I’m currently watching Chopped on Food Network. I love FN because I like to cook and it’s basically food porn, and I love Chopped because people always have to be super creative with the bizarre ingredients they give them.
But my first thought when this episode started was “Wow, all the competitors are women!”
There have been tons of episodes with all men, and never once have I thought “Wow, all the competitors are men!” Why? Because we’re used to having women be underrepresented in most fields, including as professional chefs.
Just something to chew over.
…Yes that horrible pun was intentional.
Isn’t it possible that this has something to do with the ratio of actual male-to-female chefs in the business? Maybe more men want to be chefs. I’m just sayin’…Also, I wanted to touch upon the fact that female privilege exists as well, especially in the court systems with divorcing parents and child custody. I recently divorced my wife due to the fact that she was cheating on me, yet when it came time for the custody hearings, they could find no reason why she couldn’t keep custody of the kids.The courts always seem to default to the side of the mother in cases like these, even when the mother is an unfit one (although she’s changed completely since then, thankfully).A man would have to sue for custody, after which the burden of proof would be on the man to prove that the woman was unfit to keep physical custody of the children.Sure, male privilege is dominant nearly everywhere else (I won’t argue that fact), but I never hear you talk about female privilege, if at all.
Hey Jen, My Fav in foodie stars is Rachael Ray. She comes up with some interesting stuff and i have tried..A lot of her stuff is lower calorie than conventional cooking.
As a man and a cook in a professional kitchen, there’s a LOT of swearing of the most colorful variety thrown around, as well as dozens of jokes of the cruder sort. There’s never any actual vehemence or intent to harm behind such behavior, but when you’re under the kind of pressure we’re under every night, the raunchier side tends to come out, and as such those of us behind the line are of the more insane variety. It’s hard for most people, men as well as women, to discern the difference. Also, those of us who work in this business are those who are doing it to make ends meet for a bit, or the ones too stupid to do something more productive with our lives. Most women have more sense than that. Read Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” for a better explanation.Also, the Food Network is evil in every way. It advocates lowest-common-denominator, soulless cooking. Don’t believe the shiny, plastic presenters. They lie.
Hey Jen, I wanted to thank you blogging about male privilege, especially amongst criticism. Not enough people are aware that such a thing exists (thus why people get defensive when you mention it), so we need to be more vocal about it if we ever stand a chance of ending it. I would like to see some posts on white privilege as well, if you ever come across something relevant, maybe you could highlight it.
Although this is all based on people’s personal perception of chefs, not the law. If everyone changed their perception *poof* male privilege gone. I think it’s very doable considering that almost no one would admit to favoring male chefs.
As my 12yo son likes to say, every nerd loves a good pun, especially if it’s a bad pun.
The irony, of course, is that cooking is “woman’s work.”
And how often do you blog about female privileged? How often does Jen blog about white privilege? There’s this old adage, you may have heard it:”Write what you know.”That’s not to say it would be somehow wrong, or presumptuous of Jen to write about female or white privilege. In fact, if it would get people to stop getting defensive over the idea that society is predisposed towards the male gender in many ways, then maybe it would even be a good idea. But the fact of the matter, Terran, is that male privilege hurts men as much as it hurts women. I, for one, am tired of people assuming I like sports and know how to fix a car just because I’ve got a penis.
Wait a second here, I just realized something…Jen’s LAST post about male privilege sparked well over a hundred responses, many of them viciously angry. And now, she just haphazardly posts a quick paragraph about Male Privilege, and seems to think it will be a perfectly innocent post?…Guys, Jen is trolling us! >.>
So… You had the sexist thought about an episode biased in favour of women… and male privilege is the bad guy? I think you need to show your work on that one.And, although I’m sure it was meant in jest, I agree with LS and I’ll say it seriously. Seems like you were just trying to start an argument with this one.
Part of the problem is we’re using different terminology. Privilege refers to having an overwhelming majority of advantages, many if not all of them institutionalized or taken for granted in our society. That’s not saying that women don’t have any advantages – the example you gave is definitely valid and problematic – but it is not privilege.I have discussed how sexism hurts men as well multiple times. I’m sure Google can help you find those posts if you care enough to look.
See my comment above on what “male privilege” means, since it appears not many of you are familiar with the term.
