male privilege

In a Twitter thread I wrote (the first time I ever posted any kind of substantial thoughts about gender), I wrote that "I do not feel particularly attached to my current identity of 'cis male'."

The thread on Twitter starts here:

Some brief thoughts about gender and identity

After a few weeks of serious consideration, I understand the non-binary and agender IDs more than ever (which is to say, still probably not extremely well, but def way better than before)

1/

— Alex Majlaton (@AlexMajlaton) August 22, 2020

 

The thing that I've been thinking about most lately (at least with regard to gender) is, what does it mean to be a man? What things are coded as male and why? What are the most appealing features of being male?

There is one answer that is very obvious:

Privilege

I don't think that this line of inquiry would have been possible without a thorough examination of my male privilege, which is something I've been working on since way before this, for different reasons. (Standard disclaimer, as with mostly anything, I'm not claiming to be an expert or absolutely fully aware of my privilege - everything is a slow and steady process of discovery. At a minimum I agree that it exists and I benefit greatly from it.) 

So this is it - the #1 reason to be a man is the privileges that men have accumulated for themselves, at the expense of others. Getting paid higher salaries, assumed to be smarter and more rational / less emotional (lol), having everything be marketed to you, etc. The list goes on and on. 

If you start from here, you end up with all kinds of interesting questions, like:

-How much exactly am I benefiting from these? (I'm sure the answer is "a lot" for some and "not as much" for others and it varies for every individual man.)

-Do I really want these privileges if they come at the expense of others? (this answer should obviously be "no" but I think there's a bit more nuance to it than that)

-What effort am I putting in to dismantle the system that enabled these illicit privileges, and would it be more effective to use privilege to do that? (i.e. should I attack the system from the outside or from the inside?)

The list of questions, just like the list of privileges, could go on for quite some time.

This is a major contributor to some of the gender strife I've been feeling. In the thread I wrote, basically, that I don't feel like a man and I don't particularly want to, but that anything else would probably be too loud. 

I haven't really parsed what a non-binary identity would look and feel like yet, and I probably need to do tons more research and reach out to some people to get the answers that I want, but one of the major things that is bothersome to me is that if I were to just decide one day that I'm some kind of non-binary, unless it came with some massive overhaul to my presentation, I'd still benefit from a LOT of male privilege. People would still look at me, or listen to me, or see my name on a resume or whatever, and think "this is a man" and treat me accordingly. But I could still claim non-binary and gain access to LGBTQ+ spaces? That doesn't seem fair to me.

I guess these struggles aren't new to anyone. Gay men probably have had them for decades, which is why some of them remain closeted - being vocal about being gay would come with the loss of a lot of privilege, like being treated normally at work or being accepted by their families. (Lesbians go through this too obviously but this current inquiry is centered around male privilege.)

Put simply, I don't feel comfortable stepping into LGBTQ+ spaces without significantly renouncing any of my existing cis male privileges. It would feel disingenuous. All of my lived experiences are through a male lens (well, sort of - there's some deeper, darker stuff that I'm not quite sure I want to be completely vulnerable about yet).

I'm going to continue trying to explore the original questions I wrote (the ones that start with "what does it mean to be a man"), hoping to find some answers.

I have my DMs off on Twitter to anyone that I'm not following and I don't want to change that, but I still want to accept feedback and potentially have discussions with people, so I set up a CuriousCat. I'd appreciate any thoughts or questions anyone might have. Feel free to stay anonymous, or to share your info if you want to connect further.

https://curiouscat.me/AlexMajlaton