I've seen a small submission on this site about male privilege, a topic I will address here. It would of course be ridiculous to deny that male privilege has existed throughout history, but the existence of it today is questionable. The principle of male privilege is that, because men have dominated in the past, the privileges from this inequality have been passed down to today's men and boys. A similar concept is white privilege, which holds that even though blacks have equal rights today, whites benefit from the oppression of the past. White privilege is real, but younger males do not get any sort of privilege inherited from their fathers, and I will explain why
Today's whites do not so much benefit from the oppression of blacks in the past, but rather blacks are kept down by it. It goes like this. Blacks of the past were not given an equal opportunity to make money or get an education. When black people were given the opportunity to make money, they didn't have the education to do so, and therefore could not provide for their children's education, and so on. Of course, there are many other factors, but this is the main one. It is part of the most obvious form of privilege in society, which is monetary.
Women were also not given an equal opportunity to money and education, but this does not inhibit the women and girls of today, because, if their father took advantage of the opportunity that he was given, the fact that she is now given that opportunity will work for her, because the money is there for the education needed. Women today may not make as much money as men, but keep in mind this takes into account women who came of age when they were not given the same chances as men. Today, there are noticeably more women in college than men. Furthermore, the income gap becomes increasingly smaller when one only looks at the younger workers. Yes, more women still do quit the workforce when they become parents than do men, but that is a different argument.
As a 19 year old male, I have never been given privilege because of my sex. I challenge any responder to name a way in which I might have, save biological factors such as being bigger, not having a period, or having to worry about getting pregnant. I have no rights that a woman in my situation does not have.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
As a man, you are usually taken more seriously in our society. What you have to say matters more than what any silly little woman would have to say.
Your value also goes up as you age, whereas a woman's value tends to go down. Older men are distinguished and revered while older women are cast aside and forgotten.
You are STILL more likely to be hired over a woman with equal qualifications, and you will likely make more money than a woman with equal qualifications in a similar position in the work force.
You yourself may not have been privy to any of this yet, as you are only 19, but the fact remains, that in general, men still hold more privilege than do their female counterparts. Unless, of course, you're gay.
Unless there is a divorce, then the women are almost always given preference for child custody, and almost always end up receiving child support from the man.
How many successful cases do you hear of sexual harrassment in the workplace where the male is the victim? It happens, but women are automatically viewed as somehow 'less guilty' then men when it comes to harrassment.
How about in the cort of law? There is a longstanding difference between what a woman can do for self-defense and what a man can do in self-defense. Men are more likely to have a harder time proving that an action was self-defense than a woman.
Women have a near-instant role as victim and often a woman claiming rape ruins a man's character for life, even if nothing ever happened and she made it up.... Men are rarely ever able to get convictions for rape against women rapists (even stat rape, as the case of the blonde teacher who was having sex with a student. If that had been a male student, he'd be demonized as a monster predator and cast off for all time.... but she was seen as the victim of depression who just wanted to be loved...)
No, men and women each have their own priviledges over the other.
Far too many women want it both ways... they want to get rid of all of what they see as 'male advantages' without losing any of their 'female advantages'
Can't have it both ways. Women want equality? open your own doors, pay for dinner on dates, don't guilt trip men into watching stupid 'love story' movies, and repair your own car.
Men and women are indeed different. One is not 'better' than the other.
I remember a case at a place I used to work at. A female worker complained that she was paid less than a male worker at equal rank. She was a small and weak lady, and this was in a warehouse. He did the heavy lifting and sorting, she never lifted anything over 10 or 15 pounds, whereas he was regularly lugging around huge heavy boxes.
It would have been discriminatory against him for them to pay her the same..... as it was NOT a case of 'equal pay for equal work' . . . the work done was not equal.
See but changes have to take time before they have the full effect intended. I mean we still haven't been able to see what the current generation of young adults and teenagers will be like in the work force, we only know what's happened in the past. I'm just saying that with the society that I'm growing up in, I haven't had any privileges as a male, and I can't see things just suddenly shift in my favor.