Don’t tempt me to actually troll you guys. It wouldn’t be pretty ;)
I’m with you all the way, especially the last paragraph. Of course male privilege hurts men as well; I guess it’s just a form of persecution complex whenever I see a male privilege post. :)But does it not make sense that the majority of male chefs indicates an accurate statistical sampling?
You demonstrate a lack of understanding as to what male privilege is. It’s easy enough to do–“[group] privilege” is an awfully provocative way to talk about this issue. Unfortunately, we can’t start redefining terms after the discussion has begun. You seem an intellectual sort, so please allow me to explain to you my understanding of it, and how it applies to this situation. Let me start with what Male Privilege is not:-Male privilege is not my fault.-Male privilege is not something anyone should blame me for.-Male privilege is not not something I personally should feel ashamed of. -Male privilege is not a positive privilege bestowed upon the male gender. What male privilege IS, is a pervasive social outlook which predisposes us towards thinking that men are the default kind of person. This outlook saturates our entire culture, so everyone is raised accepting it as normal. Men and women alike. It’s why we expect doctors to be male until we meet them, and discover that they are female. This is an example of that kind of thinking. Jen, despite being a woman, despite being intelligent, despite being a feminist, and aware of the subtleties of “male privilege,” recognized in herself the assumption that men are the default in the cooking profession. This is worth taking note of, because it demonstrates that this outlook, which we are indoctrinated into from the time we are very young, does not go away simply because we recognize it. It doesn’t even go away when we oppose it. It is a pattern of thinking which favors men in a general sense. It is a crutch that all of us share, and one we should try to be aware of so we can learn to view the world without it.
See, now you’ve got me curious. I really must insist on a good trolling.
Consider your own life experience, however. What is the ratio of women who like to cook vs men who like to cook?As a man who loves to cook, I can say that in my personal experience, a love of cooking is heavily weighted towards women. Whether or not that indicates a sexist child rearing environment or not, surely the discrepancy between amateur female cooks and professional female cooks, vs amateur male cooks and professional male cooks, can be taken as evidence that there is a bias at work. …now I actually want someone to do a study on this. Damnit.
I don’t know that I would say that there are more women who like to cook than men who like to cook, rather to say that women are more open about their like of cooking would probably be more accurate. This is where stereotypes come in – something that is way different from privilege, keep in mind – it is a stereotype that women do the cooking and not men. Therefore, it is likely that some men do not tell anyone that they like to cook for fear of appearing “womanly.”
I’d like to add, if you don’t mind, that part of what made me open to what Jen had to say on this issue in the first place was the reasonable, measured approach she takes to it. I think one of the first posts of hers I read contained a line along the lines of “Given the obvious physical differences between men and women, it is not unreasonable to assume there are psychological differences as well.” which struck me as absolutely bizarre, coming from a self-proclaimed feminist. I don’t think it’s really fair to claim that Jen shows any unseemly biases in her blogging on this issue.
The problem with the “male privilege” theory is that it is fundamentally not testable. No matter how much progress we make on gender issues, there will always be this nebulous “male privilege” out there. It’s much like the ‘life force’ used to be in biology or the ‘aether’ used to be in physics. It is much more realistic to talk about specific types of male privilege which are testable (such as how specific people react when seeing a female chef) rather than some overarching all-encompassing untestable force.
Although I would like to say that Jen is very friendly about this issue. At your normal feminist blog, if you were to question their view of male privilege or the patriarchy, they would respond fast and fierce. You will be called a sexist pig more ways than you knew existed. But Jen is kind enough to at least walk us through what she believes.
I hate to call upon the oft-summoned but rarely understood specter of common sense, but it seems appropriate here. Putting male privilege to the side for a moment, as it is an awkward and unwieldy term, I can’t say I’ve lived a day in my life where I haven’t seen some example of sexism or another. When was the last time you saw a commercial for a home cleaning product which didn’t feature a woman as the customer? How many stay-at-home dads do you know compared to stay-at-home moms? Did the last movie you saw pass the Bechdel Test? Any of the last three? Any of the last ten?Don’t misunderstand me, I think you bring up a serious issue. No group which is formed to accomplish a goal has ever been satisfied by accomplishing it. But I think the goals of feminism are obviously far from having been reached.
