Male privilege
Aug. 13th, 2019 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talkswithwindThis is a topic more endured than talked about in the trans communities, in large part because its used as a club. For the transfem folk, this club is often wielded by holders of a peculiar form feminist orthodoxy.
You still have male privilege.
And its relative
You're not done unlearning it, and may never.
For the transmasuline folk, they have it harder since the attack come from those same orthodox-ridden feminists, as well as some transfem folk, and the very same inclusive organizations they often were members of before physical changes made their continued participation weird.
Transmen have male privilege
Or the worse accusation:
Traitor! How can you be intersectional if you're opting into the system?
It all comes from the men are irredeemably icky part of women's spaces, and isn't at all intersectional. That may be the trauma talking, but its also spreading more trauma which doesn't make it helpful.
Transfem folk often adopt a bit of a tautology in their defense
I was never a man, any privilege I had was assigned by others, coersively and nonconsensually. Therefore, I never had male privilege. QED.
The transmasculine defense is less logic based, and more empathy based.
If I do, why is it transmasculine people face sexual assault and domestic violence at the same rate as cis women?
It is in this light that I wanted to dig into just what male privilege is, from the point of view of someone who once unconsciously had it, benefited from it, and surrendered some (but definitely not all) of its benefits in her transition. I do this because I manifestly had and benefited from it during my entire school career, and the first 10ish years of my work life.
The way I see it, male privilege has two components. The privilege you unconsciously believe yourself to have, and the privilege others assign to you. You get the most benefit from the system when the two are in alignment.
The privilege you unconsciously believe yourself to have
This is the framework society tries to train into our men from a very early age. This is attitudes like:
The privilege others assign to you
Stand in front of a room of 100 people, and you will get 100 different assignments of privilege, and its impossible to know for sure how what those are. However, society trains everyone into certain reliable tendencies.
This is due in part to how assignments differ once a person is known. If you meet a random stranger your brain will assign them a gender and privilege set in the first second of setting eyes on them. Between then and friend of two decades is a lot of revision and nuance. The assignments you are granted is very much in conversation with the privileges you assume you have and how you present those assumptions.
My journey
At least two people reading this knew me long enough ago to have seen the transition I'm about to describe.
I didn't realize I had an unconventional gender until a few months before I turned 18. I was raised in a feminist household, but that mostly meant I assigned women privileges more often reserved to men. This did not grant me awareness of my own privileges, or insight that I was granting them this way. I thought of myself as an ally, even though I was displaying some of the traumatizing behaviors.
Fast forward to my first job, which was the first seven years of my career. I got that job through both assigned and internalized privilege. Internalized privilege told me that particular project was doable by a mere temp, assigned privilege (for I was definitely male presenting there) meant that me pulling it off was seen as a sign of a prodigy. So they pushed to hire me full-time. Once I was there, the if I ask for it, I will get it internalized privilege worked well with the assigned privilege of when a man proposes an idea, it is worthy of due consideration.
This worked in my favor when I made it off Help Desk and into Systems Administration. It was a case of mono that set me up for that, giving me a week of boredom in which to write up a server-migration project plan. I proposed it, they looked at it, said it just might work, we ran it, and it worked. Had I not been male presenting the project plan would have been given to one of the very overworked sysadmins we had for him to review and revise, and it would have sat on the shelf another 6 months.
It worked again when one of our Unix admins left in a grand flounce after being given a few WinNT boxes to admin. They tapped me to pick up Windows admin because they felt I was up to the challenge.
The first headwinds I ran into was the Sysadmin Committee, which was full of women who started in IT in the late 1970's to mid 1980's when the demographic shift happened. I now know they saw me as a clear threat, up and coming guy with all the privileges in the world coming to upset everything they spent 15 years making. I got checked. I got checked a lot. I was not being granted the same privileges with those women that the misogynist woman who was my boss was granting me, and I didn't know what to do with that.
20 years later I can handle something like that w-a-y better. Not just because I'm now as senior as they were, but because I'm much more aware of attitudes like that and what I, the upstart, can do to assuage them. The me of 20 years ago didn't have that toolset yet. The me of 20 years ago barely knew how to handle not getting their way simply by asking and explaining.
My internalized male privilege started cracking around then for a few reasons. It came to a head when I noticed that in team meetings, my ideas were met by BossLady with nods and approval, while the 20 year veteran woman who was my peer had her ideas met with tight smiles and shaken heads. When I proposed those same ideas I got approval, and BossLady forgot that my peer proposed them first a month or two ago.
