From talking about privilege by Steph:
So these days, I believe in some guidelines, things like this list. Not because I think that we all need to be nannied whenever we cross our various social boundaries, not because I believe that we necessarily need to go seminars and training sessions in order to learn how be friends or interact across such boundaries. But there’s an art to being a consistently compassionate person, and there’s an art to challenging injustice, and we don’t achieve these things just by meaning well.
No, I didn’t delete it! But in preparation for an upcoming overhaul (I want to see if I can’t make it more newbie friendly, right now it’s only useful mostly for intermediate and advanced users), I’ve updated the name to reflect the actual content: “Check my what?” On privilege and what we can do about it.
Maybe now people will stop complaining about how it’s aimed at men… Of course it’s my own darn fault for going into it trying to write one post, coming out with a completely different one, and not bothering to think of a new name.
Don’t forget to update your bookmarks!
A real life example and another reasons why men need to call other men out on their shit. This is an area that women cannot make any progress in because we’re not part of the male homosocial group.
In her post, Distinguished Schmuck Visits, Misbehaves, Zuska relates an incident of sexual discrimination that happened to a female science professor while her male colleague looked on in horror. The guy, of course, only waited until after the discriminator had left to say something about it. Zuska says that it isn’t good enough and gives an example of how it should have gone down.
She then goes onto say this:
Sadly, few men think like this. They need training. They need training to the effect that THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR INTERRUPTING THE CYCLE OF DISCRIMINATION. It’s not all on our shoulders to figure out the solutions. They have to figure out how to re-socialize each other. They are plenty good at socializing each other how to be Real Men and How To Be Macho and How Not To Be A Wimp And A Pussy. They are perfectly capable of letting each other know when one of them has Behaved Like A Faggot, You Wuss. They are good at reminding each other Not To Cry Like A Little Girl. Clearly, they do have this mechanism built in for communicating to each other expected norms for male social behavior. So I don’t think it’s asking all that much to expect the more enlightened among them to start using that mechanism to pressure the dolts, schmucks, and morons to start acting like decent human beings, even if they can’t be made to think like such.
So, to all you would-be REAL Nice Guys (TM) out there (and this can go for REAL Nice People (TM) too — whites, straights, cisgendered people, etc), take heed of this. You want to be a REAL nice person? You gotta do your part to mold socialization because if seeing discrimination makes you feel uncomfortable, think how the person being discriminated against feels.
Via She’s Such a Geek! Blog.
So, a while back I got an e-mail from a reader about my Nice Guy list. Finding it interesting, I decided to make it the subject of a post. That was, as I said, a while ago. I am nothing if not a procrastinator.
Anyway, the e-mail (reprinted with permission) is as follows:
Hi,
I read the article “How To Be A Real Nice Guy” and most of the comments to it last night, and I am somewhat confused by what is really a core premise of the article that isn’t fully articulated, namely what exactly you are saying qualifies as a Minority Space. The definition given is “Minority spaces exist, whether they be safe-spaces, places where we can go to not have to focus on priviliged groups for once, or even exclusionary ones.” This leaves me with a number of questions. For example, is a blog on feminist issues by default a Minority Space by virtue of its subject matter being one of concern to the Minority rather than an issue that caters to the privileged group? Or would there need to be more specific and/or explicit criteria followed for it to constitute a Minority Space? Further confusing me is that certain parts of the article appear to treat the concept of entering a Minority Space interchangably with having a conversation with a member of a Minority.
There is in your article a strong emphasis on the idea that members of a Majority who are in a Minority Space should listen and learn (without requiring active teaching) and refrain from actively participating, and in particular, to be extremely cautious when comparing the experiences of that Minority group to their own as a member of another Minority group and not to compare said experiences at all to the experience of the Majority. I certainly agree that members of a Minority should be free to construct such a space if that is their wish, and there are certain spaces that could be assumed by their very function to be, unless otherwise noted, a Minority Space of this type (eg a rape survivor peer counselling group). But a broad definition of Minority Space that encompasses any space where members of the Minority engage in discussion about issues of concern to their Minority, combined with all members of the Majority who participate following your suggestions (a perhaps unlikely hypothetical) would largely preclude direct discussion between members of the Minority and members of the Majority on those subjects, which would be an unfortunate result.
(Of course, it could be that what I see as the inherent benefits of direct discussion between members of the Minority and members of the Majority- that the insights of all parties, both as individual thinkers and as people with the respective experiences of being part of the Minority and the Majority, will together allow understanding that would not have been possible otherwise- is a viewpoint derived from my position of privilege, and that such discussion is not actually beneficial to the Minority. Nevertheless, I believe that such benefits do exist.)
Nicolas
So, first, the simple answer: a “minority space” is a space created by minority groups, for minority groups. It may allow privileged groups to listen to or participate in discussion, and it may not. It differs from a “privileged space” in that its exclusionary nature is not designed to uphold established power structures (as with gentlemen’s clubs and the like), but rather to provide a safe environment for minority groups to discuss issues that are not able to get airtime in “default” spaces due to those spaces being primarily focused on so-called “real” issues which too often amount to issues that the privileged group cares about.
The longer answer to Nicolas’ questions will be behind the cut.
Read the rest…
So, my Nice Guy post is making the rounds, just like I always wanted it to. Downside is that I have to actually think about commenters who disagree and look into improving the list.
But, hey, I’m all about spreading the love, so here are discussions on the Nice Guy List (in no particular order):
Hot Links
From They’re just words
Personalised expansion from something stolen from terajjin
From Sunbeam’s Scrawls
granny’s link fest.
From random blatherings and collected snark
Newsflash: Enlightened Modern Men Can Still Be Dicks. [July 15, 2006]