Has anyone made a Troll Bingo card for this line of argument yet?
It’s worth pointing out that many of the “privileges” that women enjoy are rooted in sexism/misogyny because we live in a patriarchal society. Women are supposed to sacrifice their careers and be stay-at-home baby factories. That was the message sent strongly in the past, and is still seen today.So, call it privilege if you want, but realise how it came to be that way and why it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I watched that episode too, and you know, it kinda pissed me off a bit. On that show, at least, women competitors are on it every episode that I’ve seen. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but nowhere is it made an issue that they are a OMG FEMALE CHEF. They’re just competitors, like any other, and I think that’s the way it ought to be. But on tonight’s episode, it seemed like every other comment was about how wonderful it was that we could all see these strong women chefs… to me, it felt divisive.
Am I the only person who finds the sociological application of the word “privilege” to be aesthetically and linguistically displeasing? I feel like the connotations inherent in the common usage of the word is part of what causes the adverse reaction in people unfamiliar with this context. I accept the greater point behind it, but the usage still rubs me the wrong way for some reason.
Yeah, language sucks sometimes. It’s like the popular vs. scientific definition of “theory,” and how that creates a lot of drama with creationists.
Perhaps it is a good sign, then, that I do not hold any assumption as to the gender of nearly most people I expect/intend to meet. When I am to meet a doctor whose gender I’m unaware of, I neither expect male nor female, white nor otherwise. Call it personal exposure to a diversity of people in the field, but I think it’s a good sign (for myself, anyway).The only professions I can honestly say I expect a certain gender are physically-intense occupations like firefighting (though, yes, there ARE women in this profession, but a disproportionately small amount) or… well, really that’s about it.I think part of the issue as it pertains to occupation is the fact that if we expect a certain gender, it’s usually because that gender holds a majority in that particular field; if we expect a police officer to be male, it’s most likely because most police officers ARE male.
That’s a very good comparison, and I was thinking the same thing when reading Tony B’s post. Perhaps it is the word “privilege” itself, whose negative connotations also bring negative emotions and, often, defensiveness.
Sometimes we just have to live with terminology which is not ideal.I’m sure that at one time, using the word “privilege” helped feminists rally other women out of complacency.
I’m not a professional chef, retired EE is more like it, but I think I’m a fairly good cook, my wife is far better. To the suggestion of Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential (currently reading his Medium Rare), I would add Ruhlman’s The Making of a Chef. The classes I’ve taken at CIA, except the BBQ Boot Camp, have been majority women.ahtripp is quite correct about the Food Network, except he is too kind.
Jen trolling us? I’m pretty sure we’d be able to tell. “Starting today, this Blog will shifting views! We will no longer be focusing on heathen teachings, and instead embracing the good word of the lord. May our women always be in the kitchen, and our men never eat Quiche.”
As having a cooking show of all males in no way privileges me (a male), I think it’s inflammatory to say it is a “male privilege”. I would qualify myself as an extreme feminist and anti-sexism person, and all this recent talk of “male privilege” is extremely off-putting. Makes me reconsider reading this blog.
The word “privilege” is a terrible choice. It may be a shorthand for a longer qualified statement, but it brings along large amounts of baggage. Coupled with a group-identifier “male”, it seems to be asserting that everyone who is male enjoys some benefit that everyone who is female does not, and that’s simply wrong, and sexist group-think to boot.
“Privilege” is the term used by sociologists, not something I’m just willy nilly throwing around. If your response is to run away when being confronted with ideas that you don’t agree with, that’s your loss, not mine.
In terms of attitudes leading to social/societal privilege, I reckon it’s often the case the the vast majority of people don’t, as individuals, actually have the views that lead to the privilege. However, society as a whole, as a gestalt, seems to.One argument as to why this happens is that people used to have these attitudes, patterns formed, and people now take those patterns for granted and treat them as ‘normal’ even if they don’t have the attitudes that led to them.Edit: PS: I’m no expert on this, and don’t claim any accuracy here. It’s just a thought, and just my thought.
Nah, the best trolls are non-obvious.
