I am infuriated by the suggestion that offense is precisely and only a form of status-seeking behaviour. Some white, heterosexual males might perhaps display their progressive values for the sake of signaling social status; but for visible minorities, there is quite a lot more at stake.
I suspect you underestimate the effects of status.
I have watched my status in the U.S., as a queer man, increase significantly over the last twenty years; this has translated directly into increases to my safety, my liberty, pretty much every aspect of my life. There is quite a lot more at stake in seeking and protecting status than you seem to be respecting.
All of that said, I apologize for infuriating you.
you’d think we’d start teaching men not to rape, but no, it’s apparently up to women to stop this from happening to them
FWIW, I and many of the men I know were in fact taught not to rape. So we do seem to be starting to teach that, in at least some places and times.
Well, fair enough. I still feel that the term “status” carries all the wrong connotations—images of high school popularity competitions and all that sort of thing—but I can see that wasn’t your intention, so I’m sorry for singling you out.
FWIW, I and many of the men I know were in fact taught not to rape. So we do seem to be starting to teach that, in at least some places and times.
Yeah, progress is being made. I mainly see this sort of thing happening on university campuses, which means it’s still only reaching a minority, but it’s a start. I’d like to see this (handled properly) as part of standard high school sex education before I’d say we’re really getting there, and ideally it would be taught at home to each individual child by their parents.
Re: the connotations of “status”—for my part, I care more about having some label for the thing we’re talking about than I care what the label is.
Do you have a preferred term?
In some contexts one can talk about “rank,” or “privilege,” or “juice,” or “clout,” or even “wealth,” but I find them all too specialized for general use. I use “status” precisely because it can apply just as readily to high-school students trying to avoid ostracism as prison inmates trying to avoid assault as poverty-stricken peasants trying to avoid starvation, which is useful when trying to talk about the thing they all have in common.
“Kyriarchal advantage” is a bit of a mouthful, but it might be useful, especially if you want to differentiate between status that’s granted as a result of being in a particular reference class vs. status that has been personally earned.
Yep, basically that—any system where certain people intrinsically have more status/power than others is kyriarchal. Notably, most activism communities are still just as kyriarchal as mainstream society, except with regards to the specific issue that they’re doing activism about. (Some of them are even kyriarchal with regards to their own issue—notably disability activism, where many activists focus on getting more power for people in situations like their own without much concern for other kinds of disabilities.)
I thought about it, and unfortunately I can’t think of a good, widely-known alternative, although as far as neologisms go, I find this “Kyriarchial advantage” rather appealing.
I suspect you underestimate the effects of status.
I have watched my status in the U.S., as a queer man, increase significantly over the last twenty years; this has translated directly into increases to my safety, my liberty, pretty much every aspect of my life. There is quite a lot more at stake in seeking and protecting status than you seem to be respecting.
All of that said, I apologize for infuriating you.
FWIW, I and many of the men I know were in fact taught not to rape. So we do seem to be starting to teach that, in at least some places and times.
Well, fair enough. I still feel that the term “status” carries all the wrong connotations—images of high school popularity competitions and all that sort of thing—but I can see that wasn’t your intention, so I’m sorry for singling you out.
Yeah, progress is being made. I mainly see this sort of thing happening on university campuses, which means it’s still only reaching a minority, but it’s a start. I’d like to see this (handled properly) as part of standard high school sex education before I’d say we’re really getting there, and ideally it would be taught at home to each individual child by their parents.
Re: the connotations of “status”—for my part, I care more about having some label for the thing we’re talking about than I care what the label is.
Do you have a preferred term?
In some contexts one can talk about “rank,” or “privilege,” or “juice,” or “clout,” or even “wealth,” but I find them all too specialized for general use. I use “status” precisely because it can apply just as readily to high-school students trying to avoid ostracism as prison inmates trying to avoid assault as poverty-stricken peasants trying to avoid starvation, which is useful when trying to talk about the thing they all have in common.
“Kyriarchal advantage” is a bit of a mouthful, but it might be useful, especially if you want to differentiate between status that’s granted as a result of being in a particular reference class vs. status that has been personally earned.
Thank you for that post. I’m not sure what “Kyriarchal” is supposed to mean, but the article made a lot of sense and shows how complicated it is.
Well, “Kyrie” is generally translated as “Lord,” so a kyriarchal system is presumably one which is ruled by the people who rule it.
Yep, basically that—any system where certain people intrinsically have more status/power than others is kyriarchal. Notably, most activism communities are still just as kyriarchal as mainstream society, except with regards to the specific issue that they’re doing activism about. (Some of them are even kyriarchal with regards to their own issue—notably disability activism, where many activists focus on getting more power for people in situations like their own without much concern for other kinds of disabilities.)
Glad it’s appreciated. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to pull that out. ^.^
I thought about it, and unfortunately I can’t think of a good, widely-known alternative, although as far as neologisms go, I find this “Kyriarchial advantage” rather appealing.