I followed the original thread for awhile, I think the reason Scott experienced such vitriol from feminists is his holding on to the belief that his problems were worse than other people's problems. They're not. They feel that way because it's you experiencing them, but they're not. Because privilege.
I bared my soul once to a group of feminists on a private message board, and got a similar reaction. And after a lot of self-inquiry, came to understand what is meant by privilege. It's a tough thing to internalize, but I think it's important to.
Privilege, in Scott's case, means you get an escape hatch thrown to you. Later on down the line, society itself pulls you out of the dumps because society wants and needs you, a white man, to solve their problems for them. As bad as it is when you're young and rudderless, society itself wants you to succeed. So you will receive success, on your terms, despite how bad it seems right now.
For those without privilege, there is no escape except what you manage to claw from the world by hook or by crook. You need the support network, you need the help of the like-minded. If you don't manage to find the support, and you're not mentally wired to do whatever it takes to succeed, you're fucked. Forced to fit your life into whatever little box society expects you to fit in. To be what other people want you to be instead of what you want to be.
Going through life as a minority means that when you have the sorts of problems Scott has, you don't get to get over it. Society deems that you deserve to have these problems, that you're not worth fixing.
What feminists want is not for you to give up privilege, you can't. They just want you to acknowledge the fact that you're privileged. That you don't have to work so hard for it. That is what the movement has decided is the next step towards healing the rift.
The feminism movement knows what it's doing. There are very smart people who've learned the lessons of social struggle from way back in the seventies who are carefully crafting the philosophies aimed at fixing that inborn tendency of human beings to subjugate the out-group.
Simply understanding and acknowledging the full extent of privilege is all that's being asked of you. It's tough. It requires hard conversations and personal inquiry on the part of all people, not just males, not just white people.
Scott didn't acknowledge it, and so invoked the full wrath of the feminist movement. Not saying he deserved it, but that's where it ultimately stems.
3 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 17.4 ms ] threadI bared my soul once to a group of feminists on a private message board, and got a similar reaction. And after a lot of self-inquiry, came to understand what is meant by privilege. It's a tough thing to internalize, but I think it's important to.
Privilege, in Scott's case, means you get an escape hatch thrown to you. Later on down the line, society itself pulls you out of the dumps because society wants and needs you, a white man, to solve their problems for them. As bad as it is when you're young and rudderless, society itself wants you to succeed. So you will receive success, on your terms, despite how bad it seems right now.
For those without privilege, there is no escape except what you manage to claw from the world by hook or by crook. You need the support network, you need the help of the like-minded. If you don't manage to find the support, and you're not mentally wired to do whatever it takes to succeed, you're fucked. Forced to fit your life into whatever little box society expects you to fit in. To be what other people want you to be instead of what you want to be.
Going through life as a minority means that when you have the sorts of problems Scott has, you don't get to get over it. Society deems that you deserve to have these problems, that you're not worth fixing.
What feminists want is not for you to give up privilege, you can't. They just want you to acknowledge the fact that you're privileged. That you don't have to work so hard for it. That is what the movement has decided is the next step towards healing the rift.
The feminism movement knows what it's doing. There are very smart people who've learned the lessons of social struggle from way back in the seventies who are carefully crafting the philosophies aimed at fixing that inborn tendency of human beings to subjugate the out-group.
Simply understanding and acknowledging the full extent of privilege is all that's being asked of you. It's tough. It requires hard conversations and personal inquiry on the part of all people, not just males, not just white people.
Scott didn't acknowledge it, and so invoked the full wrath of the feminist movement. Not saying he deserved it, but that's where it ultimately stems.