I did want to clear up a few misconceptions that some commenters here seem to have formed from reading that checklist. Cyan said, “The irony of the female privilege checklist linked above is that it is presented as as part of an argument against feminism …” It may surprise Cyan to learn that I am in fact a feminist myself (with caveats) and completely agree with the ostensible goal of (some) feminists to eliminate gender penalties for both sexes.

I say “ostensible” because it’s been my experience in the feminist blogosphere that the awareness among most feminists about the extent of male ‘disprivilege’ is rather extraordinarily low, and far lower than the awareness that many feminists think they have, which was one of the reasons I compiled the ‘female privilege checklist’ in the first place. It was not my intent to prove that ‘men have it worse’, only that it isn’t self-evident that women have it worse. Indeed, though I suspect your suggestion that, “The next obvious step is to assign point values to such privileges, so we can add them up and compare totals,” was a tad tongue-in-cheek, the suggestion is a not-unreasonable rejoinder to many feminists who assert that women (only) are oppressed and men (only) are privileged without providing the requisite theoretical argument demonstrating that this is so.

It would be good if you indicated who you are actually arguing against.

I’ve gone through this thread looking for what you might be referring to. Admittedly, I’ve just had four shots of Wyborowa, so I might not be at most observant right now. But the only posts that used the word “rape” were:

Eliezer explaining that not being raped shouldn’t be a privilege but rather a basic standard of living for all.

Kaj Sotala agreeing that it should be, but noting that it wasn’t.

Caledonian saying that the odds of being raped were a function of “psychological and physiological factors that are not under society’s control”.

Cyan saying that rape rates were falling and that social change was having a positive effect in this area.

Caledonian saying that equalizing the odds of getting raped for both sexes is not a step in the process of eliminating rape.

Cyan agreeing.

TGGP saying that the decline in rape might be a result of a general decline in crime.

My admittedly hasty search has also failed to find any other posts that implicitly mentioned rape. So, who are you paraphrasing, please? Of all these posts, Caledonian’s first seems most likely to be interpreted in your way, but it’s still an extremely uncharitable, nay, deliberately hostile interpretation.

If someone wanted a society with absolute gender equality (a goal of debatable merit), they would do exactly what Robert Hanson says, figure out which sex is more disadvantaged, work selectively for that sex until theres a broad balance, and then work for both sexes equally.

And, as an aside, theres very little reason to think that men ought to have shorter life expectancies. Theres absolutely no reason to believe that women naturally live longer, its well established that men have lived longer than women for the vast majority of human existence and in the vast majority of societies.

It isn’t about equality.

If it were about equality then feminists, neo-marxists, cultural study theorists, and the rest of the postmodern/poststructuralist crowd would make their political point from a politically neutral base and try to pull minorities up to ‘privileged’ positions.

They don’t do this. They take the reverse position and try pull the privileged down. Why else would they make endless guilt-riden lists of ‘woe is me’ and make out that being ‘privileged’ is something to be ‘aware’ of and something ‘privileged’ people should personally curb? Are not many of the privileged positions good things for EVERYONE to have? Shouldn’t EVERYONE be privileged? Instead we have to settle for second best: Non-privileges for everyone (overlooking the highly ironic position of said cultural theorists who privilege their own opinions over any other social criticism or organisation).

Like Eliezer said, it leaves a dirty taste in your mouth.

It is easy to avoid rapists.

Hilarious juxtposition of sentences, loki.

I’m paraphrasing several jerks in this thread. Yes, I noticed you are a jerk.