Three months ago, I launched a website, The Current Conscience, which primarily features my point-of-view and my writings about women, gender inequality, popular culture, and politics. It's also been eight months since I began actively writing about women.
In my writing, I discuss issues that brilliant women writers and commentators have already written and talked about for many years. These women are much more talented than I am, and they are the ones who actually face the issues that I address.
So, even though I am not always discussing anything new, my site has received hundreds of thousands of hits in the last month and a half, with little promotional effort on my part.
And while I know I worked hard to get here, hours and hours of endless writing and research, more all-nighters than I can count, there's an overriding element that plays into my success: I am a man.
I am a man living in a culture that has more respect for a man's voice. Somehow, when I, or other men, write about the issue of gender imbalance, the work gets more widespread attention and is more accepted by readers.
Even before I created and launched this website, I have been the beneficiary of the privilege and benefits that come with my gender, male privilege -- since birth.
I didn't go to college, but I managed to build a successful career in politics, a business with rampant and shocking sexism, even on the most progressive campaigns.
No doubt, I worked extremely hard - -often logging 19-20 hour days and sleeping 2 or 3 hours a night -- for a very long time. But that's all I had to do: work hard. I didn't have to come up against bias or judgments about my opinions; I didn't have to deal with people ignoring me or taking me for granted. I just had to work hard. It's a fairly simple formula, one that women don't usually benefit from.
In the past few years, there's been a boatload of books, shows, and commencement speeches encouraging women to "work hard and ask for what they want" at work. These comments are based on what is considered a confidence gap with respect to women in the workplace.
It's a bunch of bullshit.
Yeah that's right, ladies. That's what's been missing this whole time! You haven't been working hard enough -- you just have to ask for what you want and your bosses will hand it to you! It's that easy!
Are they kidding? Sure, being more assertive can help women in certain circumstances, but the concept of "ask and ye shall receive" does not, to this day, exist for women in the same way as it does for men.
If all it takes is working hard and asking for what you want, there wouldn't be the depressing statistics about women and success in corporate and political America. According to the 2010 Catalyst Census of Women Executive Officers, which counts the number of women in upper management in Fortune 500 companies, women hold only 19.1 percent of the executive offices in the finance and insurance industries. Out of all the Fortune 500 companies, only 13 of them have women CEOs. Out of 50 U.S. governors, only 6 are women. And the United States Congress counts less than twenty percent of its members as women.
This gender imbalance issue isn't just related to women who are trying to climb to the top of the corporate ladder; women across all the job sectors are prevented from even having an opportunity simply because they are born women. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), pregnancy discrimination complaints increased by 53 percent, from 1997 to 2010. If employers are discriminating against women who are pregnant and discriminating against women because of the possibility of pregnancy, how can women secure the right job so they can put themselves on the path to success?
The statistics are even starker on the international level, with women holding only 11.7 percent of the seats in the world's parliaments. And to offer a statistic every woman, in every country, who reads this column can relate to: women comprise of 70 percent of the world's poor.
These numbers clearly fail to match up to the wide and proficient skill sets wielded by women. And they also fail to match up to the hard work and commitment women put into their careers and work.
I don't believe that women lack the mettle to succeed. What I am suggesting is that women are forced to meet a higher bar: They not only have to work harder than men, but they also have to push against our deeply ingrained patriarchy ... while often carrying a much bigger burden at home than men.
While this issue is not new to anyone who reads feminist writing and anyone involved in academia, the concept of male privilege is still on the fringes in our gender discourse. In the mainstream, we wouldn't dream of openly discussing and acknowledging male privilege.
Why?
We all live in a patriarchy. Any concept diminishing a man's success is obviously going to be maligned and not discussed or acknowledged. But, I also think the problem lies in the reality that a lot of good men out there can't imagine how they have greatly benefited from male privilege. They haven't mistreated women in the work place, they've supported women in their professional and private lives, so why should they admit to something so terrible as their success being boosted dramatically by their gender?
