Those silly farkers

Those jolly folks over at fark.com picked up on Lukas' moaning about chivalry. I find they're always good for putting things in perspective. Well, a certain kind of perspective. I supppose. Oh, just go and look.

One of them posted this, uncredited, and I hadn't seen it before:

The female/feminist privilege checklist:

1. Do you experience other people paying for your dates, or occasionally even picking up the tab in non-romantic settings? Or paying for vacations when the relationship moves along?

2. Do you occasionally experience subservient gestures by the opposite sex(opening doors, giving up a seat in the bus, standing up when you come in the room)?

3. Are you able to simply pursue what you are interested in at university without much societal pressure on "breadwinning" - although you could also take that route if it interests you?

4.a. Have you had to register for selective service? Would you be ripped out of your life and forced to defend your country in time of attack or national emergency? Can you demand strength and full participation in society, but then get out of this obligation by pretending to be weak with no influence over society (only when it suits you)?

4.b. Can you come up with any and every excuse to get out of this without being laughed at ("No one should be drafted" - when you would be the first to cower in the corner and demand that someone do something if China & Russia combined and attacked full force - and "If men start wars ..." when women are the majority of voters and the expression is more likely "Men are SENT in wars ..." - exactly what you're trying to get out of - and sometimes sent by M. Thatcher, G. Meir, I. Gandhi, B. Bhutto and others)

5. Will you statistically get a much lighter sentence for exactly the same offense if you commit a crime?

6. Are you able to take on a job or choose a career route that is only capable of supporting yourself, with no thought to preparing yourself to also support a spouse/children, although you are also free to choose a more difficult career that will bring you more money? Do you not have much pressure on you with regard to this?

7. If you are in a committed relationship, do you have much greater flexibility to choose whether you want to work or simply stay at home (even without kids)?

8. Will you be called an unemployed loser if you decide to be a homemaker?

9. If you have a flat tire on the road, if someone is harassing you in a public place, if an animal attacks you, or if you are lost, will someone be much, much more likely to help you?

10. Are people generally much nicer to you in public? Are you sometimes given privileged treatment?

11. Are you much more capable of "marrying up" - enjoying the money and status that comes with this?

12. Are you statistically much more likely to be given money in a divorce - sometimes huge amounts - even if your behavior caused the divorce (e.g. affair) and even if you didn't work for the money?

13. If you slap a person - or even knock someone's tooth out throwing your Aunt Selma's Christmas mug at that person - is it much more likely to just be viewed as cute, understandable or not a problem?

14. Do you statistically live much longer - possibly due to less stress on you with regard to breadwinning, providing protection, being responsible, not having society viewing you as "expendable" or viewing your problems as not being important?

15. Do you have much more money spent on your health concerns in reality (e.g. 5 times as much on breast cancer as on prostate cancer - although they have roughly the same death rates) while you simultaneously claim that more has to be done for you?

16. Are you much less likely to be homeless? Is more offered to you by society when you are in this position?

17. Is there far less scorn and pressure on you by society when you are an irresponsible doofus? Are your default rates for payment of child support roughly twice those of the other gender, while you simultaneously complain about the other gender not paying?

18. Has whining about and hating the other gender actually been made into a course of studies in college (women's studies) - as opposed to the true, neutral, unbiased study of this topic - which is simply anthropology?

19. Do you have full opportunity to do anything you want in life - become a doctor, a lawyer, start a business - while simultaneously using the fact that many of your gender don't CHOOSE themselves to do these things as an argument to try to gain even more advantages? Do you get affirmative action because many of your gender don't choose to do these things, and thus the numbers don't "come out right"?

20. Can you manipulate the other gender with sex in some cases to get what you want? Can you pretend like you don't even know what anyone is talking about on this topic?

21. Can you manipulate using old notions of men protecting and deferring to women when it comes in handy?

22. Can you effectively manipulate by playing the victim? Do tears work sometimes?

23. Can you get sympathy if you don't work and don't have children by listing all the household work (hmm ... Oprah really does get high ratings, though) while simultaneously being able to bear the cognitive dissonance of calling your sister's husband who stays home a worthless bum that she ought to leave?

24. Can you "mix and match" traditional and progressive roles - finding just the right mix to get what you want? Can you be a "traditional wife" - enjoying the positive features of that (like not having to work) - while simultaneously being a progressive feminist when THAT gets you advantages? Or having a career while simultaneously using traditional chivalry and male deference to your advantage?

25. Can you constantly say "that's just typical" and "it doesn't surprise me a bit" and make a lemon face if you are a parent-in-law? Is near-universal contempt by both genders for your behavior hidden to a much greater extent?

26. Can almost any remark by your partner be construed as verbal abuse if you want sympathy, but the meanest, nastiest, most humiliating things that you can say simply involve "speaking your mind" and "some people just don't want to hear the truth"?

27. Can you use the fact that gender roles were differentiated long ago - with different advantages/disadvantages for both genders - to try to induce guilt today in people who had absolutely no connection with any of that? Can you say that you have been discriminated against for thousands of years - when you're only 20 years old - with a straight face? Can you even make things up about history and no one will really check or dare call you on it?

28. Can you propagate myths and outright lies ("Superbowl/domestic violence hoax", "rule of thumb", 1/4 rape statistic, intentional misconstrual of pay figures, and many more) and be given a "pass" - without more rigor being demanded?

29. Can you rationalize your own failures using the concept of the "patriarchy", and blame the other gender for nearly everything that goes wrong in your life - even with quite contorted explanations that no one would otherwise buy - while failures of the other gender are just ... failures?

30. Do you want to be treated like a child when it suits you but as an adult when you get an advantage from that? Do you "look the other way" when someone doesn't require responsibility from you that they certainly would from the other gender?

31. Can you focus heavily on perceived earnings in the workforce - the statistics of which are influenced by people's choices in reality - while utterly ignoring the inter-family transfer of wealth? Can you completely ignore the fact that one gender picks tougher jobs (garbage collector), works more hours and takes on more responsibility because of more pressure to earn - but the other gender has the same lifestyle and statistically more assets (and not just because of inheritance/earlier age of male at death...). Can you deliberately claim that earnings figures are based on equal pay for equal work? (when you probably full well know that they simply involve all people working more than 35 hours - and don't take type of job, hours worked over 35/week, danger, responsibility, years in the work force etc. into consideration at all).

32. Is what used to simply be an irritation for grown-ups many years ago - the self-centered rantings and foot stompings of spoiled high-school and college brats - now not only embraced by your movement but almost the modern cornerstone of it?

33. And if you irritated about generalizations and stereotypes - and utterly fail to see the hypocrisy in stereotyping and generalizing about one gender while simultaneously making a career (literally in some cases) whining about your own gender being stereotyped ...

... you may have female/feminist privilege! But don't let on - because you can gain much more with a continual victim status.


Another reproduced the Code of Chivalry, as written by Charlemagne:

To fear God and maintain His Church
To serve the liege lord in valour and faith
To protect the weak and defenceless
To give succour to widows and orphans
To refrain from the wanton giving of offence
To live by honour and for glory
To despise pecuniary reward
To fight for the welfare of all
To obey those placed in authority
To guard the honour of fellow knights
To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit
To keep faith
At all times to speak the truth
To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun
To respect the honour of women
Never to refuse a challenge from an equal
Never to turn the back upon a foe.



Tags:
Chivalry,
Female Privilege,
Fark