Amptoons

The reason I don't want to think of everyone as human beings first is this:

Everyone is part of an arbitrary collective of traits (most of us here are white, male, American, etc) and each trait affects how we see each other. For example, women are seen as more caring, or bitchy if they have power, whatever. Those stereotypes are bad, and we can't ignore that they still happen.

The way we get rid of these biases things is by recognizing that when we think a woman is being bitchy (or, say a black man angry) it's likely to be our ingrained sexism (/racism). Seeing people as human beings first erases their identities and _removes the opportunity to fix our prejudices_. You and I are both prejudiced, we have to recognize that, and work to remove it from our minds.

Then, on the optimism/pessimism thing. Just keep on investigating the experiences of black people and I think you might become less optimistic about where we are.

It's sometimes tough to see how other people could be disadvantaged (that's called privilege). But when this list of benefits white people have over black people http://amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html#daily doesn't hold any more, _then_ we can get rid of black history month.

We can't overcorrect yet, because, broadly, our institutions themselves are still racist. (See http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/07/15/884649/-Why-there-s-no-such-thing-as-Reverse-Racism or http://femmagazine.com/reverse-racism-and-reverse-sexism-dont-exist/) You don't punch…

The results are similar for several studies that do not look just at fathers who seek sole custody. See this meta-analysis of several studies: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/Massachusetts_Gender_Bias_Study.htm.

I'll quote the relevant part:

"""
Although perceptions of bias that discourage fathers from seeking custody are a concern, n52 the outcome of cases in which custody is contested provides a more direct source of information about possible judicial gender bias. We heard testimony from George Kelly, a representative of Concerned Fathers, that in contested custody cases, mothers are awarded physical custody over 90% of the time. Mr. Kelly was unable to provide substantiation, however, n53 and our own investigation revealed a very different picture.

The statewide sample of attorneys who responded to the family law survey had collectively represented fathers seeking custody in over 2,100 cases in the last 5 years. n54 They reported that the fathers obtained primary physical custody in 29% of the cases, and joint physical custody in an additional 65% of the cases. Thus, when fathers actively sought physical custody, mothers obtained primary physical custody in only 7% of cases. The attorneys reported that the fathers had been primary caretakers in 29% of the cases in which they had sought custody.

The preliminary findings of the Middlesex Divorce Research Group relitigation study show a similarly high rate of paternal success, but fewer awards of joint physical…

The privilege of not being catcalled every time they walk down the street (this is very real and very disturbing). The privilege of not being approached by every man who wants to sleep with you. The privilege of men not feeling entitled to your attention whenever they want it. The privilege of not being constantly objectified. The privilege of being able to go to a bar just to hang out with friends and not be approached by every dude in the bar. The privilege of being payed more (I recommended my friend for the exact same position I was in and she ended up being offered 20% less than I was before negotiation). I could go on forever..

You can't choose your sex, but you can absolutely choose your gender.. Please learn about the difference between the two.

There are no laws that favor men in western society? What if I told you that divorce law favors men? What if I told you that when men actively seek custody they are awarded full or joint custody 70% of the time. http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/Massachusetts_Gender_Bias_Study.htm

And I'm pretty sure feminism is anti-rape culture. Most women are taught that in a rape situation it's better to not fight back, some schools of feminist thought teach the opposite. They teach women to fight back and to not accept the role of victim.

His sock puppets seem to care a lot about what he has to say about all forms of douchbaggery.

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/06/17/the-saga-of-scott-adams-scrotum/

Scott Adams is up to his old obliviously obtuse act again. You may recall that the creator of Dilbert is an apologist for creationism, a pathetic anti-atheist wanker, and a narcissistic sock puppeteer, but did you know he’s also an obnoxist sexist pig?
Oh, right, you did already know that.
OK, but now he’s revising his personal history and making up stories about being a poor oppressed man, crushed by the matriarchy.

http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppet/

http://amptoons.com/blog/2011/06/16/scott-adams-still-a-douchebag/

http://www.rickworley.com/2012/06/20/scott-adams-douchebags-of-comics/

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/douchebag-decree-scott-adams-douchetoonist

http://bbs.boingboing.net/t/incredibly-interesting-authors-001-dilbert-creator-scott-adams/13417

http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/gqzgx/dilbert_creator_outed_for_using_sock_puppets_on/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/21/987473/-Scott-Adams-can-suck-his-Dilbert

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/04/18/the-guy-who-does-dilbert-is-still-a-douche&view=comments

...and so on...

Personally I feel that "privilege" is an ill-defined concept and should be ignored by intelligent people. I've never seen a concrete definition that a proponent of privilege was actually willing to stand by.

(E.g., people show me this essay http://amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html to explain "white privilege", then rapidly shift the goalposts once I point out that every point applies to me when I live in India.)

I suppose you are right that the relatives of drug addicts, murder victims and criminals might have more problems than others. But then why is happyscrappy talking about black people in Oakland rather than the children of junkies?

Note that India has junkies, criminals and bad parents too. In addition to having bad parents, the children of Indian junkies are also legally barred from working in the US (unlike, e.g., an Oakland child of junkies). It's true that Indians are less murder-happy than Oaklanders, but they have all sorts of other traumatizing events (e.g. rampant eve teasing, a high rate of traffic fatalities, multi-day water cuts).

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?