Gender bias is not compartmentalized in our culture; the benefits of discriminating against women don't just exist for the men who actively discriminate them. So, if we men don't acknowledge that we all get an extra boost because of our sex -- we are essentially saying that gender bias doesn't exist.
And for those of us who are willing to acknowledge that gender discrimination even exists, we tend to see it as something suffered by women -- that it is just an aggressive act against them. We think that we only have to combat the aggressor in order to solve the problem.
We must recognize that we are the beneficiaries of that discrimination. We need to see gender discrimination as a regressive act against women, and as a result, a progressive act for us.
So, no matter how good we are, no matter how much we respect women, the same biases the women in our lives struggle with and fight against, are the biases fueling our success.
How can we fix this gender imbalance if we don't first look around our own lives and see and acknowledge the reality: yes, I move faster in my career because I'm a man, I didn't have to sacrifice nearly as much because I'm a man, it's easier for me than for my woman counterparts (if you have any) and colleagues. Who did I pass on the way here? How can I stop this from happening in my own life? Have I done everything I can to speak out against gender bias in my workplace and life, especially with men?
But that's hard -- the male ego is so fragile, isn't it? Women are much better at admitting to the conditions of their successes.
Before publishing my work, I usually ask a few friends to be sounding boards for my columns -- they serve as a focus group of sorts. Most of my "focus group" opposed this idea of my writing about the nature of success for men and women.
"Have some confidence," a friend of mine admonished me.
"Saying your success is based on the fact that you're a man totally diminishes all you have put into your work," said another.
I'm not saying we should be in the business of looking at every man and telling him, "You only have your success because you are a man."
Nor am I suggesting that we men should feel guilty about the success we've attained, not at all. What I want to advocate is that we have a responsibility to look around and think about what got us to where we are.
What would it say about my confidence if my sense of self were based on ignoring the fact that I have been the beneficiary of male privilege?
I think it shows a shocking lack of confidence on my part if I weren't able to say, "Yes, I had some help getting here, a lot of help, and I am here partially because women have not benefited from the same boost my gender allows for me. I am here because of what women have sacrificed for too long."
I'm proud of my success, I worked for it, but not all of it. Many people, especially women, have helped me become successful in life. And I am not an isolated case. Women have been the bulwark and support system for men to become successful.
It's only with the power of acknowledgement about the realities women face in our world that we can start to balance this inequity. But as long as we men pretend our successes are solely based on our hard work and talent and nothing else, we are contributing to the gender bias in which women get the short end of the stick.
So, I have no fear in acknowledging the three words my mother and father heard on Thanksgiving Day, in 1979, played a really big part in my success and instantly put me in a position to succeed: "It's a boy."
And that's why I keep writing what I write. Because it just doesn't make sense that it should be this way.
I hope you will join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.
This piece originally appeared on The Current Conscience.
No matter how good we are, no matter how much we respect women, the biases the women in our lives struggle against are the same biases fueling our success.
Follow Yashar Ali on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yashar
Men don't have this issue. Maybe this is a large reason for the difference in hiring practices, but I'm sure it's just some dude's purposeful yet random discrimination instead.
As an entrepreneur I acknowledge that it's a hard decision to hire a woman who is in the exact right time and place in her life to have a child. However, if you trust your instincts, as an entrepreneur and a person, and you see that the woman you hired is a good person (in addition to being qualified for the job) I would hope that you think that the person you hired would make it worth your while. Indeed, I have noticed that the women who have worked for me, and I have worked with, tend to put in more effort, go the extra mile than their male counterparts (not always, of course, but more often than not).
I think it's time that entrepreneurs start acknowledging the goldmine that their human resources really are. Is a little maternity leave really going to kill your business? If so, you probably have a shi**y business idea.
Gender studies is complicated, social status & success are complicated, statistics are complicated (and can be misused)-- and there are so many published narrow views that are just wastes of time.
