#this is not edited for coherency p much off tue cuff sorry

[cipheramnesia]

It's not masculinity that is privileged. It's manhood. I am privileged. It doesn't matter that I'm trans. But it's not my masculinity that makes me privileged. How did we go backwards and decide man = masc and that MRA talking points are suddenly valid?

I dunno, you kinda just swapped around words so you can say that talking about privilege, hierarchy, and oppression as complex and nuanced and intersectional is "MRA talking points," coz that's easier.

And I guess you're either saying manhood is a separate privileged category from masculinity so we aren't talking about the same thing anyway but then wait no for some reason they are the same thing, but there's an abstract "manhood" which exists as a privilege separate from race or class or whatever?

So like there's something called manhood which exists as a universal abstract concept which not only exists identically across all cultures but it's treated the same by all cultures, like there's no difference whatsoever if you pull a cisgender heterosexual Japanese man from Tokyo and drop him into like uh Brandywine, West Virginia, that guy is gonna get fully the same treatment as Tokyo yeah? Because his manhood is universally transferable? And like then I dunno, a gay black trans man living in like, New York City or something and drop him into Dallas County, Alabama, again thanks to the universality of manhood privilege that dude will live the exact same life yes? Absolutely will not be affected by some other factors?

Which like okay the thing is patriarchal oppression is something that will favor or oppress both of those guys but not in a vacuum. Patriarchal privilege says the black guy is a danger and should be controlled by a white guy, it says the Japanese guy has to be subservient and weak compared to the guy from West Virginia. So, you know, the gay black trans guy maybe if he's lucky and no one ever clocks him and he's not effeminate and is good at code switching and knows how to minimize getting harassed by the police for his race and stuff like that, at a point the patriarchal hierarchy will grant him a higher privilege than some, but not all, women, yes. And forgive my cultural ignorance but I'm 100% sure back in Tokyo the same guys making shitty Asian jokes in WV look absurd and the Japanese dude has a higher place in the hierarchy in Tokyo than Japanese woman in the same circumstances but again only as long as he's conceding to the dominant idea the hierarchy imposes about manliness y'know?

Or hey, uh, not to be me, but I'm a fairly pretty white trans woman and so the patriarchy doesn't precisely love me, but I'm less likely to be shot by a cop than any black person, including a guy. His manhood isn't a privilege there, and I don't have some super secret male privilege, it's just historically in the USA there's like, y'know, this whole long and very nasty history of the power white women have abused black men with. I mean, it's a thing and it still very much exists, so just wanna point out this very obvious long running and very well documented example of how manhood is not a privilege separate from other factors like race.

Like there is patriarchal oppression but I'm struggling here to understand how manhood alone exists as a sole determining factor of being granted patriarchal privilege or being oppressed by it. Not because manhood doesn't do that, but because you can't just lay out patriarchy in a vacuum divorced from all other systems of oppression.

So like, yeah, you can access male privilege as a trans man, yeah, but only so long as you also submit yourself to patriarchal oppression, only so long as you allow yourself to be caged by it.

I guess it turns out that privilege and oppression is kinda complicated and just like saying that if we talk about manhood or masculinity or whatever you wanna call it in any complex way, if you just say that's MRA talking points it feels super oversimplified to me? Or just being like "manhood = privilege" like okay but also it's still complicated? Like it doesn't always? I don't know, maybe I'm just way too old and know way too many different people and hear about way too many different experiences because of being so fuckin old I guess but I just can't see the nuance in reducing the entirety of wealth and class and race and religion and etc to "manhood gives me privilege."

Anyway how's your night going? Cool?