Post #2916970

@revoluciana@chaosfem.tw I think it's also worth considering that many forms of male privilege are bought and paid for -- at lower but nonzero price. At worst, people degrade and contort themselves to fit in a certain image because it's socially advantageous. The effeminate gay son of a "man's man" can tell horror stories of how he's forced into an image of manhood very different from how he sees himself. Is that whole experience, in context, a reflection of privilege relative to others? Hell no. Is it a reflection of how a certain type of masculinity comes with privileges, compared to the type he's comfortable with? Yes. A gay man suffering from being boxed into traditional masculinity is experiencing male privilege from one of the angles we don't normally ascribe to the term. It's being weaponized against him, as it is against trans women. He can experience some ghost of acceptance or power if he complies, and he could even turn that against someone else if he chose -- all those lawmakers who vilify and criminalize drag and end up being drag queens themselves? that right there. People wouldn't be forced into any of this if it weren't linked somehow to power. It's not remotely the same thing as the unconditional privilege of being born into wealth or high social standing, but it's a form of social currency. I think the fact that people pursue it as a matter of survival is an argument for it being a form of privilege.