# The narrative on "male white privilege" is complete bullshit **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 26, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749 "2017-08-26T18:10:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/161 "2017-09-01T01:34:00Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > It takes time for results to show up and corporate executives are generally late middle-aged. You aren’t going to see the full effects of equality movements for several decades after they have already been won. > > Still, I don’t think talking about corporate executives is something to focus on. Have you ever worked with them? Yes, they make a lot of money in general but the workload is brutal, long and job security is tenuous at best. Those are overrated positions in my opinion. I don’t know why any reasonable person would want one no matter how much it pays. > > Women now make up the majority of medical school and law school grads. Those are also prestigious jobs that can be brutal but have a more human based focus. I don’t really see the difference. I can tell you that there is no block in major companies for women and minorities to go to the highest levels and it is often explicitly encouraged. They usually just don’t want to because they have sense. That type of lifestyle usually means that you can’t have kids or a family life but you can have cash that you don’t have time to spend and all the work you could ever imagine even on vacation because there is no such thing anymore. I certainly don’t consider that a “privilege” of any sort. It is more like selling yourself into slavery just because you love work and punishment. White men seem to excel at that negative trait. Other groups seem to know better. Climb down from the cross, please; someone else needs the wood. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/162 "2017-09-01T02:38:14Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > Climb down from the cross, please; someone else needs the wood. I can’t because of all of these Goddamned nails. They hurt badly and I am not even Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![anomalous1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@anomalous1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anomalous1)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/163 "2017-09-01T08:38:46Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > (My bold) But aren’t you guilty of doing exactly this? According to you, the over-representation of white men being discussed is basically because white men are fundamentally more able to succeed than other groups of people. No. The over-saturation of media covering the subject is just illuminating one group of people in contrast to another in terms of their accomplishments. Thus making it seem as if one is inherently at more of an advantage and given more opportunity. This is the modern world, everybody in this country is given equal opportunity. One can argue all they want saying otherwise, but at its basic form, everyone is at the same potential and works up from there, some get luckier and inherit. There are those who stagnate more than others. Simple as that. It really is an economic thing, all about planning. It is almost as if people want to believe there is a conspiracy against a group of people just to justify a political agenda. It isn’t so. This ‘original sin’ of being white, as media love to portray is childish and obnoxious, work hard you go places, don’t and you don’t. Has nothing to do with race at all, unless of course the media says it does, right? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/164 "2017-09-01T11:44:59Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > There are lots of reasons. There are very real sex differences in priorities. More men than women want to be providers for their family and more men than women are willing to sacrifice their personal life to achieve that. The vast majority of innovators like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and the founders of Google are men but there is nothing stopping a woman from doing the same thing. They just usually choose not to. > > Still that type of achievement doesn’t apply to the vast majority of people - men or women. It is like asking why the entire starting line of the New England Patriots are men. They are just a few extreme outliers and that doesn’t apply to anyone else except them. Men have a broader distribution of almost all traits on both the very high and low end. > > A lot of it is just age as well. People generally can’t become a corporate CP before 40 and Chief Officers are generally in their 50’s at least. I consult for mega-corps that everyone has heard of. There are women in power positions all over the place and at every level. They have the same, and sometimes better, opportunities than the men. My current big-boss has an uber-boss that is a woman. My ex-wife is a corporate VP. Hillary Clinton only needed a better campaign strategy to become the President of the most powerful nation on Earth. She was a weak candidate and still almost won. > > Contrary to popular believe, there is no conversion chart to reduce women’s pay for equal positions. That 77 cents on the dollar bullshit is beyond Snopes worthy and going into the realm of a conspiracy theory. It should be disputed by anyone on this board any time anyone repeats it because it is flat-out false. Marissa Mayer got paid more in a single year than I will ever make in my life to help run Yahoo! more into the ground. She got cut but so would any male CEO that was incompetent. So: - Everyone is equal and comes into the world with equal abilities. - All of the self-selecting forces exist - persistence, grit, commitment to professional success - but groups like minorities and women opt out of upward mobility, leaving white men to rise to the top. - All of the other external forces, like systemic racism/misogyny, do not exist, and are not factors in professional success. Got it. