Flapjackstate: The Privilege Exorcism

This post is quite ranty and not very informative, but I had to vent somewhere.

This one goes out to all the people who have tried and failed to educate privilege-deniers. It goes out to all the people who have lost friends and excommunicated family members because they failed to grasp just how serious oppression is.

Keep fighting.

Privilege makes you feel like your opinion is inherently valid. It makes you think oppression is an intellectual exercise. It makes you think it’s all about opinion, freedom of speech and lively debate. The lived experiences of oppressed people are up for discussion. You are free to ask how, why and when they experience that oppression. Nothing can stop you.

There are a thousand challenges that oppressed people face, and I insist that they tell these stories. All I can say is that I have learnt a tiny proportion of what oppression is, and I constantly learn better ways to deal with my privileges. I want to be called out. I want to change. I want to be forced to give up the privileges I hold dear, because it is for the greater good.

This post is just a record of the privilege exorcisms I have tried to perform. To rid my fellow oppressors of their arrogance, their ‘logic’ and their thoughtlessness. I will continue to try, even when it is psychologically damaging to me. I am determined to make a difference. I am determined to use my privilege against itself. Sometimes privilege deniers can only face the argument from one of their own.

Sometimes they flail. Sometimes they bite.

But one day I will squeeze every last drop of arrogance from their privileged brains.

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Even though I did not march under the banner of ‘sluthood’, I marched to mark the unceded territory of women’s bodies. I marched because language is a weapon yielded against the powerless. I marched because rapists causes rape and sexual assault can never be justified. I marched to end the policing of women by other women. I marched because that day, though understandable, I happened to be tired of the Left ruthlessly eating itself alive. I marched in defiance of right-wing pundits like Margaret Wente to make visible the staggering reality of rape and violence against all women in so-called civilized countries like Canada.

SlutWalk - To March or not to March

(via jaded16india)

Last one I promise.

**Trigger warning for rape culture**


People need to realize that being ‘scantily clad’ is not the only patriarchal excuse that victimizes women. Sexual assaults against Muslim women are often minimized in our society because Muslim women are perceived as repressed, and therefore in need of sexual emancipation. I would much rather have attended a ‘Do Not Rape’ Walk.

SlutWalk - To March or not to March

(via jaded16india)

Source: peopleofcolororganize.com

Slutwalk – in its slick branding – runs the risk of facilitating the dominant discourse of ‘liberated’ women as only those women wearing mini-skirts and high heels in/on their way to professional jobs. In reality, capitalism mediates the feminist façade of choice by creating an entire industry that commodifies women’s sexuality and links a woman’s self-esteem and self-worth to fashion and beauty. Slutwalk itself consistently refuses any connection to feminism and fixates solely around liberal questions of individual choice – the palatable “I can wear what I want” feminism that is intentionally devoid of an analysis of power dynamics.

SlutWalk - To March or not to March

(via jaded16india)

Source: peopleofcolororganize.com

It depends on how they do it and whether they center themselves instead of us. If someone Tim Wises me (getting paid to write books on shit you’re privileged in and being centered over the oppressed) on trans stuff, I’m gonna be pissed. But if someone is just like “wtf that’s wrong, don’t do that”, I’ll be less pissed. - Genderbitch Tim Wise always prefaces his speeches by saying that people only listen to him because of his white privilege. If a person of colour stood up to talk about race, he says, they would not be treated with anywhere near the same respect. So far, he is completely correct. He then proceeds to tell us about white privilege, specifically the ways in which people of colour are oppressed by the assumptions we have about white people: they are moral, amenable, upstanding citizens. They are as wise as Tim Wise, who enlightens us on what it’s like to be black in the US. Here the author and activist doesn’t just make a mistake. He veers off into vast hypocrisy. White male commentators are generally regarded to be the most important: look at government, look at business, look at documentaries, look at films, look at authors. White privilege is exactly the effect Tim Wise described: being regarded as reputable for reasons besides competence. To abuse this terrible injustice to discuss the very oppression it sustains is beyond comprehension. And there was a time when I thought he was good. You all know that I’ve been a case in point with regards to privilege abuse. I became Tumblrs own feminist Tim Wise. There are still those of you who believes I was right. Women’s issues are their own, and as I said recently, my rage is not the same. I get angry about sexism because it is wrong. Women get angry about sexism because they risk their autonomy, their livelihoods and even their access to good healthcare as a result. They deserve to be the centre of the conversation because they speak from experience, not because they have listened.  I now think the best way to deal with privilege, especially when being involved with social justice, is to be very afraid. Sugaredvenom rightly pointed out during the controversy that ultimately brought down my old blog that privilege made me feel invincible. It made me feel like I could not only speak for others, I could speak over them and knew better than they did. Privilege made me feel confident that everything I said was true, and when I came under such strong criticism, I was suddenly frightened to write anything at all. If anything, I want to be called up more often. I want to be told on a daily basis that I am overstepping the mark here or mansplaining there. I should be afraid because mistakes I make turn into real oppression, and my commandeering the discussion leads to an endorsement of the very oppressions I wish to fight. White male privilege lends me undue credit, credit which I must be uncomfortable to accept or endorse. It has never been in question that I am passionate about social justice and want to be part of the solution, but the women’s movement needs to be a matriarchy. Why? Because women are the experts on their experience, and their liberation is one place where male domination cannot be allowed to reach. If privilege is giving you a helping hand, do the right thing and step aside.
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It depends on how they do it and whether they center themselves instead of us. If someone Tim Wises me (getting paid to write books on shit you’re privileged in and being centered over the oppressed) on trans stuff, I’m gonna be pissed. But if someone is just like “wtf that’s wrong, don’t do that”, I’ll be less pissed.