This is a classic dynamic, and once I noticed it was happening I started doing the ally thing and saying, "Actually, Penny has a good idea there," when BossLady went into the tight-smile routine. It took half a year, but by doing that endorsing behavior, BossLady started listening to my peer on the first try rather than waiting for me to approve it. Their relationship became less rocky after that, and the bitter cynicism my peer was showing tempered somewhat in light of actually getting to do things she knew needed to be done.
That was a role I could only do by consciously using my male privilege assignments.
My sister's journey
My sister also inherited the same You only get what you ask for, so ask for it attitude I did. Only, she was my sister, so wasn't assigned the same privileges I was. This made our stories rather different.
Where I got accommodations and signs of prodigy, she ended up in metaphorical knife-fights and sanctions. As a result she has all the scars that implies.
Me today
I'm now presenting on the feminine side of the binary, but I also have my male-privilege fueled career behind me propping me up and giving me Senior credentials. I don't talk about how I got ahead in tech to up-and-comers from non cis-male backgrounds for this reason, my path was unique to me and was steeped in confirmation bias that helped rather than hindered. That people listen to me now has a lot to do with being senior in the industry, making my fem-presenting self a bit of a unicorn and thus a clear exception.
Conclusion
Male privilege is a complicated thing, and rhetoric towards transfolk is generally not using that nuance. Transmen look like guys, so obviously they get guy-privilege. QED.
Except. Most of them didn't grow up with the reinforcing mechanism of male privilege; having your internal privileges affirmed by those around you. If they had that internal sense, they were knives-out like my sister. That changes how you handle situations, and how you are perceived to handle them. Also being trans-gender rather than simply unmarked gender means there is always an asterisk by your privilege assignments, which makes them easier to revoke. This applies to transfem folk wondering if they really belong in women-only spaces, and transmasc folk who have their inner badass, beware privilege abridged by intimate partners.
The peculiar ideology folk enjoy using male privilege as a club, because every feminist knows its a bad thing. While memetic warfare isn't very appreciative of nuance, self-care very much is. If you're feeling the bruises of being clubbed with the male-privilege bat, it helps to reduce the bruising to understand that they're fundamentally not getting it.
At the same time, memetic warriors attempting to deny the effect male privilege has had in my career are doing so for political reasons and are ignoring the facts in my case. I know this, and have enough sense of self to not see generalizations like this as a direct attack against me.
You still have male privilege.
And its relative
You're not done unlearning it, and may never.
For the transmasuline folk, they have it harder since the attack come from those same orthodox-ridden feminists, as well as some transfem folk, and the very same inclusive organizations they often were members of before physical changes made their continued participation weird.
Transmen have male privilege
Traitor! How can you be intersectional if you're opting into the system?
It all comes from the men are irredeemably icky part of women's spaces, and isn't at all intersectional. That may be the trauma talking, but its also spreading more trauma which doesn't make it helpful.
Transfem folk often adopt a bit of a tautology in their defense
I was never a man, any privilege I had was assigned by others, coersively and nonconsensually. Therefore, I never had male privilege. QED.
The transmasculine defense is less logic based, and more empathy based.
If I do, why is it transmasculine people face sexual assault and domestic violence at the same rate as cis women?
It is in this light that I wanted to dig into just what male privilege is, from the point of view of someone who once unconsciously had it, benefited from it, and surrendered some (but definitely not all) of its benefits in her transition. I do this because I manifestly had and benefited from it during my entire school career, and the first 10ish years of my work life.
The way I see it, male privilege has two components. The privilege you unconsciously believe yourself to have, and the privilege others assign to you. You get the most benefit from the system when the two are in alignment.
The privilege you unconsciously believe yourself to have
This is the framework society tries to train into our men from a very early age. This is attitudes like:
- If I just explain it, they'll listen and I'll get my way.
- This may be my first day at this table, but I am at it, therefore my options have equal worth to anyone here.
- Going for my goals with gusto is the best way to get ahead in life.
- If anyone messes with me, they'll get just as fucked up right back.
- And a thousand other little things.
The privilege others assign to you
Stand in front of a room of 100 people, and you will get 100 different assignments of privilege, and its impossible to know for sure how what those are. However, society trains everyone into certain reliable tendencies.
- Push any man far enough and you'll find the frothy rage-beast within, so accommodations must be made.
- When a man proposes an idea, it is worthy of due consideration.
- Leadership need aggression, men are well suited to that.
- Men don't deal well with sexual frustration.
- And a thousand other little things.
This is due in part to how assignments differ once a person is known. If you meet a random stranger your brain will assign them a gender and privilege set in the first second of setting eyes on them. Between then and friend of two decades is a lot of revision and nuance. The assignments you are granted is very much in conversation with the privileges you assume you have and how you present those assumptions.
My journey
At least two people reading this knew me long enough ago to have seen the transition I'm about to describe.
