The conclusions of this analogy are fairly offensive if you only consider race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in the equation.
Who has it worse: A middle class white woman of that grew up with loving parents that supported her fascination with computers who now has to deal with an environment that seems strangely tolerant, by 21st century standards, of misogynistic behavior, or a straight white man who grew up poor with abusive parents and was bullied in school for his entire childhood (hell, maybe he even has some sort of mental or physical handicap!), but managed to focus his free time on learning about computers anyways, and does not today deal with racial or sexual discrimination in his workplace?
That's an extreme example, but I've heard enough startlingly ignorant retorts along the lines of "you don't understand, it doesn't matter how bad you had it, women always have it worse," or "how dare you spend most of your free time learning in front of a computer!" to know that I'm happier keeping the "privilege" debate out of mind.
I also think it's ridiculous to claim that a trans person is playing on "hard mode," while a "hacker girl" is playing on "nightmare mode." I don't think "possibly deals with some misogynistic behavior in her workplace and possibly feels discouraged by the lack of women in her field" is anywhere near as bad as having to deal with the scorn of a very large portion of society, possibly being disowned by one's parents (and very likely some kind of disappointment or other negative behavior from them otherwise, even if they try to be accepting), being avoided even by people who mean no harm (especially if you can't pass), or the constant mixture of shame, self-denial, and wistfulness you feel if you decided to accept living as the gender you didn't want to be. Ok, I think I've scraped enough off the tip of that iceberg.
Regardless, I think it's ultimately about as pointless to try to rank people by the amount of "privilege" they "enjoy" as it is to have a discussion about which fictional character would beat who in a fight. Why would you try to take someone's achievements away from them for the sake of an argument or a cause? That's just rude.
I can't wait for us to reach the "end game" where everyone has learned to be professional and only judge people by the results they bring to the table, but while I hope there is a path to it that does not focus on wracking every white, male, and/or straight person with guilt and witch hunting everyone who dares express the slightest hint of a contrary opinion, maybe I'm just a dreamer who doesn't know anything and the only way to change culture is to declare thermonuclear war on the loudest mouths and wait for everyone else to fall in line out of fear.
Kathy was absolutely not trying to rank people by how much privilege they enjoy. And you're misunderstanding the "hard mode" metaphor; factors are not necessarily sole determinants. It has been demonstrated, for example, that in science being female is a hindrance and being male is an asset. [1] That doesn't mean that there are not some males who have it worse than some females; it means that, for a male and a female coming from exactly the same background with exactly the same experience, the male will be better off. Being male is a privilege, and being female is a drawback.
I can understand, however, that a lot of us white males (I am one too) find this threatening because it seems like it's intended to "wrack us with guilt," as you put it. I guess maybe there are times when that's the goal, but Kathy here clearly doesn't intend to shove that down our throats. She's trying to genuinely point out something that even people who've been in the industry for years (like she has) might not see. And that's jarring, and it's kind of shocking, but it is not supposed to be a guilt trip. It's just supposed to bring us to awareness of simple facts that many people these days aren't willing to acknowledge.
The study I linked to is absolutely not a "narrow experiment" - it's the largest and most thoroughgoing study of its kind ever done. The study you're linking to, by contrast, is a narrow experiment, is more than three years old, and has been superseded by new data. It'd probably be worth actually reading the link I gave.
Huh? Your study is a single experiment, which sends a single modified resume out to people and asks their opinion on pay/qualifications.
In contrast, the one I linked to examines real market outcomes at multiple career events. Unless you believe the situation has changed significantly in the past three years, your criticism of the age of my study is irrelevant.
I can't take the word "privilege" seriously anymore. I'm generally liberal myself, but the extremists have coopted the word to mean "all white and/or male people everywhere" and I just cannot get behind that.
A hacker girl can't get married or visit her husband in the hospital due to lack of legal standing. That's why every female has it worse than men, you can clearly see this as gay men can get married and trans men never experience discrimination. Don't forget, all black people everywhere have it awful and all white people have it great. Those gay kids getting bullied to death need to check their privilege, geez.
The privilege metaphor is great for people who can only think in terms of black and white, good or evil, privilege or nonprivileged. In truth, reality is greyscale.
It’s not about ranking, it’s about checking and being aware of one’s privilege. It’s only ever detractors who seem to want to make it about ranking or anything like that. Of course, when going down to the micro level it gets complicated. It always is. It’s probably also not a good idea to be quick to mix macro and micro level views, but privilege is still a useful concept.
The important thing about privilege is that you exactly cannot judge people merely by what they bring to the table. That is just not possible. That’s not a witch hunt. People with privilege are not bad people. In fact, most people probably have some sort of privilege. It’s complex. That’s the point.
(That trope about the prosecuted white straight man there, that’s very cute by the way. How can you write that without your brain exploding? I never understand how anyone could come to that preposterous conclusion. What is wrong with those people?)
I've seen people say with a straight face that when a white person is a victim of a black person's crime, the white person deserves it because SLAVERY!
I've also had people tell me that the civilians who died in the WTC attacks deserved it because America is evil and imperialistic in its dealing with other countries. This [HARD-MODE!!] metaphor has gone over great with this same crowd, not so much with me, who thinks the people who are dead got a game over and aren't really playing on any difficulty anymore.
I'm glad you agree that they're wrong, but they aren't practically non existent, at least in my social circles. I won't say they're a majority (they aren't) but they're definitely a presence.