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/165 "2017-09-01T13:51:33Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Women now make up the majority of medical school and law school grads. And yet, fascinatingly, the number of practicing doctors and lawyers is mostly men - as of April 2017, [66% of practicing doctors in the US are men](http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/physicians-by-gender/?dataView=0¤tTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D) and as of 2015, [65% of lawyers who are members of a bar in the US are men](https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/market_research/lawyer-demographics-tables-2015.authcheckdam.pdf). Do you still believe that if you had been born female you would have been in the 34% or the 35%? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/166 "2017-09-01T13:57:11Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > Do you still believe that if you had been born female you would have been in the 34% or the 35%? When I was in college, I remember a class dealing with Plato and Socrates and every one of my classmates saying if they had been there they would NEVER have found Socrates guilty. I said I likely would have, because I don’t think I’m exceptional. In their imaginings virtually everyone is virtuous. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/167 "2017-09-01T15:01:29Z")
> [@anomalous1](#): > > No. The over-saturation of media covering the subject is just illuminating one group of people in contrast to another in terms of their accomplishments. Thus making it seem as if one is inherently at more of an advantage and given more opportunity. This is the modern world, everybody in this country is given equal opportunity. One can argue all they want saying otherwise, but at its basic form, everyone is at the same potential and works up from there, some get luckier and inherit. There are those who stagnate more than others. Simple as that. It really is an economic thing, all about planning. It is almost as if people want to believe there is a conspiracy against a group of people just to justify a political agenda. It isn’t so. This ‘original sin’ of being white, as media love to portray is childish and obnoxious, work hard you go places, don’t and you don’t. Has nothing to do with race at all, unless of course the media says it does, right? Media bad! ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/168 "2017-09-01T15:28:00Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > > [@Shagnasty](#): > > > > Women now make up the majority of medical school and law school grads. > > And yet, fascinatingly, the number of practicing doctors and lawyers is mostly men - as of April 2017, [66% of practicing doctors in the US are men](http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/physicians-by-gender/?dataView=0¤tTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D) and as of 2015, [65% of lawyers who are members of a bar in the US are men](https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/market_research/lawyer-demographics-tables-2015.authcheckdam.pdf). As **Shagnasty** said in the post you quoted, > [@Shagnasty](#): > > It takes time for results to show up and corporate executives are generally late middle-aged. You aren’t going to see the full effects of equality movements for several decades after they have already been won. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/169 "2017-09-01T15:51:09Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I like being a tall (that part does matter) white male just fine. I think I would do equally well being a white female or an Asian. I am already a little bit Jewish by heritage and would be happy to go all the way with that. I can’t think of any particular group that I wouldn’t want to be a part of if I needed to except for ISIS. I just look at people as individuals. And yet he also holds the contradictory belief that if he were female, he’d be part of the 34% or 35% to be right where he is now. I’m pointing out that the two beliefs **Shagnasty** holds are inherently contradictory, assuming he wasn’t born _in the future_, likely a safe assumption. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/170 "2017-09-01T15:56:33Z")
“Women are treated fairly now, therefore if I had been born a woman X years ago I would have been treated equally then” Is a flawed construction, both if you accept its assumptions and if you don’t. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/171 "2017-09-01T17:02:38Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Still, I don’t think talking about corporate executives is something to focus on. Have you ever worked with them? Yes, they make a lot of money in general but the workload is brutal, long and job security is tenuous at best. Those are overrated positions in my opinion. I don’t know why any reasonable person would want one no matter how much it pays. Because it pays extremely well and I don’t believe they really “work” that hard. I don’t buy it. I see plenty of executives in my line of work and most of them don’t do shit. Oh, sure, they go to plenty of meetings or create lots of PowerPoint decks. But I’m absolutely convinced that if 99% of them just stopped showing up to work, the company would continue to work just fine. Maybe even better. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/172 "2017-09-01T19:18:26Z")
> [@](#): > > . . .American culture has taught whites to believe they represent the intellectual and cultural vanguard, to conclude that racial inequalities cannot be traced to their past or present behavior and to view their dominant status — their privilege — as natural and yet invisible. > An example of how white people view their privilege as natural and invisible appears in Arlie Russell Hochschild’s book Strangers in Their Own Land. She interviews working-class and middle-class white people in Louisiana and learns they’re disenchanted with their government and no longer recognize their country. They feel as if black folk, other minorities, immigrants and refugees have cut ahead of them in line, meaning the government caters to others before them. The line-cutting angers them, although they never question why they should occupy the first position. _ **That implicit assumption — I should be tended to before all others** _ — encapsulates how they view white privilege as natural and invisible. my emphasis > **[Why do so many white people deny the existence of white privilege?](https://andscape.com/features/why-do-so-many-white-people-deny-the-existence-of-white-privilege/)** > > Team Westport, a town-sponsored diversity committee in