Physics and Biology are natural sciences, sometimes known as ‘hard sciences’. In these sciences, theories need to be falsifiable, and usually minimal, and so on. Aetheric theory was disproved (by showing no medium for transmission of light, IIRC), not so aware of the history of biology.This isn’t the case in social sciences. It’s hard to prove anything wrong in the social sciences (one reason many reject the term ‘science’ for them). Instead, the usual pattern is for greater support to collect around an opposing view, or for the opposing view to turn out to be more useful in modelling and predicting outcomes.
And why are most police officers (or doctors, or whatever) male? That’s the question closer to the matter of privilege.
Recent?? Unless you’re referring only to this blog (in which ‘all this … talk’ seems extreme), then recent really isn’t the right term. It’s been used in terms of disadvantage/prejudive/discrimination for a pretty damn long time. It’s a fairly technical term and has a meaning related to, but not the same as, the one which may seem obvious. Plenty of explanation better than I could manage already in this thread.
As a separate point, the law doesn’t particularly matter. Legal differences can be part of a question of privilege (in the sense used here), but issues of privilege are very much not required to be in any way connected to the law.
//I would qualify myself as an extreme feminist and anti-sexism person, and all this recent talk of “male privilege” is extremely off-putting. //The concept of male privilege / patriarchy has been one of the foundational blocks of feminist theory since the 60s or so. I know it’s kind of weird (I had problems understanding it myself for a long while), but acts of sexism actually don’t make any sense without the context of the patriarchy.Quoting LS above://-Male privilege is not my fault.-Male privilege is not something anyone should blame me for.-Male privilege is not not something I personally should feel ashamed of. -Male privilege is not a positive privilege bestowed upon the male gender. What male privilege IS, is a pervasive social outlook which predisposes us towards thinking that men are the default kind of person. This outlook saturates our entire culture, so everyone is raised accepting it as normal. Men and women alike. It’s why we expect doctors to be male until we meet them, and discover that they are female. //So, what that cooking show does: it helps sustain this weird social situation where cooking at home is considered “women’s work”, and consequently is seen as a chore. However, when men get involved in a different arena (restaurants and such), cooking is suddenly “man’s work” and becomes sexy and cool, and gets a fleet of shows on a whole bunch of different channels.It comes down to this: when a man cooks (be it in a setting like one of these cooking shows, or a restaurant, or even just barbecue), it’s cool, or natural, or manly, and here’s the important part: is always considered a profession or something worthy of the label “culinary greatness”. When a woman cooks, it’s just considered a chore and not real work or “simple” and “down-home” (how often have you heard the phrase “down-home cooking” applied to Bobby Flay or Mario Batali?). Which is why it’s male privilege. Which may or may not benefit you personally! In fact, it may hurt you if you’re the type of person that loves doing day-to-day family cooking, because you’re not fulfilling what’s socially expected of your gender’s capabilities in cooking.Admittedly this is sort of a short version of it, but if you pick up some feminist literature it’s handled in better detail. Or, go read a blog that deals with sexual harassment / sexual assault / rape. That’s what really drove the point home to me.
Yes, the term was definitely invented to rally like-minded women. They weren’t necessarily considering how the term would compare to the use of the words in every day conversation.However, I disagree with the idea that terminology can not be changed. To use another science example, when I took chem courses, the professors would always say, “Well the naming here doesn’t fit the normal pattern, which makes it difficult, but it is too late to change.” No it isn’t. If the long term benefits are worth it, a little work in the present to rewrite the terms would be wise.
Sam is right that it is a common feminist term (if it is a sociologist term as well, then I would suggest they get a term that better explains what they mean)However, if you look back Jen spends the vast majority of her time talking about being an Atheist activist, so it doesn’t make sense to give up the blog if you disagree with a few posts here and there.
Again with the complaints about male privilege! Yeah, it’s uncomfortable to have to examine whether you have privilege, and in what ways your contributing to the problem. But you’re certainly no extreme feminist if you find discussions of male privilege offensive and off-putting.
I wasn’t poking at merely “privilege”, but the coupling “male privilege”. Specifically, the list you linked to last time was an itemized list of privileges “males” have, which *is to be read in the first person*. Why can’t you see that this is taking something that is only a statistical probability (and sometimes fairly unlikely) when applied to the group (males), and applying it to a specific member of that group (the individual male reader)? That is sexist, by definition.If “sociologists” use that term in that manner, I would be incredibly surprised (and saddened).I wouldn’t be “running away” from “ideas I don’t agree with”, I’d be choosing not to read an author who seems to want to apply labels and attributes to me because of my sex (sounds somehow familiar…).