I don't find these two examples comparable because I find it hard to believe that the American population is currently voting or acting to reinstate slavery.
When you pay your taxes to the Pentagon and vote to reelect George W Bush, AlQaeda members see you about the same way that Allied pilots of World War 2 saw the innocent German civilians that they fried with strategic bombing.
A friend of mine would have been killed in the 911 attack had my friend been on a different train, so I'm not pointing this out because I enjoy being attacked by AlQaeda. I'm saying this because I feel the responsibility issue is similar to that in last election in the UK, for the following reason:
The election was a choice between Dumb and Dumber because of our electoral system. The system makes it infeasible for any party other than the big 2, so at best you get to vote for the second-worst policy or waste your vote. There was a referendum to move to preferential voting instead.
The people voted for Dumber, and then voted against electoral reform. So the current bad policy continues by popular decision.
If I'm not supposed to blame the British people for choosing this stupidity, who am I supposed to blame?
The result of the 2 votes is that the British people are just fine and dandy with David Cameron and his policies.
Said policies are to cut healthcare and education for the British people, while spending to send more helicopters to Afghanistan.
Said helicopters kill people. Wartime kills include many innocents who get bombed, not "accidentally" but rather nonchalantly.
Now put yourself in the shoes of an Afghan who is getting his relatives slaughtered by British helicopters.
He has got a pretty strong motive for vengeance: "You Brits supported the bastards who killed my family!"
If the Afghan decides to bomb London, he's going to bomb London.
He's not going to canvas every Londoner, ask me personally how I voted, and wait for the day that I'm out of town before bombing the city.
I don't really understand how I'm supposed to criticise him for it unless I think there's an alternate course of action were the roles reversed IE that a Londoner would have done in his shoes.
And if you look at body counts over time, Anglo Saxon countries are pretty indiscriminately bloodthirsty, and usually kill with much less provocation.
So I find this sort of reasoning hypocritical and insufficient. The world just doesn't work this way.
You can ask the citizens of Dresden about World War 2. I bet some of the victims voted against Hitler, or were even in the anti-Nazi resistance...
And if you look at body counts over time, Anglo Saxon countries are pretty indiscriminately bloodthirsty, and usually kill with much less provocation.
Wow, racist much?
Cruelty isn't copyright caucasian. Plenty of shit has gone down that had nothing to do with europeans.
I still don't condone terrorism and murder, since an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. I'm sorry you feel that your countrymen are such terrible people that they deserve to die. I'm not the biggest fan of my own country, but I can't say I've ever condoned wholesale slaughter of its citizens.
>I'm sorry you feel that your countrymen are such terrible people that they deserve to die
It personally suits me fine if AlQaeda never existed.
>Wow, racist much?
Stop personalising it; it's not about me, it's about consistency.
See, the Jihadi pulling the trigger doesn't see him self as a "terrorist" committing "murder", he sees himself as a "fighter for freedom" performing "service", much like the Marine on the other side does.
That's why I'm trying to be cold-bloodedly objective, otherwise things become just a matter of opinion.
So a question for you:
If "wholesale slaughter" of innocent civilians is wrong, then will you condemn the strategic bombing of Germany in World War 2?
If you condone the strategic bombing of Germany(, or drone strikes in Pakistan), then how can you condemn Jihadi bombings on the basis of "wholesale slaughter"?
Who has it worse: A middle class white woman of that grew up with loving parents that supported her fascination with computers who now has to deal with an environment that seems strangely tolerant, by 21st century standards, of misogynistic behavior, or a straight white man who grew up poor with abusive parents and was bullied in school for his entire childhood (hell, maybe he even has some sort of mental or physical handicap!), but managed to focus his free time on learning about computers anyways, and does not today deal with racial or sexual discrimination in his workplace?
That's an extreme example, but I've heard enough startlingly ignorant retorts along the lines of "you don't understand, it doesn't matter how bad you had it, women always have it worse," or "how dare you spend most of your free time learning in front of a computer!" to know that I'm happier keeping the "privilege" debate out of mind.
I also think it's ridiculous to claim that a trans person is playing on "hard mode," while a "hacker girl" is playing on "nightmare mode." I don't think "possibly deals with some misogynistic behavior in her workplace and possibly feels discouraged by the lack of women in her field" is anywhere near as bad as having to deal with the scorn of a very large portion of society, possibly being disowned by one's parents (and very likely some kind of disappointment or other negative behavior from them otherwise, even if they try to be accepting), being avoided even by people who mean no harm (especially if you can't pass), or the constant mixture of shame, self-denial, and wistfulness you feel if you decided to accept living as the gender you didn't want to be. Ok, I think I've scraped enough off the tip of that iceberg.
Regardless, I think it's ultimately about as pointless to try to rank people by the amount of "privilege" they "enjoy" as it is to have a discussion about which fictional character would beat who in a fight. Why would you try to take someone's achievements away from them for the sake of an argument or a cause? That's just rude.
I can't wait for us to reach the "end game" where everyone has learned to be professional and only judge people by the results they bring to the table, but while I hope there is a path to it that does not focus on wracking every white, male, and/or straight person with guilt and witch hunting everyone who dares express the slightest hint of a contrary opinion, maybe I'm just a dreamer who doesn't know anything and the only way to change culture is to declare thermonuclear war on the loudest mouths and wait for everyone else to fall in line out of fear.