- Genderbitch

Tim Wise always prefaces his speeches by saying that people only listen to him because of his white privilege. If a person of colour stood up to talk about race, he says, they would not be treated with anywhere near the same respect. So far, he is completely correct. He then proceeds to tell us about white privilege, specifically the ways in which people of colour are oppressed by the assumptions we have about white people: they are moral, amenable, upstanding citizens.

They are as wise as Tim Wise, who enlightens us on what it’s like to be black in the US.

Here the author and activist doesn’t just make a mistake. He veers off into vast hypocrisy. White male commentators are generally regarded to be the most important: look at government, look at business, look at documentaries, look at films, look at authors. White privilege is exactly the effect Tim Wise described: being regarded as reputable for reasons besides competence. To abuse this terrible injustice to discuss the very oppression it sustains is beyond comprehension.

And there was a time when I thought he was good.

You all know that I’ve been a case in point with regards to privilege abuse. I became Tumblrs own feminist Tim Wise. There are still those of you who believes I was right. Women’s issues are their own, and as I said recently, my rage is not the same. I get angry about sexism because it is wrong. Women get angry about sexism because they risk their autonomy, their livelihoods and even their access to good healthcare as a result. They deserve to be the centre of the conversation because they speak from experience, not because they have listened. 

I now think the best way to deal with privilege, especially when being involved with social justice, is to be very afraid. Sugaredvenom rightly pointed out during the controversy that ultimately brought down my old blog that privilege made me feel invincible. It made me feel like I could not only speak for others, I could speak over them and knew better than they did. Privilege made me feel confident that everything I said was true, and when I came under such strong criticism, I was suddenly frightened to write anything at all.

If anything, I want to be called up more often. I want to be told on a daily basis that I am overstepping the mark here or mansplaining there. I should be afraid because mistakes I make turn into real oppression, and my commandeering the discussion leads to an endorsement of the very oppressions I wish to fight. White male privilege lends me undue credit, credit which I must be uncomfortable to accept or endorse.

It has never been in question that I am passionate about social justice and want to be part of the solution, but the women’s movement needs to be a matriarchy. Why? Because women are the experts on their experience, and their liberation is one place where male domination cannot be allowed to reach.

If privilege is giving you a helping hand, do the right thing and step aside.

Gerald Butler L’Oreal Paris Advert

I think he’s like the ultimate dude you wanna be, you know, he’s an action star, he’s fun, he has crazy friends, he likes to go out and have fun, he’s good with the women… plays poker… he does all of those things you know, he very much lives life to the fullest, you know. He’s a dude, he’s a man’s man.

- Gerald Butler on his role

I always find advertising easy as a way to analyse societal standards as they are represented back to us in the way we are most likely to identify with them. This advert has always amused me because of how blatantly it tries to make skin products ‘manly’. It’s about not looking tired after you’ve been riding your motorbike or saving the world. Not just about looking attractive. Heck, L’Oreal man does well with women regardless, he just uses the product to stop the sheer majesty of his existence showing up in his skin.

This is much in keeping with what should be referred to as the Mitchell & Webb gender advertising dichotomy, whereby women are sold products in order to fix their problems while men are sold products as mere distractions from their overall brilliance. This can certainly be seen here, in a randomly chosen women’s skincare advert. Penelope Cruz cannot be seen leaping from fire escapes or driving fast cars.

“To stay feeling young,” she says walking from a gym, “we take care of ourselves.” Home from the gym where she mitigated the ravages of time, she talks about how the product makes her look young and ‘nurtures the top layer of skin’. And that’s it. That’s the entire advert. Contrast the way the genders are advertised to, and you can see that not much of a lifestyle is offered for women. Women don’t need a product to stop their action-packed lifestyle getting them down.

Women need a product to stay looking young.

Finally, the advert ends by showing all the silly insecurities built up around conventional masculinity. “LOOK SHARP, NOT TIRED. NUFF SAID.’ This mitigates the apparent ‘femininity’ of skincare products by using informal language. It’s not about nurturing the top layer of skin! It’s about looking sharp, on the ball, and ready for the next dude adventure.

And we wonder why business where competition is valued, and dangerous jobs where risk-taking is an occupational hazard (excluding sex work), are areas dominated by men.

Women aren’t told to do anything.

In fact they’re told not to go through a natural process.

It doesn’t matter what you do, but for God’s sake, don’t you dare age.

radioprotector replied:

I also think it’s a way to make men feel better about buying these products, which are supposed to be “feminine”. “You’re not being less manly by buying this! We swear that we think of you as a (straight) ALPHA MALE!! You’re flawless! Now buy this.”

All the colours are neutral because BRIGHT COLOURS CONVEY EMOTION YOU MUST HAVE NO EMOTION ESPECIALLY NOT PINK EMOTIONS THEY ARE FOR GAY PEOPLE AND GIRLS

Could the sex differences in brain activation be spurious? When looking for changes in blood flow between two conditions, researchers search in thousands of tiny sections of the brain (called voxels), and many researchers are now arguing that the threshold commonly set for declaring that a difference is ‘significant’ just isn’t high enough.

To illustrate this point, some researchers recently scanned an Atlantic salmon while showing it emotionally charged photographs. The salmon - which, by the way, ‘was not alive at the time of scanning’ - was ‘asked to determine what emotion the individual in the photo must have been experiencing.’ Using standard statistical procedures, they found significant brain activity in one small area of the dead fish’s brain while it performed the empathising task, compared with brain activity during ‘rest’.

The researchers conclude not that this particular region of the brain is involved in postmortem piscine empathising, but that the kind of statistical thresholds commonly used in neuroimaging studies are inadequate because they allow too many spurious results through the net.

Cordelia Fine’s “Delusions of Gender”