But more and more women are becoming doctors and lawyers so the male privilege in these areas is getting weaker and weaker. Like I said before, I think whatever gender people expect to see, in the end they have no problem with women doctors and lawyers which means that male privilege is dying in those areas.
I think you make a good point, Sam.
The list was written to be read in the first person because it was written by a man.And this post was explicitly addressing how a female (me) can act in a certain way due to male privilege (expecting overrepresentation of men).The vast majority of the time I write about science and religion. The fact that people like you get so butt-hurt about privilege only encourages me to write about it more, because it shows that it needs to be discussed more because so many people are unaware of it.And anyway, I rather write about what I’m interested in and find important than cater to the whims of a couple readers. This blog is for fun, not my job. I encourage you to keep reading and commenting since I encourage discussion and learning, but I’m not going to cry myself to sleep at night if you unsubscribe.
That already happened on April Fools day
I completely understand the concepts behind feminism and “the patriarchy”. What I find appalling about the “male privilege” meme is the application of group statistics to individuals of that group. The previous list linked to had each point as a first-person statement: there is no other way to read it than to come to the conclusion. Do not misunderstand me: I understand that many of the group statistics are actually true, and that this is a Bad Thing that needs to be corrected, but when anyone talks about “males” in any other way than “the humans with a Y chromosome”, it’s not a good thing (the same obviously goes for females and the lack of Y).
Sigh. I don’t care if it was a man: The list is about “males”, and the items start with “I”. How is that not exactly what it seems? I am not “unaware” of the things mentioned in the list. The list (as written) is as idiotic as a similarly title “female privilege” or “why blacks need to be in jail” would be: statistical likelihoods applied to individuals. It’s wrong, and so antithetical to the rest of this excellent blog, and that’s why I get so “butt-hurt about” it.As you said though, its your blog, you can categorize people however you want.
“No problem with” is certainly an improvement from attitudes in the past, and the fact (if it is the case, I’ve not seen recent evidence in either direction) that the proportions of people in professions like law and medicine who are female are going up does indicate a reduction in some aspects of male privilege, it’s slow going and privilege extends farther than most people realise. If your eyes and mind are open to it, it’s not unusual to suddenly notice aspects of male (or white, or straight, or whatever) privilege that had never occurred to you, or been mentioned to you, or whatever. This is especially true when you’re in the privileged class.Of course, the real eye-opener is losing privilege. The most plausible way of doing this is by becoming disabled, or by developing a close association with someone who’s in an un-privileged group so you see things from their point of view. I became disabled (an ‘unseen’ disability) about 8 years ago, and my fiancée became disabled a few years ago, once we’d been together a while. While there’s a lot of arguments possible to consider disability a different sort of thing to race or gender or orientation, particularly that the disadvantage isn’t imposed by society, it’s new disadvantage nonetheless, and one gets to see the way that the rest of society largely just doesn’t see it. At this point I’m just rambling, but I hope I’ve said something that’s useful or thought-provoking…
The statements are mostly about society, just written in the form of the perceptions of an individual. If you can honestly read them and not see how they’re applied, then you’re living somewhere strange, and probably not English-speaking. The statements aren’t ‘I’m smarter than women’, they’re ‘people will tend to think I’m better at my job than a woman who does it just as well’. That’s not a statistical statement applied to an individual, it’s a statement about society phrased how an individual would experience it. The statements aren’t about men, or a man, they’re about society.A final point on the first-person thing: firstly, people write in the first person often and mean that ‘I’ is themselves, not the reader. In this case, though, the intention is that the readers try to test the statements out on themselves and see if they can see how they apply.(This is all assuming we’re talking about the same list…))
I’m not sure you can say you really understand what patriarchy means unless you buy into male privilege at least a little bit — the concept of male privilege is a logical extension of patriarchy.And sure, while it would be wonderful and fantastic if we could get past the negative associations attached to identity labels, trying to say we need to do that *now* leaves sort of the same bad taste in my mouth that “colorblindness” does, in that it:1.) Homogenizes people’s identities so that their own histories and cultures are washed away, usually to the perspective of the dominant group (think of how Henry Ford made his assembly line immigrant workers “Americanize”);2.) Puts us in a position where we stop talking about the problem, but the problem still exists. Sure, we can stop using terms like “man” and “woman” and go to “XX” and “XY”, but not only does that mean we’re engaging in massive transphobia and genism (not all men are XY and not all women are XX), but it also means that we have no way to understand the discriminatory dynamics that society engages in and thus no way to fight back. It’s why the “problem that has no name” (Friedan) is worse than that problem named — the patriarchy — because at least when it has a name we can defeat it.
