Years ago as a teenager in the Christian Church, not so long after puberty struck, I asked my community, “How do I know that God loves women as much as he loves men?” The answers I received were profoundly depressing:
- God gave a woman the honor of giving birth to his son.
- Women are the more beautiful sex.
- Women are naturally more pure than men.
The first response said to me that the value in a woman is entirely contained within her uterus. The second told me that women are not useful for anything. The third told me that if I sinned, more specifically if I were sexually active, then I was more to blame than a man because my nature made me naturally less susceptible to temptation. What terrible messages to send to a confused and lonely teenager!
Today, almost twenty years later, the messages I receive about womanhood are no less depressing. Consider this video documentary on “People with questionable genders.”
Where are the women here? They are absent. They are hidden. They exist like ghosts, only as references to give context to another problem that some men face: gender dysmorphia. According to this documentary, only men are faced with the difficulty of living in a society that rejects them and only men are given the choice to live false lives or to actualize themselves.
It is not politically correct to criticize transsexuals. However, it seems to me rather naive to say that a transwoman and born woman are the same. The former was born into a life of privilege and chose to reject it. The latter was never given the choice. It is rather similar to comparing a monk and a beggar. The former chooses his poverty in exchange for actualization of himself. The latter, on the other hand, has no flag of moral victory to wave in the face of his enemies.
Once, years ago, I was discussing with a male acquaintance of mine. He bemoaned the freedom that women had to dress as men without repercussion, but that men were considered gay or somehow deficient in their masculinity if they did so. Clearly, I said to him, this difference arises from the fact that a woman is considered an inferior being. It is natural for her to want to emulate masculinity whereas a man who rejects his gender has no justification and therefore deserves the ridicule. Our philosophical discussion ended there. Most men are uncomfortable when their privilege is pointed out to them.
A Ferret Called Wilson 
February 7, 2014 at 8:02 PM
Great post. The one point that I disagree with you on, though, is that transwomen were born into a live of privilege yet chose to reject it. On a superficial level, that may seem true, but if if you think about a transwoman who lives her entire life as a man, rather than as a woman, due to fear, social pressure, what have you, she would be leading a very repressed life. I don’t think that is privilege at all.
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February 7, 2014 at 8:35 PM
Actually, as I kept thinking about it, I realized that my comment was sort of off base. While that transwoman living as a man would certainly be repressed and I’m sure be suffering deep emotional conflict, she would still be benefiting from male privilege. So basically, I retract my earlier statement :) All around great post!
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February 8, 2014 at 4:33 AM
Hi Lesfemmesvoice,
Thanks for your feedback. It was a tough post to make and I know that among the many things, the claim of being born into privilege would be the most likely to ruffle feathers. I’m glad you understand what I was trying to convey, though.
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February 7, 2014 at 9:04 PM
Have you seen this video? Powerful – and unbelievably fucked up that 51% of the human race has to live this way every day of their lives. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4UWxlVvT1A
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February 8, 2014 at 4:34 AM
Hi Stuart,
On account of not wanting to expose myself to unnecessary negativity, I’m going to refrain from watching. Thanks for the share, though!
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February 9, 2014 at 12:56 AM
I came to comment on this great post and saw my co-blogger already did! I especially think what you said about dressing as the opposite sex is true. To dress as a woman is embarrassing and somehow makes you weaker (per society in general).
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February 9, 2014 at 4:31 AM
Hi LesFemmesVoice part 2!
Thanks for the feedback. You’ve got a pretty fantastic blog yourself(ves).
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April 14, 2014 at 12:18 PM
No doubt you will accuse me of having my feathers ruffled, but I maintain again that feminists are deeply confused regarding the issue of male “privilege”. There is no privilege granted by the patriarchy to anyone. You either have the power and wherewithal to take a position in the patriarchy or not. Being born male, on average, gives you more physical strength and hormonal drive, but those males who lack the same or fail to exercise said characteristics get no “privileges,” only scorn. Since, to an extent, physical violence is sanctioned by law, assertive women can relatively win privileges not granted to “wusy” men.
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April 14, 2014 at 6:25 PM
So, when you walk down the street on a typical night, how scared of getting raped are you?
Come to think of it, how many times HAVE you been sexually assaulted?
… because if the answer to either of those questions is “not at all” then you’ve just admitted to privilege.
Privilege doesn’t mean that you don’t have problems. It means you don’t have the *specific* problems that come from being in a group that’s systematically attacked.
[edited for “let’s play nice” purposes]
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April 15, 2014 at 11:09 AM
I’ve been thinking about this a bit more; I think perhaps the problem is the idea of thinking of privilege as a sort of “yes/no” question, something you either are or aren’t. The reality is that there are dozens, possibly hundreds, of different privileges that each of us either have or don’t. A privilege is pretty much “a particular kind of bullying that you don’t have to worry about”. The same characteristic can count as a privilege in some circumstances but a source of bullying in others.
For example, I’m male (privilege), straight (privilege), white (privilege). Growing up, I was also weak (bullied), geeky (bullied), with poor social skills (bullied). I got excellent grades in school without having to work too hard for them (which was a privilege with respect to teachers and the school system, but got me bullied by my peers). With the advent of the internet, “geeky” has gradually transitioned from a bullied class toward being a privilege of its own: which it counts as for a given person depends on your life situation. I’m currently a non-citizen of the country I live in, which is a kind of bullied class in that I lack the privileges granted to citizens. I’m not rich, but I’m not poor, which makes me privileged relative to the vast majority of the country but still a target of economic bullying by the wealthiest 1%.
Similarly I could identify that Pinkie has a bunch of privileged characteristics, at least one bullied class (female) and several of the “can go either way depending on circumstances” characteristics.
From your post, Lloyd, it sounds like you’re pointing out that men who don’t meet the “traditionally masculine” stereotype can be a bullied class. I’d absolutely agree with that, because like I said, I fit that too. But being bullied on one measure doesn’t negate the other privileges you get and doesn’t change the fact that “male” is one of them; for all the kinds of bullying DO you have to worry about, the kinds that are associated with being female are not among them. And not having to worry about those kinds is a privilege.
[edit: removed personal information]
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April 15, 2014 at 8:19 PM
Well said, Mr. Ballard.
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April 14, 2014 at 6:23 PM
Hi Lloyd,
Thanks for your comments. I wrote another post, which you may have commented on, too, I can’t remember, about humanism versus feminisim. I think it’s a shame that some men are treated the way you describe. But to say that systematic institutionalized discrimination does not exist because some people on the other side do not benefit from it leaves a huge logical gap.
In writing this post, the biggest point that I wanted to make was that women worldwide are so unimportant from society’s perspective that we are forgotten and overlooked even in conversations that are so close to our hearts, such as failing to live up to society’s gender expectations. The subconscious message we cannot help but receive is that we are invisible and should stay that way. It’s very hard to recognize this consciously which is in part why it is so destructive.
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