and messy is that it is so hard to see mysogyny for what it is.

You genuinely can't know if a single interaction with a single male was an example of mysogyny, because sometimes humans just condescend to each other. Sometimes humans are just shitty to each other.

But women experience so many of these experiences in aggregate that they can't give the benefit of the doubt to every man they meet, especially when the man himself might not understand his own implicit biases.

Personal experience from when I was newly an adult, and chatting with a female university classmate and somehow got on the topic of games and I started explaining what Steam was, because I just subconsciously assumed, her being a woman, didn't know.

She politely pointed out I had mansplained to her.

I am very thankful to her for the experience as it's stuck with me and saved me from making a fool of myself on more than one occasion since.

I'm sure there are possibly small things like this, that you may have been been "guilty" of in the past.

These men, are engaging in similar behaviour cranked up to 1000.

However, it's even more malicious with them, because it's not like the last 30 years or so haven't had constant and increasing messaging (in the anglosphere, at least) about feminism and ways in which women have been treated unfairly.

So, it's not like they haven't had the opportunity to reflect, and change.

In summary, yeah, it is kind of baffling, but I will say society, while largely better than 30 years ago, still does have structural as well as conscious and unconcious bias towards women.

So I'm not surprised people like this exist.

Selection bias, the people who don't discriminate aren't causing harm so you don't notice them but since they don't speak up they aren't helping either, so the jerks are still setting the tone. The solution is to not just do the right thing but actively call people out the jerks.

I also am glad you got the support. I'm constantly reminded of a friend in college who was going through an electrical engineering undergrad with me. She got all the material so easily and literally dragged me through the classes. I wouldn't have passed some key topics without her help. Fast forward a few years and I'm getting my PhD and I decide to see what she is up to: she ended up quitting her PhD program because of the insane abuse and misogyny she experienced in the department and instead changed to a masters in music. This was a woman who could easily have made field changing discoveries but was shut down because of close minded individuals. It still makes me rage and is the reason I work so much harder now to ensure my female colleagues and employees have an equal voice at the table.

My wife was marked down on her PhD because she "wasn't nice enough" to her supervisor. All the assessors gave her top marks, but her supervisor vetoed them.

Sorry, but this sounds exactly like what male privilege is. Assuming that it doesn't happen near you because you haven't noticed it.

Ask your female friends what sorts of sexism they genuinely face regularly and I think you'll learn a lot.

lol no, I have had problems in the UK and Europe. The old world is extremely hierarchical and the older generations have some weird lingering quasi-religous gender issues.

Granted, i'm a man

you haven't noticed racism and sexism because you are a male who's the "proper color" for the region in which you reside.

male privilege and white privilege are often misunderstood to mean like "special privileges" and poopoo'd because plenty of white men struggle to get by in this world, but that's not what it means.

it means the privilege of 'being taken seriously', the privilege of 'benefit is the doubt', privilege of 'basic respect and decency'.

it also has the benefit/drawback of 'privilege to be blind of misogyny/racism'. I believe you wholeheartedly when you say you've never seen it, but that's the "privilege".

The responsibility you hold in return for this "privilege" is you must believe the words of peeps who don't share this "privilege" when they tell you their experiences. after all, why would you see these things? How else would you experience them when you aren't directly a part of them?

'course you wouldn't! That's fine! Normal! why would you see them? those things aren't directed at you. that's really all the "privilege" is!

back to responsibility, be careful not to dismiss the words of people who have direct experiences of racism and sexism just because they don't match your own. remember, these things aren't directed at you!

have a good one

Lol not from what I've heard about Italy

Unironically yes. As a male STEM student, I had a much easier time finding a study group, I didn’t feel singled out and isolated in my classes, and people took the things I said seriously.

It’s like magic when I go to the doctor - the second they find out a uterus, it’s like their whole body language changes.