I am a well-educated, English-speaking American. You say it is not about individuals (or even men), but the list (and the term itself) lends itself to no other conclusion. By saying “I have the privilege of not being aware of my privilege”, I have to come to the conclusion it is talking about males and not “society”. It’d be so easy to re-write the list in non-sexist terms, it’s a shame the author chose it. It’s an even bigger shame that everyone seems to goose-step right along with it.Oh well. I’ll go tilt at other windmills.
Windmills sounds exactly right in this case, De La Mancha…
You’re reading a lot into what I said.
I think the problem may be that when you complain about patriarchal society, that the perception is often that men are to blame for everything that is wrong. It can be very difficult to take a step back and depersonalize it. Patriarchies are not established and maintained by men alone. The misogynistic idea that women are to be treated as mere sex objects could not be easily maintained if the misandrist idea that all men think about is sex was not also maintained. The stereotype of women being emotional is linked to the the stereotype of men being emotionless. Women being bad at math is linked to men being bad at language. Don’t confuse male privilege and patriarchal social structures with having to feel responsible for it. Feeling guilty for the circumstances of your birth is a wasted emotion. Trying to change things for the betterment of everyone is not.
The problem is that it would become a division between those who think the word should remain unchanged, and those who want to change it. And among those who want to change it there would be divisions about what it should be changed to. And in the end it’s all semantic. We really don’t need to be wasting time on semantic arguments when there are still real prejudices to fight.
Well, you are going to turn a lot of people off to Feminism because of the terminology, because the definitions used by Feminists are not the same as the definitions used by the rest of the culture and it isn’t surprising that people would take offense, thus harming your cause. But the larger point is that, again, each issue should be dealt with individually where you can actually tell if you are making progress or not. Trying to fight a nebulous male privilege, while attempting to tie in instances where males get the short end of the stick (such as the draft) makes it difficult to tell where we need to focus our efforts. If the enemy is an ever-lasting “them” it feeds into the mentality of victimization rather than productive solutions.
There is definitely such a thing as non-disabled privilege. Many public buildings attempt to combat this by putting in wheelchair ramps or other helpful additions. But we make progress by dealing with each issue of discrimination individually rather than just accusing society as a whole of hating disabled people (I’m not saying that you are doing this).
The ‘privilege’ term is, in my experience, actually quite widely used in sociological discussions of discrimination and prejudice and all that related stuff (note, though, that I am not a sociologist, even if I am a budding social scientist). You also see the phrases ‘white privilege’ and ‘straight privilege’ used a lot, and I’ve also seen ‘middle-class privilege’ used, and in some contexts more limited than society-wide I’ve seen ‘mainstream privilege’, and I think I have also seen ‘youth privilege’ used, all meaning roughly the same sort of thing (the details of the privilege being different in each case, of course).Because it’s usually easier than just making up new words, subjects always end up with divergent meanings of words that have everyday meanings. ‘Theory’ is a good one. Even words that are always esoteric can have different meanings in different specialisms. My favourite, as a computer scientists who’s adding educational research (a social science) as a second specialism, is ‘reification’ – meanings in each field relate to the etymology, but they aren’t really compatible.
The reason women are underrepresented in certain high-income fields is because of their own choosing. If you want to be in the professional elite, you’ll have to work, work, work. That means no family life and sacrificing your mental, physical, and emotional health for the sake of professional advancement.If you’re willing to do that, and then pass half or more of your paycheck to your spouse, please step up and do it. I’m sure you’ll find that if you work like a man, you’ll earn like a man; just don’t complain when your hair starts to fall out.