predominantly white Westport, Connecticut, recently caused an uproar by sponsoring an essay contest for h… mc ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/173 "2017-09-01T19:34:59Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > It takes time for results to show up and corporate executives are generally late middle-aged. You aren’t going to see the full effects of equality movements for several decades after they have already been won. > > Still, I don’t think talking about corporate executives is something to focus on. Have you ever worked with them? Yes, they make a lot of money in general but the workload is brutal, long and job security is tenuous at best. Those are overrated positions in my opinion. I don’t know why any reasonable person would want one no matter how much it pays. > > Women now make up the majority of medical school and law school grads. Those are also prestigious jobs that can be brutal but have a more human based focus. I don’t really see the difference. I can tell you that there is no block in major companies for women and minorities to go to the highest levels and it is often explicitly encouraged. They usually just don’t want to because they have sense. That type of lifestyle usually means that you can’t have kids or a family life but you can have cash that you don’t have time to spend and all the work you could ever imagine even on vacation because there is no such thing anymore. I certainly don’t consider that a “privilege” of any sort. It is more like selling yourself into slavery just because you love work and punishment. White men seem to excel at that negative trait. Other groups seem to know better. 32% of black families with children live in poverty, as compared to 18% of white families with children. If white and black heads of household are equally capable and have equal opportunity to take care of their families, why do so many more black parents chose not to? ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/174 "2017-09-01T19:36:16Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > my emphasis > [Why do so many white people deny the existence of white privilege? — Andscape](https://theundefeated.com/features/why-do-so-many-white-people-deny-the-existence-of-white-privilege/) > > mc That’s a hell of a projection there. There’s no reason to tack on “because white people should always been in front” to the statement “minorities shouldn’t get to cut the line”. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/175 "2017-09-01T19:58:34Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > my emphasis > [Why do so many white people deny the existence of white privilege? — Andscape](https://theundefeated.com/features/why-do-so-many-white-people-deny-the-existence-of-white-privilege/) > > mc Again, there is this implication that white people get everything handed to them and are therefore fair game for any policy that “evens the playing field”. Working-class and middle-class white people are not at “the front of the line”. They wake up in the morning, drag themselves to their crappy, often dirty, dangerous or tedious job at whatever mill, factory, plant, office, retail store or dining establishment that employees them. Then they struggle to make ends meet like everyone else. What they see is the government creating special programs to give helping hands to minorities or illegal immigrants and they wonder why no one seems to give a crap about them when their plant closes. Even for more affluent whites it’s the same thing. I studied and got decent enough grades in (public) high school. Got into a good college. Managed to graduate with a degree in engineering. Sure my parents helped pay for college, but now I’m at a disadvantage because neither my parents went to jail or smoked crack? ---
**Author:** ![D.E.S.K.Top668](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@D.E.S.K.Top668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D.E.S.K.Top668)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749/176 "2017-09-10T00:09:00Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I like you too monstro but that was a fact when I was growing up. I had an old black nanny even when we lived in a single-wide tailor next to my grandparents property when I was 17 months old until after I graduated from high school. A lot of people have a really hard time of understanding that. It didn’t cost any significant money because it was a love and barter relationship. > > Lola wasn’t an employee. She was a family member and was treated as such. She had all of her needs taken care of and we loved each other dearly. My brothers and I listened to whatever she said but her main role was just to watch TV (especially the Price is Right) and correct us if we were doing something wrong. She also did random chores around the house but her main job was just to hang out with us to to make sure we didn’t get killed and we listened. **Shagnasty** , like the white male privilege thing, you’re looking at it from YOUR perspective, not anybody else. Probably, Lola loved you. But she didn’t walk up to the trailer one day going “I must take care of these babies! It is my destiny!” More likely, she was so far beneath your family, socioeconomically speaking, that working for people who “lived in a single-wide tailor next to my grandparents property,” was appealing. The fact that you got a decent human being was a bonus. White male privilege is not something white males get. It’s a thing that non-white and/or non-males DON’T get. You’ve been groped by gay guys and/or women? You might have endured it, but did you ever feel powerless over your gropers because they are the norm? You could handle it, right? Not because you’re stronger or tougher, but because you knew that, for people like us, it was unusual. At no time did you feel like my wife. “Asshole grabbed my ass again. Ninth day straight on public transit and a different asshole groped my ass again. It’s so common, I’ll just ignore it, because who will I complain to, the straight white guy who will probably tell me it’s my fault for having a pinch-able ass?” White Male Privilege isn’t something YOU experience. It is something that others DON’T get to experience. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-narrative-on-male-white-privilege-is-complete-bullshit/794749.md?page=8)