I didn't realize I had an unconventional gender until a few months before I turned 18. I was raised in a feminist household, but that mostly meant I assigned women privileges more often reserved to men. This did not grant me awareness of my own privileges, or insight that I was granting them this way. I thought of myself as an ally, even though I was displaying some of the traumatizing behaviors.
Fast forward to my first job, which was the first seven years of my career. I got that job through both assigned and internalized privilege. Internalized privilege told me that particular project was doable by a mere temp, assigned privilege (for I was definitely male presenting there) meant that me pulling it off was seen as a sign of a prodigy. So they pushed to hire me full-time. Once I was there, the if I ask for it, I will get it internalized privilege worked well with the assigned privilege of when a man proposes an idea, it is worthy of due consideration.
This worked in my favor when I made it off Help Desk and into Systems Administration. It was a case of mono that set me up for that, giving me a week of boredom in which to write up a server-migration project plan. I proposed it, they looked at it, said it just might work, we ran it, and it worked. Had I not been male presenting the project plan would have been given to one of the very overworked sysadmins we had for him to review and revise, and it would have sat on the shelf another 6 months.
It worked again when one of our Unix admins left in a grand flounce after being given a few WinNT boxes to admin. They tapped me to pick up Windows admin because they felt I was up to the challenge.
The first headwinds I ran into was the Sysadmin Committee, which was full of women who started in IT in the late 1970's to mid 1980's when the demographic shift happened. I now know they saw me as a clear threat, up and coming guy with all the privileges in the world coming to upset everything they spent 15 years making. I got checked. I got checked a lot. I was not being granted the same privileges with those women that the misogynist woman who was my boss was granting me, and I didn't know what to do with that.
20 years later I can handle something like that w-a-y better. Not just because I'm now as senior as they were, but because I'm much more aware of attitudes like that and what I, the upstart, can do to assuage them. The me of 20 years ago didn't have that toolset yet. The me of 20 years ago barely knew how to handle not getting their way simply by asking and explaining.
My internalized male privilege started cracking around then for a few reasons. It came to a head when I noticed that in team meetings, my ideas were met by BossLady with nods and approval, while the 20 year veteran woman who was my peer had her ideas met with tight smiles and shaken heads. When I proposed those same ideas I got approval, and BossLady forgot that my peer proposed them first a month or two ago.
This is a classic dynamic, and once I noticed it was happening I started doing the ally thing and saying, "Actually, Penny has a good idea there," when BossLady went into the tight-smile routine. It took half a year, but by doing that endorsing behavior, BossLady started listening to my peer on the first try rather than waiting for me to approve it. Their relationship became less rocky after that, and the bitter cynicism my peer was showing tempered somewhat in light of actually getting to do things she knew needed to be done.
That was a role I could only do by consciously using my male privilege assignments.
My sister's journey
My sister also inherited the same You only get what you ask for, so ask for it attitude I did. Only, she was my sister, so wasn't assigned the same privileges I was. This made our stories rather different.
Where I got accommodations and signs of prodigy, she ended up in metaphorical knife-fights and sanctions. As a result she has all the scars that implies.
Me today
I'm now presenting on the feminine side of the binary, but I also have my male-privilege fueled career behind me propping me up and giving me Senior credentials. I don't talk about how I got ahead in tech to up-and-comers from non cis-male backgrounds for this reason, my path was unique to me and was steeped in confirmation bias that helped rather than hindered. That people listen to me now has a lot to do with being senior in the industry, making my fem-presenting self a bit of a unicorn and thus a clear exception.
Conclusion
Male privilege is a complicated thing, and rhetoric towards transfolk is generally not using that nuance. Transmen look like guys, so obviously they get guy-privilege. QED.
Except. Most of them didn't grow up with the reinforcing mechanism of male privilege; having your internal privileges affirmed by those around you. If they had that internal sense, they were knives-out like my sister. That changes how you handle situations, and how you are perceived to handle them. Also being trans-gender rather than simply unmarked gender means there is always an asterisk by your privilege assignments, which makes them easier to revoke. This applies to transfem folk wondering if they really belong in women-only spaces, and transmasc folk who have their inner badass, beware privilege abridged by intimate partners.
The peculiar ideology folk enjoy using male privilege as a club, because every feminist knows its a bad thing. While memetic warfare isn't very appreciative of nuance, self-care very much is. If you're feeling the bruises of being clubbed with the male-privilege bat, it helps to reduce the bruising to understand that they're fundamentally not getting it.
At the same time, memetic warriors attempting to deny the effect male privilege has had in my career are doing so for political reasons and are ignoring the facts in my case. I know this, and have enough sense of self to not see generalizations like this as a direct attack against me.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-13 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-08-21 03:36 pm (UTC)