Expect more from those who write on gender-related topics than anecdotal & vague macro stats with narrow definitions of success and you'll see real progress. Think critically as you read shallow stuff that caters to the dominant meme.
Snorble below posts a great work published from a scientist-- it is open to scrutiny and critique (notice that's an important characteristic not often welcome among feminist community)- here it is again:
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm
It's because males are more high risk, high reward. Women are more prone to minimize risk, which minimizes their reward. Put another way, for every super successful male you have who made a billion dollars, there is also a male who is a super catastrophic failure who is in prison for killing dozens of people or for terrorism or something else horrible that made a huge negative impact on the world. For every Bill Gates or Billy Graham there is an Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.
Men are more likely to try and "conquer the world" in whatever they do. Maybe there are more male CEOs, but for every male CEO you see there are 10 men who tried and completely crashed and burned, lost their home, are living in poverty, and committing crimes because they took a big risk on a business idea and failed. Maybe out of 11 women, 9 or 10 of them are content to just live a pretty good life. Why take the risk? There's nothing wrong with that, and in fact it may well be the more responsible thing to do, but no one was ever super successful by playing it safe.
Read the article "Is there anything good about men?" by Roy Baumeister. It's fantastic.
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm
For centuries, women were forbidden by law from attending a university, medical school, law school or music conservatory. Until recently in human history, women were prevented from owning property in their own name, having credit, using contraception or keeping their own names. It was illegal in the USA until 1963 for even married couples to use contraception.
Throughout history, there have been brilliant women, artists, writers, composers, but men wrote them out of history and silenced their voices. Even now, women are silenced; most professional women can recount sitting in a meeting room full of men, making a suggestion to solve a problem, being ignored, then ten minutes later a man being congratulated for presenting the same idea the woman did.
Ubiquitous sexism, patriarchal values and the ideology of male supremacy remain as core values of this society --- that women have achieved the success they have against overwhelming odds speaks to the strength and transcendence of the female spirit.
HOW TRUE!
I have been in the corporate world for 44 years in secretarial and higher capacities and I've seen it all. Women are somehow not heard in meetings I've attended. My own sister, a professional engineer/city planner, brought a $200k contract to her Los Angeles based company. She was called into the president's office where all of HIS top MEN were waiting to congratulate her. She believed she would be awarded the usual high bonuses for people who brought in new business.
Instead, as each man left the room, he said "Congratulations" and literally patted her on the head.
After decades of that c r a p, my talented sister gave up and now runs her own business from her home. She vows to never work for males again.
I guess one small "female privilege" would be to have doors opened for me. I do not lose that privilege and my femininity if I hold a door open for a man... I extend the same courtesies given to me to others. And it's equality. I don't need to slam a door in a woman's face to make things "equal".
It's almost a misnomer to call it a privilege, simply because it's not something that should be taken away, and it's not discussed or awarded. It means that for men, their sex does not come into consideration for things where sex is irrelevant.
I'm a woman, but I'm also white, which means I do have white privilege in the US. And that means that if I made a mistake in some of the places I worked, it was treated as an honest mistake and not confirmation of a racist stereotype.
I look at Elliott Spitzer. Do you think a Hispanic or Black male could get a show on CNN after his conduct? Forget it!!! Nolan Richardson won an NCAA basketball title and went to the finals the following year. But is he still coaching at a major university. NO!
But Bob Knight threw chairs, cursed the Indiana U president and was rewarded with the Texas Tech job?
Has any of the White males been prosecuted for their conduct in the financial crises. Not a single one. But they have paid themselves record bonuses.
Being a White man has its privileges.
Yet Al Sharpton seems to defy gravity by getting much more credit and opportunity than he is probably due, perhaps because he is black.
I don't think it has a damn thing to do with being "contrite." Terry Sanford, the SC Governor was "contrite" over his Argentinian "soul mate."
The bottom line is White males get away with all kinds of bull crap! Women and other minorities are help to a higher standard by these same White males. Who is ripping off the country these days? White males. Who has driven the country into the ground? White males.
The facts are their. Just open your eyes. Meanwhile, Black and Hispanic males make up the majority of the prison population.Why? Because we spend billions on arresting low level drug people and nothing prosecuting white collar crime. There is this vast economy built around crime: bail bonding, private prisons......
Being a White male has its privileges!
These type of man-hating, feminist ideals don't apply anymore.
Look at all the programs and funding aimed at promoting women. More women graduate from college than men. Women live longer, get lesser sentences for the same crimes,
are less likely to die of disease, are favored in divorce child custody awards, are not required to registrar for the draft. I could go on and on. Sorry, but the message of this article paints males are privileged and females as oppressed and it just doesn't apply anymore.
The greatest tabboo in our society is non gender conformity. People who cross over into the other genders territory are vilified everywhere you look, as the most abhorent thing possible. Bullying is mostly based on gender non conformity. It's a national obsession.
This exagerated gender role neurosis hurts both men and women. Women SHOULD become tougher and more aggresive...like men. But men should also become more sensitive and emotional...like women. It won't work if women only become more male. Men should also become more female.
The genders do not have to cease to be different. But the sick and unnatural compulsory exageration of gender difference is outdated and needs to be tossed away. Many people are threatened by this as they have some vested interest in unnaturally exagerated gender roles and they will fight against this in every area. But for the good of society they must be overcome in every area.
We do not know what man and woman, masculine and feminine, would be and how they would manifest in a world free of strictures of hierarchy, inequality, violence, sexism, racism, patriarchy, economic injustice. We do not know what a truly free people would look like.
We do know that the great human qualities of kindness, compassion, decency, fairness, joyousness, patience, dignity, courage, intelligence do not belong to people of only one sex; both men and women display these. Under patriarchy, though, primarily only the men are honored for superior qualities, while women and their contributions go silenced, unlauded, unapplauded.
How many among you know the contributions of Wangari Maathai, Lynn Margulis or Barbara McClintock?
Even though you are a man, you write about feminism better than any woman.
Well, all the best chefs are men too, so I guess it makes sense.
Are you that insecure that you can't look at your own life and identify what has brought you to where you are - ALL of the things?
The Pyramid Code (Netflix: http://tinyurl.com/d4j5pl9)
In it, the idea of patriarchy vs. matriarchy is discussed.
According to the theorists who's ideas are presented in the series, the foundations of world culture were originally build around a 'matriarchy', and the ill's of civilization today are not only partially attributable to the shift to a patriarchal world, but correspond to the "Iron Age," which is the low-point opposite to the "Golden Age" in the world's 26,000 year precession cycle.
Seems a little like laying the blame for everything at mens feet, but it isn't really. It's all about male and female human qualities being out of balance.
You have to watch the series... very interesting if your so inclined.
There have been matrilieneal cultures, in which descent is reckoned through the female line rather than the male line. And there have been matrilocal cultures, where the man moves to the woman's family's locale after marriage. But matriarchy is a myth created by men. There is no evidence whatsoever that women ever held patiarchal-type power over men.
In your own personal experiences, what percent of marriages does the man lord it over the woman successfully? 1%, 2%? In what percent does the man rub the woman's feet, after he has been at work all day? 30% 60%
You might like reading this article over at RadFemHub
radicalhub.wordpress.com
Radical Feminism Enters the 21st Century
Guest Post by Vliet Tiptree
“…you may hiss as much as you like, but it is comin’.”
–Sojourner Truth in 1853 at the Women’s Rights Convention in New York
It will give you hope of an all female world.
Enjoy.
I'm absolutely sure there will be some male posters (there are a few specific ones that come to mind that will most definitely out themselves) are going to have a fit over this article. It was hilarious reading this and seeing some of the specific phrases in your article that I've seen in these men's posts in regards to the oppression of women. So spot on, and sure to ruffle feathers!
Let the madness ensue!